Monday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 14:1-3,4-5 + Luke 21:1-4
November 26, 2018
“… but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”
We live in a society in which values that are contrary to the Gospel are canonized. A person’s value is measured in economic terms. The poor are shunned as worthless.
God has a different set of values from those of our society. When Jesus saw the wealthy putting large amounts of money into the collection box of the Temple, He was not impressed. It was not as if the wealthy should not have given large sums, but Jesus was looking for something further. He saw that something else in the poor widow who donated only two small coins. He explains to us what He saw: “[The wealthy] have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”
It was the sacrifice of the widow that mattered, not the amount she gave. We are called to be generous people, sacrificial in all our relationships with others. God does not value us for giving our money; or, for that matter, for giving our time and talent. God values us for the sacrifice from which all of our giving flows. This ability to sacrifice oneself flows from the love that we receive in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 14:14-19 + Luke 21:5-11
November 27, 2018
“Teacher, when will this happen?”
Everything that’s built by human beings can be destroyed. That’s why something like the Great Pyramids of Egypt are so awesome: not simply because they are so colossal, but because they have—to an amazing extent—survived the ravages of time. You can think of one of the large cities on the West Coast of our own country (Los Angeles, for example): from the air, as you fly into the area, you can be filled with awe. Yet an earthquake could destroy everything in the area in a matter of minutes.
In this last week of the Church’s liturgical year, we hear Jesus contrasting “today” with “tomorrow”. The Jewish people took pride in the physical beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem, but Jesus is cautioning them to think also of that “tomorrow” when the Temple would be no more. Perhaps such talk was blasphemy to some of the Jews. Perhaps they simply thought Jesus was being irrelevant, since the people of Jesus’ day would have had good reason to think that the Temple would stand for thousands of years. In fact, Jesus was simply being a realist.
The reality is that this world is meant by God to be temporary. It is meant to pass away. Yet we are tempted to think of the passing away of the world, or of ourselves from this world, as something tragic. Instead, Jesus wants us to embrace it as the opportunity He offers us for everlasting life.
Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 15:1-4 + Luke 21:12-19
November 28, 2018
“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 and 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 lives 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, C. S. Lewis once explained, there are two types of persons: those who say in the end: “Heavenly Father, thy will be done”, and those to whom the Father will have to say, “My child, thy will be done.”
Thursday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 18:1-2,21-23;19:1-3,9 + Luke 21:20-28
November 29, 2018
“Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.”
Jesus issues a sharp challenge to you today. His words might even be described as frightening. Yet Jesus is not preaching fire and brimstone. He’s not preaching, at least directly, about sin and damnation. He is preaching, though, about the worldly desolation of Jerusalem, and signs above and upon earth that will cause people to “die in fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world”.
Many people find the idea of the end of the world very frightening, especially when it’s dramatized in literature or film. The drama is enhanced by the physical destruction of worldly monuments and temples. But physical destruction, no matter how vast the scale, pales in comparison to the destruction of a single human soul.
That phrase is not quite accurate, of course, because a soul can never be destroyed. It would be more accurate to speak of “the destruction of a single human soul’s opportunity for eternal bliss”, or more simply, “the eternal damnation of a single human soul”. Thanks be to God for His sending the Son of Man to redeem man from his sins. This final truth is the reason for Jesus to speak hopefully at the end of today’s Gospel passage. In effect, Jesus preaches that we need not fear the end of the world, or the end of earthly life, because when we place our faith in the Son of Man, we can have full assurance that our redemption is at hand.
St. Andrew, Apostle
Romans 10:9-18 + Matthew 4:18-22
November 30, 2018
And how can they hear without someone to preach?
There are many things about a man entering the seminary that are misunderstood. One important point which many people do not understand is that a man enters the seminary in order to discern the call that the Lord has made to him. He does not enter the seminary because he has already decided to be a priest.
The Lord calls out to every young man, “Come after me….” What differs from one man to another is the phrase that follows “Come after me….” For some, the words that follow are “Be my faithful disciple, and serve me as a husband and father.” To others, Jesus says what He declares to Simon and Andrew: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The prayer that a man offers while in the seminary asks the Lord for help in clarifying just which call it is that the Lord has made to him as an individual.
“Fishers of men.” This is a metaphor, of course: one that speaks to Simon and Andrew, whose lives as adults had been given to the livelihood of being fishermen. Regardless of the livelihood which they had chosen for themselves, the Lord’s words mean “Come after me. I chose you to be the servants of my Church.” No matter the Christian, and no matter the vocation to which the Lord calls him or her, the root of each vocation is service.
Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 22:1-7 + Luke 21:34-36
December 1, 2018
“For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth.”
The Responsorial Psalm on this final day of the liturgical year shows us how the Church’s year is cyclical in nature. The psalm’s refrain is a link, tying together this final day of the year to the season of Advent with which the new year begins tomorrow.
“Marana tha! Come, Lord Jesus!” We cry for the coming of the Messiah, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be until the end of time. In the beginning, mankind fell from his state of grace. But God in loving solicitude for His fallen creatures promised to send a savior, and so man began his cry for the Messiah to come.
When He did come, His own people received Him not, as St. John the Evangelist proclaims in the prologue to his Gospel account. His own people in fact put Him to death. Yet it was for this that the Messiah had come.
He will come again at the end of time. When He does, each member of the human family will be judged according to three points. Do you believe that Jesus first came to destroy your sins? Do you believe that Jesus will judge you in the end according to your choice to live for or against Him? Do you believe at this moment that your life is His to live, and that you must cede it to Him?