We have work to do

29th Week OT(F)
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Notre dame Seminary, NOLA

The gov't will implant microchips in its citizens. And the computer that controls theses chips is called “The Beast.” The leader of ISIS will be killed and then rise again in three days to become the Anti-Christ. The Ebola virus epidemic was designed by the CIA and the DHS to bring about martial law. The Blessed Mother warns that there is a Great Chastisement coming to punish us for the errors of the recent Synod. Secular powers, controlled by a cabal of modernist Illuminati-Satanists, will systematically persecute the Church. Bishops, priests, deacons, entire religious orders and even a future pope serve these Satanists even now. These are just a few of the dire predictions about the future world of our world. I won’t even touch on the Protestant disaster scenarios I grew up with. Here’s the problem with these predictions: even if they prove to be true, so what? I mean, what does it matter? We have a job to do and entertaining end-of-the-world fantasies isn't in the contract. We know who Christ is, therefore, we know how to read the signs of his coming again.

Jesus knows that the hypocrites in the crowd know who he is and why he’s preaching. He knows that they know that he’s fulfilled the prophecies and that he is among them as the Christ. Though they can easily read the signs in the sky and on the earth to predict the weather, they pretend not to be able to read the signs of his coming as the Messiah. Why? Likely b/c a correct interpretation of the signs would require them to consider seriously the necessity of conversion, the necessity of starting over in a New Life in Christ; meaning, they would have to leave the old self behind and start fresh. That’s frightening and arduous. In some bizarre sense a life of sin is comfortable, familiar, even boring! The prospect of having such a life revolutionized by acknowledging the arrival of the Messiah must be terrifying. But why do Catholics spend their time and energy worrying about Marian warnings, Illuminati plots, and sketchy cardinals? There's work to be done. Hard work that isn't always immediately rewarding and often quite dangerous. 

 

Now, if you think that I am implying here that we shouldn’t waste our time with fantastic predictions of our apocalyptic demise, you’re wrong. I’m not implying it at all. I’m saying it outright. Don’t waste your time. The only prophecy that need concern a Catholic is the prophecy of the arrival of the Messiah. He’s here. It’s now time move on and make sure that everyone who meets us, hears us, sees us, reads us, or even hears rumors about us knows that we have a single mind, a single heart, one Word, one miracle in faith; that we move and breath and grow and hope to die in one Spirit, preserved in unity through the bond of peace. We must be absolutely sure that everything we do and say fulfills with love the prophecy of Christ's coming, his suffering, his death, his resurrection, and his coming again. Does the world see the Body of Christ, the Church, coming in glory to suffer in love, to serve in hope, to persevere in faith no matter what comes?

When we grind away our short hours here wringing our hands over strange visions and crazy fortunes, we waste the gift of time for witnessing to Love Who saves us and Who will bring us to Him forever. A preoccupation with these visions opens us to all sorts of sins of omission. What are we not doing for God’s people while decoding biblical numerologies and arguing about the authenticity of another Marian apparition. What gets left undone? Never does Jesus tell the disciples that they will find themselves among the roasting goats in Hell for failing to properly interpret and apply the message of one of his mother’s visits. They will go to Hell, he tells them, for failing to clothe the naked, for failing to visit the imprisoned, for failing to feed the hungry, and for failing to welcome the stranger. In other words, for failing to do the work Christ did, we fail as his students and ambassadors, and we reject his grace. Goat, let me introduce you to Fire. Goat, fire. Fire, goat.

We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism and we have one witness: to bear with one another through love so that the world is astonished by our generosity and comes to Christ b/c our joy in his grace is irresistibly contagious! We must prove that being a prisoner for the Lord is the freest anyone can ever be.

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