My car, like most others, has a small compartment in the ceiling, just inside the edge of the front window, where you can store sunglasses.

Last Sunday, as I was leaving Church, I removed the sunglasses from that compartment and put them on, but thought something was wrong with my vision. So much light was entering the sunglasses that I became worried that I was having some sudden weird eye ailment. I felt my glasses to make sure the lenses were present and thought I felt the presence of the lens on each side.

I later discovered that the right lens was missing. This was the reason the eyeglasses did not seem to be blocking out the sunlight. It had nothing to do with the vision in my eye.

As I thought about it, I was reminded what our beloved Father Pat Kalich (eternal rest grant upon him oh Lord) would say in a number of his daily homilies around this time of the year. He would say to look around the congregation at Mass and to know that some of us may not be here next year at this time. God might call us to heaven. He would ask us if we were prepared.

Like using sunglasses with a missing lens, we can become comfortable in life feeling that everything will continue to work as we have planned, even though we know we are not doing our best. Maybe even doing sinful things thinking we can correct them at some point later in the confessional. The thing is that we may find that we do not have that later time. We may run out of time to fix that which needs to be corrected. We need to always make sure that we are prepared for the time we will meet Jesus. We must protect our future by taking care of the present and not be complacent (repairing damaged sunglasses so to speak). There may not be a “later”.

A lot to think about when wearing broken sunglasses.

By: Deacon Tom Gryzbek