33rd
Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Watching
the news these days, I can't help but hear behind reports of war,
riots, famine, & economic collapse, the rhythm of Yeats, reading
his visionary poem, “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart;
the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The
blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence
is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of
passionate intensity.” Yeats wrote this in 1919. Just one year
after 16 million soldiers are killed in WWI. And just 13 years before
a former corporal in the Austrian army is appointed Chancellor in
Germany. His reign will end in 1945 with the deaths of more than 70
million in WWII. Yeats, again: “Surely some revelation is at
hand;/Surely the Second Coming is at hand./The Second Coming!”
Jesus assures his disciples that he will come again. He came to us
first as a Child, and he will come next as Judge and King. When? “But
of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor
the Son, but only the Father.” So, as we prepare to wait for his
birth in Bethlehem, we wait for his coming again in glory.
No,
it's not yet Advent. But we celebrate another sort of Advent this
evening, a Second Advent. Jesus warns his disciples that after his
death, “False messiahs and false prophets will arise and will
perform signs and wonders in order to mislead. . .the elect. Be
watchful!” And despite this warning, many of his disciples through
the centuries have been misled. Some by a Roman emperor. Others by
Greek heresies. Many by charismatic monks and holy women. Millions
were led astray by clever theological argument. And millions more by
atheistic science, utopian fantasies, murderous political ideologies,
and the temporary treasures of Mammon. How many have been duped by
New Age gibberish, or 21st century humanism? Jesus calls this long,
painful falling away from the apostolic faith, a tribulation; that
is, the threshing of a harvest to separate the wheat from the chaff,
to separate those who are strong in the faith from those who practice
an easy, convenient faith.
After
this centuries-long tribulation, he says, “. . .the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be
falling from the sky. . .” And as nature convulses, we “will see
'the Son of Man coming in the clouds' with great power and glory. .
.” His angels will “gather his elect from the four winds, from
the end of the earth to the end of the sky.” Jesus answers his
disciples' unspoken question: “When [the fig tree's] branch becomes
tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same
way, when you see these things happening, know that [the Son of Man]
is near, at the gates.” When is the Christ coming again? When will
the Son of Man be near the gates? When we see the sun and moon
eclipsed and stars shooting through the sky. He will come again when
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of
innocence is drowned.” In other words, he is always prepared to
come again, so we must always be ready to receive him. When “the
best lack all conviction,” and “the worst/Are full of passionate
intensity,” his Church must be passionately convinced of her faith,
waiting for his arrival with a burning hope.
Obscure
apocalyptic passages like this one from Mark serve a specific purpose
in the life of the Church. Rather than tempting us with the useless
task of figuring out the hour and day of Christ's return, these
passages urge us to hold firm in the faith and live with the hope
that Christ's resurrection promises. Rather than scaring us silly
with tales of the imminent destruction of the world and threats of
eternal damnation, these passages report events that have already
taken place in history; or events that are occurring at the time the
passage was written; or events that recur in history over and over
again. Their purpose is to reassure us that there is nothing
particularly unusual about the social, economic, religious turmoil
that we are living through. Has there been a century in 5,000 yrs of
human history w/o a solar or lunar eclipse, a meteor shower? A decade
w/o by war, plague, poverty, or natural disaster? We don't need to
know when Christ will return. All we need to know is that he will,
and that our task is to be ready: free from all anxiety, utterly at
peace – we wait. But are we ready?
We
might wonder: what’s Jesus waiting for? Surely the world cannot be
a bigger mess; surely we cannot become more self-destructive,
angrier, greedier, more hostile to peace and the poor! Can the
world's political upheavals get any worse? Can we really survive any
more natural disasters? Things seem to be falling apart and the
center isn't holding. What's Christ waiting for? He’s waiting on
you. On me. On all of us. He waiting for us and our repentance.
Before the angels are sent to collect the elect from the four corners
of the Earth, Christ gives us every chance to repent and return to
him. He says to us, “Heaven
and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” His
words are: repent, believe the Gospel, and join my Father and me at the
Wedding Feast.
Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->