Now that we have arrived at Labor Day weekend something is very clear: summer vacations are pretty much over maybe we can take a moment to look back and reflect on them a little bit. Hopefully they were beneficial to us; hopefully we did get some rest. I suppose that if we ask ourselves to try to make a list of things that we remember about our vacations we would not get very far before we realized that a significant item on that list would be the time and effort we put into planning them. Indeed, if we did not plan them, they most likely would not have happened. Planning, saving money and preparation are essential if we are going to be able to get away or go just about anywhere for that matter. And some of us do make very excellent planners, at least when it comes to vacations, as we try to maximize every moment of our time away. Of course, this is all well and good, and having a good vacation is indeed good for us. But Jesus asks us a rather sobering question in this week’s Gospel. He does, of course, assume, that we all want to get to heaven, and I am sure that He understands as the country song says that “Everybody wants to get to heaven, but nobody wants to go there now,” but He does want to provoke us to think. He wants us to think about how we plan out so much of our lives and how we are going to achieve our various goals, and go on this or that trip, etc., etc., and then to ask ourselves how much planning we are putting into getting into Heaven. It is our ultimate goal, isn’t it? It is our hoped for final destination, isn’t it? We don’t just think that we are going to show up at Heaven’s door one day and just walk right in, do we? Hopefully we will not forget about that one last hurdle we have to get through (you know, it’s called our judgment day) before we can gain admittance. So what kind of planning and preparation are we undertaking for this trip? Summer vacations are over; it is indeed something to think about, is it not?
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