Matthew 25:1–13
Your phone is within reach before your feet touch the floor. One message becomes five. A headline leads to another. By the time you look up, the day already feels crowded.
Now imagine beginning differently. Before opening an app, you sit quietly and tell Jesus what is on your heart. Nothing impressive. Just a few minutes offered freely.
The messages will still be there. But they will not have received the first word.
In this week’s bulletin, Father John Muir describes exchanging his early scrolling for reading that directs his mind toward Jesus. His experience invites a question that reaches beyond our phones: what is teaching my heart where to look?
Sunday’s parable calls us to be ready for the bridegroom. Attention helps us recognize how we are living that readiness. We can become so occupied with the next thing that we stop making room for the One we hope to meet.
The screen is only one place to notice this. A child begins a story while we plan dinner. A neighbor asks a question while we check the time. Someone shares a worry, and we prepare our answer instead of listening.
Offering attention is a small, real form of love. We cannot live another person’s friendship with God for them, and no one can live ours for us. We can, however, encourage one another to return to prayer, Scripture, and the sacramental life of the Church.
This week, choose one ordinary threshold: waking, sitting down to eat, or arriving home. Let it remind you to pause, turn toward Jesus, and become present to the person before you.
His grace meets us in a beginning we can actually make. The question is not how to fit more into the day. It is whom we will make room to love.
For reflection
What receives my best attention, and who most needs me to become present?
One small beginning
Before your first scroll tomorrow, give Jesus three quiet minutes. Later, set the phone aside for one conversation and listen without rushing.
For children and families · Semillitas
Look at Jesus and the children in the picture. Draw yourself listening to him. Then choose a moment today to pause, pray, and listen carefully to someone in your family.
Prayer
Jesus, gather my scattered attention. Help me listen to you and love the people you place before me. Keep my heart ready to welcome you. Amen.
— El Jardinero
Original parish reflection inspired by the November 8 commentary by Father John Muir, reproduced separately in the bulletin. The opening scene is imaginative.