Our Better Angels

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2019

Is the world getting better or getting worse? Are we overall making progress in human rights and equality or are we all going to hell in a handbasket? You and I certainly have moments when we become discouraged at how many wars are present in our world and how extensive corruption is on every level of society. Yet there is a credible case to be made that the human race is getting better, that our civilization is more enlightened and more just than any that have come before it.

 

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Not a Stone Left Upon a Stone…

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2019

Catastrophic natural disasters and martyrdom might never be your experience or mine but these words of Jesus still have meaning for us:
• when our lives are flooded with illness and grief that we never imagined could be ours;
• when angry winds tear through our families with hurricane force;
• when a financial drought takes the roof from over our heads;
• when an earthquake of bitterness topples a marriage;
• when a tornado of injustice twists human dignity for profit;
• when a tsunami of circumstances sweeps away the happiness we’ve long known and treasured;
• when a typhoon of troubles uproots us from all that’s familiar and peaceful
– then, says the Lord, even then: not a hair on your head will be destroyed:  your perseverance will secure your lives.

He calls us to look beyond the suffering of the moment, to know that this, too, will come to an end and be resolved, that all hope is not lost, for those who trust in God’s saving love.

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Patient Endurance

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2022

Have you ever gone to a majestic Cathedral or Basilica? Perhaps you have visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, or maybe you have been blessed to be able to travel to Rome and go to the Basilica of St. Peter. I remember the first time I went into St. Peters. My jaw dropped. It is amazing. That is how the disciples felt when they looked at the Temple. Then Jesus said to them, “It really does not matter. It is all going to come to a ruin anyway.” In fact within forty years the Romans would put down the Jewish Barsabbus revolt, and, to break the spirit of the zealot rebels, would completely destroy the temple leaving nothing but what we now call the Wailing Wall still standing.

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Never Tire of Doing What is Right

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2019

Our Lord is pleading with us today to persevere in the faith, even in the midst of all the terrible calamities. He is telling us to expect this as part of life. “When disaster strikes, don’t give up! When the world seems to be on the verge of collapse, don’t panic! And when everything within the Church seems to have gone mad, it doesn’t mean it’s the End– well, not yet, at least, not for now! What’s important – keep My Word; the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness; nothing can defeat God’s purposes; no evil force can ultimately thwart God’s plan for your fulfillment.” The key is to cling to your faith no matter what – “Your endurance will win you your lives!” Your life is like a small boat being tossed about in a great storm, there’s bound to be turbulence. You have to ride out the storm, and the best way to get through it without falling overboard is to cling to the mast—Jesus Christ. This too is what Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wishes to convey to us, “Being an ‘Adult’ means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ, is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth.”

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We have to Fight

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

The readings of today convey conflict on many levels – within oneself, in families and communities, between Church and state, between nations, and in the heavens. Although God is almighty, he allows good and evil to conflict with each other, and allows his people to choose sides. Once we choose, we have to fight for what we have chosen, and even when we are on God’s side, it will not be easy. There is always a price to pay for doing what is right, because evil is always fighting against the good.

This is the overall context in which the Church’s defense of human life in our day needs to be understood, and in which our own acknowledgement of the sanctity of life needs to be understood. It is never enough just to be content with acknowledging to others the beauty of life and presenting that beauty. Some, in doing this, consider themselves exempt from the full-scale war that has been launched against the sanctity of life in our day.

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Active Waiting for End Times

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2016

Christians await the second coming of their Lord and Savoir, Jesus Christ. However, such waiting is characterised by mixed feelings. There’s judgement. But who likes to be judged? Judgement is something we want to avoid at all cost, for it implies either reward or punishment. So, there’s fear.

Besides, the coming of the Lord is associated with catastrophic events. The description that the prophet Malachy gives of the end times can’t leave us indifferent.  He talks of a day of fire which burns like a furnace where those who have committed injustice and the deceitful will be consumed like dry grass. And in the Gospel, we have catastrophes such as earthquakes, epidemics, wars and famine to mention but just some. Certainly, it’s an image which is in no way edifying. Obviously, no one would like to look forward to such a day. In fact, such depictions intensify the fear and thus and give birth to mixed feelings about Christ’s second coming. Which mixed feelings?

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The Beginning of a New World

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2016

The Gospel of Luke brings us back to thinking about the end of the world.  This passage of Luke’s Gospel does not tell us anything about when the end will come.  The real teaching is not about the end of the world, but about how to live in this world here and now.  Even if it looks like everything is about to end, the most important aspect is for us to remain faithful to God and to God’s word.  So Saint Luke tells us:  “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”  Perseverance in the faith, perseverance in love, perseverance in service to others.  My sisters and brothers, the end does not matter!  What matters is to remain faithful to Jesus and His Church through all of our difficulties.

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End Times

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Most people are so worried about end times. Because of this, many prophets have arisen. Some have given specific dates. Around the millennium year of 2000, there have been so many epidemic speculations. The more authoritarian and demanding a false messiah is the more satisfying he is to people. And if his proposed solutions are effective in the social or political realm he will be even more enticing. The disciples too were worried about predictions about the end. In our Gospel, they wanted to have a prophetic message about the destruction of the temple. Jesus gave them a prophetic picture leading to it. History tells us that it did come to pass around AD 70. This event surely has assured people that everything else Jesus predicted would also happen.

God is the Judge of All Things

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2022

To believe in and assert that Christ will come again is to believe in and assert that we are in the process of becoming, in the process of growing and maturing, and that heaven can begin here on earth. It is a tremendously hopeful vision. It gives us goals. It gives us something to work for. It gives us the power to overcome despair, hopelessness, and the inertia present when we hear ourselves saying, “What’s the use?”.

Life isn’t meant to be lived in the feverish pursuit of the approval of others. Life begins that way but heaven help us if it ends that way. On the day I die I won’t care very much at all any more about what others may think of me. What will matter very much is whether or not I have lived in what is right, what is true, what is just, what is beautiful, and what is noble. All of the times I prayed and lived “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” will be there with me.

The Coming of the Lord

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Jesus’ first coming is a matter of history. We recall his life and his teaching each Sunday in the Gospel. His final coming is a matter of hope. We have no idea of when this will be. Everyone who has ever claimed that the end of the world was about to happen has been proved wrong. Jesus told his disciples to leave the timing of it to God. He had no idea about it himself and didn’t want them wasting their time speculating about it: ‘About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, but only the Father’(Matthew 24:36). In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples against those who would see in natural disasters or persecution signs of the coming of the end. He tells them not to be deceived by people who claim that the ‘the time is near at hand’.

SOURCE: Michael Fallon, msc

The End of Ages

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 1997

Each day is the last. Each time is the end time. Each human being faces the end of the world in the span of a life, whether it reach eight minutes or eighty years. The world, its opportunities and losses, passes away for us each night. Every sunset announces a closing of a day that will never come again. Each human death, as Russell pondered, is the curtain on an unrepeatable drama, which, without God, amounts to a tragedy. Every generation, in some way, is the last, the termination. And each generation, like each death and every day, witnesses the signs of the end times.

Everything that Christ predicted has taken place and is taking place and will continue to take place. We did not need to wait until the millennium or turn to Nostradamus to unlock the mystery. Life itself is the mystery, this great groaning of creation that finds its meaning in hope alone.

SOURCE: SUNDAY WEB SITE

A Warning against Spiritual Laziness

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) – 2019

As the days get shorter and shorter, darker and darker and damper and damper, even the Church’s selection of scripture readings this time of year tend to get a bit dark as well. The readings always get apocalyptic this time of year as we approach the solemnity of Christ the King that represents the end of the liturgical year. Jesus says in front of the Temple in Jerusalem, “All that you see here- the days are coming when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” These are frightening words. And for all you history buffs, Jesus’ prophesy here in fact actually came to pass. In 70 AD, the temple was in fact destroyed. All that was left was the western retaining wall, which is now called the Wailing Wall, the most holy site in Judaism.

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Our King is King of the Universe

NEXT SUNDAY – November 20 – 2022

This Sunday, we hear how David came to be king of Israel and how the Romans executed Jesus, David’s heir, because he claimed to be “king of the Jews.”

Originally, God was Israel’s only king. However, around 1000 BC, the people begged for a human king and God agreed. The first king, Saul, disobeyed God, and God rejected him as king. The second, David, the youngest son of Jesse, who lived at Bethlehem, made Israel a nation, with Jerusalem as its capital and spiritual centre.

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Father Wester is pastor of All Saints Parish in St. Peters.