Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
When I was in Catholic elementary school we had this kid named Mike who was an amazing athlete, even then. He was great at soccer, hockey, and swimming, and he wasn’t bad at basketball, either. Most days at lunch we would play soccer on the parking lot, and if you were on Mike’s team you were usually going to win. So, of course, everyone wanted to be on his team, because everyone wanted to win.
In these last weeks of our Church year (Advent begins the new year for the Church), we take time to focus on the end of time and the return of Jesus, what we often call the Second Coming. Our first reading and our Gospel definitely have that as our focus today. Jesus focuses on the end, what will happen, how to read the signs of the times, and yet also affirms that nobody knows exactly when it will happen: not the angels, nor even the Son of God, Jesus, when He was on earth. The choice belongs to God the Father. And Daniel, the prophet, in our first reading describes how a great battle will take place, but that St. Michael the Archangel will lead God’s people through the “unsurpassed…distress.”
I’ll be honest with you: it feels like we’re going through an “end times” right now. The world seems like it’s always one step away from another world war; there is what we might call a mass apostasy, a large exodus of people who are giving up their Catholic faith; hedonism, the philosophy that states that the most important thing in life is personal pleasure, seems to be the prevailing view of many people, even from some inside the Church; Christ’s Church seems to be under constant attack from outside forces; and, to paraphrase Pope St. Paul VI, the smoke of Satan has even entered and seems to have taken hold within the Church at the highest levels. Things are not good.
To be clear, I’m not saying that these are the end times. No doubt many people in Rome and beyond felt like the end was coming when the Roman Empire, which had existed since 753 BC and had helped Christianity spread, collapsed in the West in AD 476. No doubt many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Islam swept across the Middle East, North Africa, and even into Spain. No doubt, many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Europe started to break apart during the Protestant co-called Reformation and the religious wars that followed. No doubt, many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Christian nation battled against other Christian nations in World War I and perhaps around 19 million people, civilian and military, died in the “War to end all Wars,” whose centenary the world just solemnly remembered on Armistice Day, 11 November.
As Jesus says, we don’t know when the end of the world will come. And as we go through these trials, it can be easy to forget that the war has already been won. Christ has conquered Satan, and all that is with him, sin and death. Given all the bad news, it can, in fact, feel like we’re losing, that there’s no hope. But there is hope, and even certainty, that Jesus has won and all that is wrong with the world will be made right, and the forces of evil have lost and will lose in the end. And that should give us comfort and courage in the midst of these trying times.
But, the trials and tribulations that we are undergoing now should also encourage us to choose the winning team to join in our day to day life. We should want to be on Mike’s team, not Mike from St. Mary School in Williamston, but St. Michael the Archangel. He is God’s warrior who defeats evil and will lead the forces of God through the failing forces of evil. We should want to be on Jesus’ team, for whom St. Michael fights, so that we win at the end. And that is what is so sad about all those who are walking away from their faith. I’m not the judge, so I’m not hear to judge their culpability, but we certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not spending time with Him each week at Mass. We certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not following His teachings that He gives us through His Church. We certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not making Him the most important aspect of our life, rather than sports, pleasure, or following the culture that has set much of itself against God. Each day we show by our actions on whose team we want to be.
