Homily for the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Nov. 17, 2019. Gospel of Luke 21:5-19. Theme: The End is Really the Beginning!
When will the end of the world happen? That's what the people were asking Jesus in today’s Gospel and it’s what many have been trying to figure out ever since. The confusion, violence and destruction that Jesus describes as being associated with the end has always been present in human history. They are part and parcel of the kind of world that the human race has built through our corporate rebellion against God. And so in every era people experience this global upheaval and think that the end must be near!
Pope Sylvester II thought it would happen in the year 1000 AD, to coincide with the close of the first thousand years of Christianity.
Martin Luther said the end would come no later than 1600 AD, and his theological descendant, the world-famous Billy Graham, preached that it would happen in the 1950’s.
22 years ago everyone thought that the Y2K bug would bring about the end of the world as we know it, while others looked at the ancient Mayan calendar insisting that it predicted the end on Dec. 21, 2012.
We Catholics have several other names for it besides “end of the world”. We call it the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Final Judgment, or simply, the Last Day. And ever since Jesus’ ascension into Heaven people have been trying to figure out the time of his return. But the bottom is that we really don’t know! The only thing we do know is that it will surely come because Jesus has promised it. But no matter what it’s called, it was never something that the early Christians feared. Rather, it was something that they eagerly prayed for! They longed and yearned for the end, knowing that it would really be a beginning because it would bring about a new world rooted in peace, justice and love. They knew it would be the glorious conclusion to Jesus’ mission of establishing the Kingdom of God among us, and that all remnants of evil and sin would be destroyed once and for all. So, you see, the early Christians could not wait until the Risen Lord returned!
Along with the end of the world, Jesus informs us that we will be persecuted just as he was. He warns us about this because he wants us to be prepared and persevere in our relationship with him. He doesn’t want us to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to live forever with God in a real world, a new world, where there will be no more sorrow, no more suffering, no more death. He doesn’t want to hide this difficult truth from us but assures us that he will be with us through it all, encouraging us to not give up. He promises the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit who will give us the strength we need to keep on keeping on even when the going gets tough and others stand up against us.
But if we do not have an intimate personal relationship with Jesus NOW or we will not be strong enough to remain faithful THEN. Simply put, we will not be able to withstand persecution of whatever kind that will come our way. And so, we must consciously grow every day in our friendship with Jesus through personal prayer from the heart, through receiving and adoring his Eucharistic Real Presence, and by reading and reflecting on him in the Gospels. These things must become so much a part of us that when people interact with us, they can be positively influenced by our relationship with Jesus and desire to learn more about him.
This doesn’t mean that all of our conversations are about the Lord for such a thing can easily turn people away. But what it does mean is that people will notice that we are somehow different from the inside out in how we speak and act and often they will ask why this is so. It’s at such a point that we can witness to our faith and introduce them to the difference that Jesus makes in our lives. This is what Pope Francis means when he repeatedly calls us to be “missionary disciples” who witness to Jesus in every aspect of our lives. The last words we hear and say at Mass are reminders of our calling to live as missionary disciples. The words that the deacon says at the end of Mass such as “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” or “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your lives” are not simply polite ways to dismiss people. They are words of mission, words of being officially sent forth to go out among others to witness to Christ and spread his Kingdom.
We are sent out from the Mass to invite others to share in this kind of relationship we have with Christ that is nourished by his Word and Sacrament. So, let’s ask the Lord to make us truly committed missionary disciples among those with whom we live, work and socialize. We love them and so we want them to share with us the joy and fulfillment of the life to come when Jesus returns in glory and finally brings about the promised Last Day.
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