Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time [I]
I Maccabees 4:36-37,52-59  +  Luke 19:45-48
November 19, 2021

And every day He was teaching in the temple area.

Lots of people in Jesus’ day were fed up with the materialism and commercialism that had crept into the practices of the Temple in Jerusalem.  This place, the Temple, was the holiest place in the entire world for Jews.  One of the obligations of a good Jew in the time of Jesus was to go to Jerusalem at the time of Passover, and offer a sacrifice in the Temple:  those who were wealthy offered an entire ox or sheep; those with less means offered turtledoves.  And so there grew up a very large market during the time around Passover, a system within which many abuses developed.  Jesus undoubtedly had many people cheering for Him as He told off the Jewish officials and the money-makers in the Temple.

But how many people cheered for Him on that occasion when the Jews asked for a sign from Jesus, and He replied, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”?  Probably some were baffled.  Likely, some became angry at Jesus:  here He had purified the Temple, and now He wanted to destroy it?  The Scriptures go on to tell us that Jesus’ own disciples only came to understand His words after His Resurrection, so we only imagine what those who did not know Jesus well thought of these words.  For ourselves, Christ is the Temple, of which we are parts through the Church.  We need to purify ourselves as Jesus cleansed the Temple, so that we might offer right sacrifice there.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe [B] Daniel 7:13-14   +   Revelation 1:5-8   +   John 18:33-37

“To Him… who has made us into a kingdom, priests for His God and Father, to Him be glory and power forever and ever.  Amen.”

references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 440, 446-451, 668-672, 783, 786, 908, 2105, 2628: Christ as Lord and King CCC 678-679, 1001, 1038-1041: Christ as Judge CCC 2816-2821: “Thy Kingdom Come” If “Michael” is the question, then “Jesus” is the answer.  The name “Michael” literally means, “Who is like God?”  In sacred art, Saint Michael the Archangel is usually shown in conquest over the devil, who believes that the answer to the question is “Me”. By contrast, St. Michael personifies the virtue of humility.  Humility is the first step on the path towards God.  If all the virtues of the Christian life were like the alphabet, then the letter “A” would be humility, and the letter “Z” would be caritas:  divine love.  But how do we get from “A” to “Z”? Too often, unfortunately, we’re tempted to think of ourselves as “saved”, as if we’ve already reached our spiritual goal—that spiritual “Z”—simply because we were adopted by God the Father through our baptism.  But you and I are fully capable of rejecting that inheritance, just like the Prodigal Son.  Countless choices that we make testify that we prefer pigs to prayer, servitude to salvation, and husks of corn to the Bread of finest wheat. Humility focuses our attention upon Christ the King.  In Him we see the fullness of humility, and the fullness of divine love.  “Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega”, the First and the Last, “the one who is and who was and who is to come”. “Who is like God?”  Only God Himself, as we see in the Person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ embodies all the virtues, from humility to divine love.  Our Gospel passage leads us to look on Jesus as our King, who shows humility and divine love in submitting Himself to sinful man. Pilate and Jesus stand face-to-face.  Pilate bears the power of the Roman Empire and exercises it with the snap of his fingers.  Pilate plainly explains to Jesus that he has the power to crucify Him.  Jesus responds to all of Pilate’s questions, demands, and threats with what may seem to be disinterested resignation. In the Nicene Creed that we profess at Holy Mass, there are only three human beings whom we mention by name.  Not surprisingly, two of them are Jesus and His Blessed Mother.  But the third isn’t even a member of God’s Chosen People.  The third is not Abraham or Moses, Peter or Paul, but a pagan by the name of Pontius Pilate.  But why? The Fathers of the Church who composed the Nicene Creed in the year A. D. 325 could, conceivably, have written that part of the Creed without mentioning Pontius Pilate.  But perhaps they wanted to make a statement about worldly power:  that Pontius Pilate is a symbol of all those who put their faith and trust in worldly power. St. Teresa of Calcutta explained that “God writes straight with crooked lines.”  God can use crooked men such as Pontius Pilate as His instruments, just as surely as God can use His faithful people as His instruments.  Here again is the topsy-turviness of Good Friday.  Pontius Pilate thought he was serving his earthly Ceasar by delivering Jesus over to death.  In fact, he was serving God’s Providential Will, whether he knew it or not. Human history is the drama of God’s grace warring against human sinfulness.  Right in the center is Jesus Christ at the top of Calvary.  God’s grace is a river, more powerful than any river in the natural world.  God’s grace will flow, regardless of our choices and priorities. On this feast of Christ the King, we celebrate the victory of God’s plan for mankind, already won by Christ on the Cross.  In Christ, who reigns from the Cross, we have the King who wants us to share in His victory by our entering into His life and imitating Him through His grace. Yet God only offers you His grace:  He does not force it upon you.  God’s grace will flow around you, if you divert it from your life.  But on the other hand, God’s grace is always there, ready to flood your life, to destroy only sin and the power of death.  No matter how many times we divert God’s grace, God has another plan for allowing His grace to reach its goal, and for allowing each of us, living in that grace, to rest in God’s divine love for all eternity.

Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Luke 19:41-44

“If this day you only knew what makes for peace ….”

As the Church year draws to an end, Jesus in the weekday Gospel passages is drawing near to His own end in Jerusalem.  There is something a little anachronistic about this.  After all, it’s during Lent that we Christians liturgically observe Jesus drawing closer to His end, an end which culminates in the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum.

However, the end of the Church year—as it focuses on the end of human history itself—helps us realize that Jesus’ end is meant to be our end.  Further, the Risen and Ascended Lord Jesus will judge each of us at the end of time.  So today’s Gospel passage helps us orient our lives to our own end.

This passage is quite melancholy, not only because of Jesus’ tears, but also because of His words.  “If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”  This sentence alone would offer many hours of meditation to one willing to ponder it.  But as Jesus continues to speak, He directs our attention more specifically towards Himself.  That this peace He speaks of is Jesus Himself becomes clear when He notes that the immanent destruction of Jerusalem is due to it not recognizing “the time of [its] visitation.”  Jesus visited God’s People that they might have eternal life, and they put the author of life to death outside Jerusalem.  Each of us shares in this rejection of Jesus by his own sins.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious
II Maccabees 7:1,20-31  +  Luke 19:11-28
November 17, 2021

“… from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Those who think of Jesus as a “teddy bear” are challenged by the last sentence of Jesus in today’s Gospel passage.  These words conclude a lengthy parable, which St. Luke the Evangelist prefaces with a clear explanation of the motive for the parable:  Jesus “proceeded to tell a parable because He was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately.”

The “king” speaks and acts harshly.  He refers to himself as “a demanding man”, but his greatest demand comes at the end of the parable.  Of his enemies he declares, “bring them here and slay them before me.”  The question is to whom this character in the parable refers in real life?  Can he possibly symbolize Jesus or God the Father?  The king’s demand is reminiscent of practices found in the Old Testament.  God Himself seems in the Old Testament to demand the murder of innocents.  Surely such ideas have no place in the teaching of Jesus?

However, the parable’s own inner logic suggests that the servants did have a choice.  This points to the choice that each servant of God has to follow Him or not.  At the end of each person’s life is a fork.  One branch leads to eternal life and the other to eternal death.  This is where the Kingdom of God comes to its fulfillment.

Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time [I]
II Maccabees 6:18-31  +  Luke 19:1-10
November 16, 2021

“… today I must stay at your house.”

Zacchaeus is a rich collector of taxes.  Each of us, like him, is attached to worldly things, no matter how simple.  St. John of the Cross says that just as it does not matter if a bird is tied down by a thick rope or a thin string, so it does not matter if a Christian is tied down by wealthy goods or simple desires.  An attachment is an attachment, and any attachment—no matter how slight—keeps us from union with God.

On the other hand, Zacchaeus, like you, wants to see who Jesus is.  But Zacchaeus has two strikes against him.

The first strike against Zacchaeus is the crowd, because everyone wants to see Jesus.  It’s easy to get lost and not to be loved in a crowd.  One might ask himself, “How can Jesus love everyone?”

The second strike against Zacchaeus is his small size, which may represent the size of one’s own soul.  One might feel unworthy of God’s love, and ask himself, “How could Jesus love little old me?”

So Zacchaeus climbs up into a sycamore tree to see Jesus.  This is all Zacchaeus wants:  to see Jesus.  But that’s not enough for Jesus, so large is Jesus’ Sacred Heart.

Here’s the turning point in this Gospel passage.  When Jesus reached the tree that Zacchaeus had climbed, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly; for today I must stay at your house.”  Jesus takes the initiative to reach out to the individual sinner.  Just as He reached out to this little sinner, so He asks entry into the fullness of your heart, mind and soul.

Please note:  two reflections are given below, each based on the First Reading or Responsorial Psalm of the day.  The Year I readings apply to years ending in an odd number (for example, 2023), while the Year II readings apply to years ending in an even number, such as 2024.  The Gospel Reading is the same in both years.

 

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Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time [I]
I Maccabees 1:10-15,41-43,54-57,62-63  +  Luke 18:35-43

Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, each abandoning his particular customs.

At this week’s Masses, the First Reading is taken from the Old Testament books of Maccabees.  These books describe the persecution and perseverance of the Jewish people.  While the particular persecution that they faced may not seem easy to relate to, we need today to relate to the perseverance that they demonstrated.

In today’s First Reading, the king of Greece “wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, each abandoning his particular customs.  All the Gentiles conformed to the command of the king, and many children of Israel were in favor of his religion”.  The parallel of this situation to the plight of Christians in the United States today is clear.

Today’s passage ends focusing on those Jews “who preferred to die rather than to be defiled… and they did die.  Terrible affliction was upon Israel.”  But we ought to be clear on what leads to this affliction:  the demand for a people to be falsely united.

To what extent may a government demand that a religious body of persons conform their teachings, practices and rituals to a norm established by and in support of that government?  The conflicts in this week’s readings from the Books of Maccabees will help us reflect on this important question.

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Monday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Revelation 1:1-4;2:1-5  +  Luke 18:35-43

When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.

Today we begin hearing at weekday Mass from the Book of Revelation.  We will continue to hear from this book through the last day of the Church year.  This is fitting since Revelation is the last book of the Bible, and treats of the “Last Things”, although in a highly mysterious manner.

The Book of Revelation is literally the book of the “revelation of Jesus Christ” to the Beloved Disciple.  In turn, this same Saint John “gives witness to the word of God”, the same Word of God of whom John wrote in the prologue of his Gospel account.  Given the mysterious manner in which the Book of Revelation is recorded, the link between these two books of the New Testament is important to keep in mind as one reflects on John’s “witness to the word of God”.

Also, the evangelist calls this witness a “prophetic message”.  As such, we note a correspondence between the structure of the Old and New Testaments.  In each Testament, there are four types of books.  In both testaments, the fourth type of book is prophetic.  The Old Testament contains eighteen books of prophecy, but the New Testament contains only the Book of Revelation.  All books of prophecy look to the future:  those in the Old Testament to the first coming of God’s Word made Flesh, but the Book of Revelation to His Second Coming, as well as to His becoming Flesh and dwelling among us in the Holy Eucharist.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin
Wisdom 18:14-16;19:6-9  +  Luke 18:1-8
November 13, 2021

Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.

In the first verse of today’s Gospel passage, St. Luke the Evangelist is unusually direct in explaining the exact meaning of Jesus’ parable.  “Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”  It is important to note that this parable is about one specific type of prayer to God:  prayer of petition.

Sometimes prayer is defined as “a conversation with God”.  That’s unfair to God for two reasons.  First, conversations normally take place between two persons of more or less equal standing.  While it’s true that prayer involves a dialogue with God, we have to keep in mind that what He has to say to each of us is far more important than what any of us might wish to say to Him.  In prayer, it’s far more important to listen to God than to speak to Him.

Second, prayer at its summit transcends what could be termed a conversation.  The form of prayer in which the believer and God dialogue is meant to be surpassed.  Dialogue is meant to lead to a loving silence, a form of prayer in which God and the believer rest in the goodness of His presence.  Dialogue or conversation is a means to getting there.

Nonetheless, in today’s Gospel passage Jesus teaches us about prayers of petition.  Petition is one specific form that prayer takes during the “conversational” stages of prayer.  In this stage, however, we pray not only with God’s almighty Power in mind (because He can get us what we want), but also with His providential Love in mind.  That is to say, God answers our prayers of petition not only for our own good, but for His goodness as well, so as to lead us into that goodness.

St. Josaphat, Bishop & Martyr
Wisdom 13:1-9  +  Luke 17:26-37
November 12, 2021

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man”.

To His disciples, Jesus speaks of “the Son of Man”.  Regarding the Son of Man, Jesus explains that His presence is elusive, like lightning that “flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other”.  Jesus downplays the desire somehow to “pin down” the Son of Man.

At the end of yesterday’s Gospel passage, Jesus spoke about this Son of Man suffering greatly and being rejected by this generation.  Here Jesus is making clear how much His hearers’ expectations will be shattered.  What we hope for is often not what God has in store for us.  In today’s Gospel passage, we hear some of the context of “the days of the Son of Man”.  The context is dire, which shouldn’t surprise us given what the Son of Man Himself suffers.

Jesus’ final words today do not seem hopeful:  “‘Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.’”  Yet Jesus is hopeful, of course.  He is simply not hopeful for the fate of this world.  Everything in this world must finally decay, so we must not be attached to such things.  Our hope must be for God alone, who draws us through this world, not to it.

The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Daniel 12:1-3  +  Hebrews 10:11-14,18  +  Mark 13:24-32

“At that time there shall arise Michael, the great prince, guardian of your people ….”

When we step back from the normal press of daily life, breathe deeply, and reflect on everything in order to gain some perspective, we can look backwards to the past or forward to the future.  Either perspective can prove helpful.  A great deal of our spiritual lives as Catholics focuses on the past:  the saving events of the Old and New Testaments, and the history of Jesus’ Church with all her saints.

But what about the future?  There’s only one Sunday of the Church year that reflects upon a future event.  For us Christians, then, how do we reflect upon the future?  To a large degree, the average Christian connects the future with getting his own soul to Heaven.  Prayer and the sacraments help in this regard.

But there’s another sense in which we look to the future.  This second sense of the future is not about Heaven, though, but about the same earth on which our feet are planted now.  Jesus teaches that the Gospel is not only for us to reach Heaven.  The Gospel is also about the earth, as we pray in the “Our Father”:  “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”  The basic game-plan for making this future hope a present reality consists in the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.  These good works are part and parcel of the path God means for us to take to Heaven.

But there’s also a third sense in which Christians look to the future.  This third sense is the rarest in the lives of most Christians.  We tend to think of this third sense only around the time of the Solemnity of Christ the King, which the Church throughout the world will celebrate next Sunday.  This third sense is an event in which all mankind will participate:  the Final Judgment of mankind by Christ the King at the end of time.

In today’s First Reading, Daniel prophesies about “a time unsurpassed in distress”, and Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading describes for us “those days after… tribulation [when] the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky”.  These verses sound like apocalyptic science fiction.  Yet God tells us that every human being—including yourself—is going to participate directly in something just as earth-shattering as these events.

This Sunday the Church proposes a question in order to help you begin each day with your end in mind.  Next Sunday on the Solemnity of Christ the King, the Church will offer her answer.  This Sunday’s question is given in our First Reading from the Book of Daniel.  As strange as it may sound, this question comes in the form of a person.  Did you know that the name “Michael” is actually a question?

The name “Michael” literally means, “Who is like God?”  It’s a rhetorical question, of course, because no one is like God.  But Satan is blinded to that simple fact by his pride.  St. Michael is often pictured as the great warrior among God’s archangels.  But St. Michael’s power comes from his humility:  his power lies in allowing himself to be an instrument in the Hand of God.  As the English author G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

As one prays privately after Holy Mass, thanking God for the graces received and asking God to help one bear fruit in the world as one goes forth from the Mass, it’s a venerable custom to pray the Prayer to Saint Michael.  This prayer reminds one not only of how important the virtue of humility is, but also of the stakes involved in the “Christian battle” of the spiritual life [see CCC 1496].

Some people trust that strength lies in numbers.  Some trust that strength lies in knowledge.  The saints trust that strength lies in humility, which opens oneself to the Love who is God.  When you begin each day with an act of humility by handing the day over to God, He will give you all the strength needed to accomplish His holy Will:  not your will, but His.  We beg from God the grace to conform our wills to His.  In this, God’s children can become united with each other and with God Himself.  The two great commandments—to love God and neighbor—become united.