The End is Near!

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

            We seem to have two themes running through all our readings today: the first theme is praise of a worthy wife which we heard in our first reading and responsorial psalm; the second theme is preparing properly for the end of the world which we heard in our second reading and Gospel passage.  Though I’m not married, I do not think a worthy wife and the end of the world are related.

            These last few weeks of Ordinary Time (next week is already the last Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe) and the first couple weeks of Advent always focus us on Jesus’ second coming.  This is a major part of our faith, and we profess it each week in the creed: “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”  Ever since the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the Catholic Church has always considered herself to be living in the end times, and that Jesus could return at any minute.  Hence the message we heard in our second reading: “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.  When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them.”  We cannot grow lax in waiting for Jesus to return. 

            And we are advised against being lax in our Gospel passage when Jesus tells us to use our talents well and make something with them, rather than just hiding them away.  God has given us each something to do that no one else can do, and our eternal salvation is connected to whether or not we are using our talents. 

           

But it’s all too easy to forget about Jesus’ return.  We write off people who hold up signs saying, “The End is Near” as crazy.  How often do we think about Jesus’ coming back to judge us?  Now, we never know the day nor the hour, but we do know it’s coming, and it could be any minute.  Peter Kreeft, a Catholic professor at Boston College, puts the question in a very direct way: If you were to die today, and God asked you, “Why should I let you into heaven?”, what would you say?  That’s a pretty big question!  Maybe we’ve never thought of it that way before.  What would we say?  Of course, in general, the answer is because Jesus died for our sins so that we could enter into heaven.  But that answer begs another question: what have we done to show that we have accepted the gift of eternal salvation that Jesus gave us?  In other words, what have we done with the talents God gave us?  Talents, in the sense Jesus used it in the Gospel, were not so much gifts, as a way of expressing a monetary value.  One talent could have equaled anywhere from $1,000 to 20 years’ worth of wages (Scripture scholars disagree).  But even if we low-ball it at $1,000: we would know what to do with $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000.  We would use it wisely if entrusted to us.  Even more so with 20, or 40, or 100 years’ worth of wages!!  The gift of eternal salvation is much more expensive: it cost the Son of God His life!!  But what do we do with that?  How do we accept the precious gift of salvation?  Do we capitalize on it and make sure we make the most of it?  Or do we bury it away?

            The servant who had one talent says that he buried the talent out of fear.  But we also know that the master did not come back until after a long time.  In all that time, the servant never had to think about whether or not he was using the talent well.  It was hidden from the world, not doing anything.  Even the master tells the servant that he could have at least put the talent in the bank, done the least little bit with it, so that it would earn interest.  Maybe it wouldn’t be thought of a lot, but at least the talent would be active in the sense of earning more.  And, as we look at the servants who made something with their talents, they were actively engaged with their talent.  Maybe they lost some of what they made.  Maybe at one point they had more than doubled their money, but then lost some.  Still, they used their talents all the while their master was gone.

            What have we done with Jesus’ salvation that was offered to us?  Maybe coming to Mass each week is like putting that talent in the bank.  It’s not much, but at least it’s something.  Maybe earning two more talents is being involved once or twice a month in works of charity, or helping to spread the faith, or talking to someone about Jesus, or reading Scripture on our own.  Maybe earning five more talents is praying daily in addition to going to Mass as often as we can, and being involved in serving the poor, teaching people about Jesus, and trying each day to become closer friends with Jesus.  I honestly don’t know, though, because I’m not the judge; Jesus is.  But if we don’t know, then we have to make a decision: if we do less and more is required of us to show that we accept Jesus’ salvation, then we’re in trouble; if we do more and less is required of us to show that we accept Jesus’ salvation, then we’re set either way, and maybe we’ll enjoy a better reward in heaven.  Put another way: if we are not sure, better to aim for heaven and miss (so that we go to Purgatory) than to aim for Purgatory and miss (so that we go to Hell).  In doing less, we risk hearing: “‘“You wicked, lazy servant!  [...T]hrow this useless servant into the darkness outside where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”’”  But in doing more, it is more likely that we will hear: “‘“Well done, my good and faithful servant.  […]Come, share your master’s joy.”’”  Which do you want to hear?

Filling a Niche in the Temple of God

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

St. Peter

St. Simon

 One of my great blessings in life has been to travel to Rome several times.  I first went there through a study abroad program when I was a junior in college.  My most recent trip was in 2013.  Each time I go, I try to stop by all four of the Patriarchal Basilicas: St. Peter, St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. Mary Major, and St. John Lateran.  In that last basilica, the Pope’s cathedral church, whose dedication we celebrate today, there are huge niches going up the nave of the church.  And in each niche is a larger-than-life marble statue of the apostles: Peter with a book and the keys of the kingdom of heaven; Simon with a book and the saw by which he was martyred; St. Jude with a spear; St. Paul with a book and the sword by which he was martyred; St. James the Greater with the pilgrim’s staff; St. Thomas with a carpenter’s square; St. Philip with a cross and stepping on a dragon; St. Matthew with a large book and standing on a bag of money; St. Bartholomew with a knife and his flayed skin (the tradition of how he was martyred); St. James the Lesser with a small book and a staff; St. John with a book and eagle; St. Andrew with the style of cross that bears his name.  All of these statues add to the grandeur of the pope’s cathedral, and I’m always in awe and inspired every time I go to visit.  It is refreshing to see these princes of the church and think about the effect that these twelve, mostly uneducated, men had on the history of the world!

St. Jude

St. Paul

            St. Paul reminds us that we are the temple of God.  As I mentioned when we celebrated our own anniversary of the dedication of this church, we are the living stones which make up the temple of God, and we all have a role in helping each other, because no one stone alone makes a grand building.  But today, as we celebrate the Dedication of St. John Lateran, I would like to encourage us to think of the temple of God as having niches which are ready for each of us.

St. James the Greater

St. Thomas

            The first thing we have to do is fill that niche.  The apostles didn’t get their large, marble statues for running away at the crucifixion.  They got those statues because after they ran away they came back.  And they preached Jesus all throughout the known world and invited others to follow Jesus and change their lives to the way that Jesus wants us to live.  All but one died for this proclamation.  Even the one who was not martyred, St. John, died in exile on Patmos.  If we wish to fill the niche of the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple of the Lamb, with our persons, then we too are called to follow Jesus, even if we have abandoned Him before, and proclaim Him to others, inviting them to follow Jesus.

St. Philip

St. Matthew

            To often, though, our “statues” are covered with cobwebs, dirt, dust, and filth.  And it’s at those times that Jesus has to come in and clean us off.  There are two ways this happens: the good way, where God invites us back to Him and we respond, confessing our sins to God through the priest in the Sacrament of Penance, and allowing God to take a warm rag to clean us off; or the bad way, where God, who had still invited us to return to Him, respects our free will to choose against Him, and allows us to choose Hell over Him, assigning that niche to someone else.  I’m sure we want to occupy the niche that was made for us, and yet how often do we neglect to make regular confessions?  Advent is coming up, and many people go to the communal penance liturgy where we have multiple priests, but adults should go at least four times per year.  I myself confess every few weeks, for the forgiveness of my sins, and to grow in holiness, and make sure that I will fill that niche that God has set aside for me in His temple.

St. Bartholomew

St. James the Lesser

            The second thing is to imagine what item would be associated with us?  What item would represent our life, as so many of the statues have items that represent their deaths?  Maybe it’s a telephone because we call our friends and family to make sure they’re doing well.  Maybe it’s cooking utensils because we volunteer at funeral luncheons, breakfasts, or dinners.  Maybe it’s a rake or shovel since we help out with cleaning the church grounds or the cemetery.  Maybe it’s a book because we teach others about God or write about God.  The options only depend on how we life our lives as disciples of God, and what we do to further the Kingdom of God. 

St. John

St. Andrew

            God has set a place aside for us in His heavenly temple.  We won’t be marble statues, but we will be adding to the beauty of the temple of God and offering Him constant worship.  By following Christ, we will gain a spot in the heavenly Jerusalem, and will gladden that city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High, because we will be where He created us to be: in heaven with Him.  But let’s make sure that we get there, because the road is narrow to salvation, and wide to perdition.  Only by doing our best to stay, all of our life, on that straight and narrow path, and then returning to God to confess our sins when we stray, will we be able to enjoy a place in the temple of God and truly be a masterpiece, even more awesome than the apostle statues at St. John Lateran.  

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

           

Kenny Chesney, the country singer, wrote a cute song entitled “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven.”  Perhaps you’ve heard it.  Like many country music songs, the lyrics are really what make it so great:

Preacher told me last Sunday mornin

“Son, you better start livin right

You need to quit the women and whiskey

And carrying on all night

Don’t you wanna hear him call your name?

When you’re standing at the pearly gates?”
I told the preacher, “Yes I do

But I hope they don’t call today.

I ain’t ready.”

Everybody wants to go to heaven

Have a mansion high above the clouds.

Everybody wants to go to heaven

But nobody want to go now.

The song continues:

I said, “Preacher maybe you didn’t see me

Throw an extra twenty in the plate

There’s one for everything I did last night

And one to get me through today.

Here’s a ten to help you remember

Next time you got the good Lord’s ear.

Say I’m comin but there ain’t no hurry

I’m having fun down here.”

Now, if this is the mentality of most of you today, I’ve got my work cut out for me in this parish!!  But while we probably don’t think of all these things, there is a sneaky way in which these lyrics, or some of them, may ring true.  First and foremost, we all probably want to go to heaven.  If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.  But, it’s all too easy to think that we can live a double life as a Christian: we sin all we want, and then try to buy our way into heaven with a last big donation or a last-ditch effort at living on the straight and narrow. 

            Jesus says in our Gospel, “‘Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me…And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.’”  This is sounding pretty good!!  We’ve been baptized, we belong to the Father, so we must go to heaven (unless we’re Hitler or Osama bin-Laden).  Jesus isn’t going to lose us, and if we come pleading at the last minute, Jesus will not reject us. 

            St. Paul, too, gives us lots of hope: “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might have newness of life.”  Baptized into death? Check!  Share in the resurrection? Check!  Sounds good!!  But if everyone is in heaven (except the really evil people who are in hell, the exceptions to the rule), then what in the world are we doing today?!?  Why would we take a day to pray for All the Faithful Departed?  And why would this day trump our usual Sunday of Ordinary Time celebration?

            Jesus and St. Paul give us the answer.  Jesus later says, in this same passage, “‘everyone who…believes in him may have eternal life.’”  Belief is necessary.  But belief is proven through our actions.  That is why St. Paul has the conditional statement: “if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.”  Our share in the resurrection is based upon how much we are sharing in the crucifixion.  Specifically, how much are we putting our sinful self to death? 

            We pray today, and the tradition of Catholics to have Masses said for the deceased (though they can be said for the living as well) should be continued, because we never know how much a person has died to their sinful self and so risen with Christ.  That’s easy to say for other people, right?  ‘Oh yeah, Mrs. Magillicudy?  She was a wonderful old woman, but she may have still had some sins that she was attached to.  It’s good to offer Mass for her.  But mom and dad, they were saints to put up with us!  There’s no way they didn’t go straight to heaven!’  I’m certainly not denying that our family members may be in heaven.  I hope they are!!  I think of a dear friend of mine from East Lansing, whom I called Uncle Bill.  He was, in the time I knew him, a saintly man, and his family told me about the great things he would do for the faith, including a daily rosary.  And I know that God is merciful and will not reject anyone who comes to him.  But I also know he was human, and probably had some sins, no matter how little.  So I, as well as his family, continue to offer Masses for the repose of his soul.  Until he’s canonized a saint, we never know for sure.  And if he is in heaven, then I know God will apply those graces to someone else who needs it more.  I’m sure that Uncle Bill will be in heaven long before me, but I’m not the judge of who gets into heaven and when, so I keep praying for him.  And that’s what we do today.  We pray for all of the faithful departed and ask God to receive them into heaven through the merits of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  But, I want to encourage you not to leave praying for them only to the Mass.  There is a beautiful Catholic custom, and I know some of you here practice it, to pray for the souls of the faithful departed at each meal, or at least at dinner.  What a great thing to say, at the end of grace: May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.  Amen. 

            Everybody wants to go to heaven.  God wants us to be in heaven.  May our life on this earth, as well as our Mass and daily prayers, show God that our sinfulness has been crucified on the cross, so that we can rise with Christ to new life in the eternal happiness of the blessed.  Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.  Amen.