Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Four years ago, there were people, no small amount, who did not think that we would be here, because the Mayans stopped updating their calendar and didn’t have a date past 21 December 2012. By this time in 1999, the world was freaking out (that’s a scientific term). Computers weren’t supposed to be able to handle the year 2000, and it was supposed to create a worldwide disaster, which could signal at least a return to the dark ages for Western civilization, or maybe even the end of the world. In 1831, William Miller and 100,000 of his closest friends, were convinced Jesus was going to return in 1843, until that didn’t happen, and the date was revised for a year later, which also, obviously, didn’t happen. In 1524, a respected German mathematician and astrologer predicted there would be a world-covering flood, because all of the planets were aligning under the zodiac sign Pisces; it did rain lightly on the predicted day of the flood. In 476, as the barbarians crushed what was left of the Western Roman Empire, the same empire that had legalized and then endorsed Christianity, it was thought that the world was coming to an end. And though I hesitate to mention it, there are a number of people in our country who feel like the world is going to end because of our recent elections.
But here we are. Now, as Catholics, we know that Jesus will return and usher in the end of the world. We profess that every solemnity in our creed. But I’m not here to give you a date for that return. We don’t know when it will happen. But it will happen. The signs that Jesus describes in our Gospel today–wars, insurrections, false prophets and messiahs, earthquakes, famines, and plagues–all of these have happened over and over again. Still, we are still here, for now.
When many preachers talk about the end times, they make it quite scary. And Jesus does talk about how it will be trying times. But as Catholics, we should not be afraid of the end. Nor should we put our faith in magnificent buildings or large numbers. One of the great joys of my life has been to study in Rome for 5 months. I was able to see amazing churches, especially the Basilica of St. Peter, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, and the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It would create such an ache in my heart if I found out that any of those churches, or any others, were destroyed by nature or by humans. But my faith is not in buildings. We survived and thrived as a church for about 300 years without a Basilica of St. Peter, and the current basilica is only from the 17th century (in Roman terms, in a city founded in 753 BC, it’s just a baby basilica).
Our faith cannot be in the passing world. So many of the things in this world we assume will always be here; we cannot imagine life without them. But they are passing things; only Jesus is eternal. Each day that we live, we are getting closer and closer to the second coming of Jesus, the end of this world, and the beginning of the new heaven and new earth. In that sense, we can say the end is near. It’s certainly closer to happening now than it was 1000 years ago.
Does this freak us out (again, a very scientific term)? The end of the things that we take for granted as always being a part of our life should only cause us to be alarmed if our life is not anchored in Jesus, who will outlast all the passing reality. The end of the world should only make us worry if we do not live as Jesus taught us, because God tells us through Malachi in our first reading that evildoers will be stubble, burnt in a field. When we think of evildoers we often think of people like Hitler and Stalin. But to be a doer of evil simply means that we act contrary to God’s will in a grave way as expressed through Scripture or through the Church. So if we steal from our company; if we make false gods for ourselves out of our possessions; if we condone or support racism; if our first allegiance is not to our God but to our own wills or to any other organization; if we call good evil, and call evil good; then we should be worried. Then Jesus’ return will not be a happy day for us. “But for you who fear [God’s] name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.”
For almost two full millennia, during her liturgies in most churches, all of the people, including the priest, faced a unified direction for the Eucharistic prayer, not so that the priest didn’t have to look at the people, but so that the entire church could be focused on Jesus, the Sun rising from the East, the sun of justice. The posture of the people was such that they knew that they had to be focused on Jesus, waiting for His return, rather than turning in on itself. Turning towards Jesus meant turning away from all those things that distracted them from Him. Even today in most Catholic cemeteries, including New Calvary, all the bodies who are buried in the ground are facing east. I’m not saying I’m going to start celebrating Mass ad orientem, but we are invited in today’s readings to turn away from sin, turn away from our fallen selves, turn away from all the passing things that we consider so permanent, so that we can turn to Jesus, who “is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” and whose kingdom will have no end.
Maybe the homily seems a little dour today. Maybe it feels a little fire and brimstone-ish. Brothers and sisters, the good news today is that, while we still have breath, we can turn towards the Lord Jesus, the sun of justice who will rise from the east, and ask forgiveness. We don’t know when the world will end, but if we live each day as if it could end any moment, then we will be ready for Christ to return in glory, and that time of the end will be a day of rejoicing.