Wednesday – 34th Week – Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 15:1-4  +  Luke 21:12-19
November 23, 2016

“‘By your perseverance you will secure your lives.’”

So many people grow fearful thinking about a cataclysmic end of the planet, even though the vast majority will never face it.  Perhaps you’ve seen one of those movies where there’s a dramatic end to life on the planet Earth as we know it.  Movies like that can draw a great deal of attention, and sell a lot of tickets.  Nonetheless, it doesn’t matter if you die from an ice age covering the whole continent, or from old age in your very own home:  what comes next is the same.

This is what we reflect on at the end of each Church year:  in November, we pray to the saints in heaven, and for the faithful in Purgatory, and the Church reminds us of the “last things”:  heaven, hell, death, judgment.  All this give us perspective.

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus declares to His disciples, “By perseverance you will secure your lives.”  What does this mean?  Every day, God calls us to offer Him our life in faith, and to live for others.  That’s how we can reach the hour of our death in God’s sight.  In the end, there are two types of persons:  those who say in the end:  “Heavenly Father, thy will be done” and those to whom the Father says in the end, “My child, thy will be done.”