Same Event, Different Experience

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

    It was fun last Sunday to see the Detroit Lions dominate the game offensively.  No matter what Washington did, they could not seem to stop Detroit’s offense, with the worst results for most of the drives of the game being a field goal and only three points rather than the usual seven points for a touchdown and extra point.  After some rough games this season, it was good to see a strong Lions team again.
    But imagine for a second that you were cheering for the Commanders.  Sunday was not a day you really wanted to remember.  The things that made it so great for the Lions made it pretty horrible for the Commanders.  In any contest, what is good news for one is bad news for the other.
    In this penultimate Sunday in Ordinary Time before we begin Advent, our readings focus us on the end of time.  And the Prophet Malachi, in particular, presents us with this idea that the same event, the day of the Lord, will be bad for some, but great for others.  For some it will be a day of pain and suffering, with the proud and the evildoers burning up like stubble in a field.  For those who fear the name of the Lord, the sun (s-u-n) of justice will heal with its rays.  As Catholics we know that Christ is the true Sun of Justice because He is the Son (s-o-n) of God and Son of Man.  We look for the same event, Christ’s return in glory, but it will not seem the same for everyone.  For some it will appear as a day of joy, for others a day of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
    When we come to this time of year, the Church traditionally puts before us, as she did at every funeral in the old rite, the hymn Dies Irae.  The title means “Day of Wrath.”  And the first verses focus on what the return of Christ will be like for evildoers:
 

Day of watch and doom impending!
David’s word with Sibyl’s blending,
Heaven and earth in ashes ending!

Oh, what fear man’s bosom renders,
When from heaven the Judge descendeth,
On whose sentence all dependeth.

That certainly gives us a wake-up call for what the end could be like if we do not give our hearts over to God and open ourselves to His grace which transforms us.  
    But, it continues:

Faint and weary, Thou hast sought me,
On the Cross of suffering bought me.
Shall such grace be vainly brought me?…

Guilty, now I pour my moaning,
All my shame with anguish owning;
Spare, O God, Thy suppliant groaning!

Through the sinful woman shriven,
Through the dying thief forgiven,
Thou to me a hope hast given.

With Thy sheep a place provide me,
From the goats afar divide me,
To Thy right hand do Thou guide me….

Lord, all-pitying, Jesus blest,
Grant them Thine eternal rest.
Amen.

While not pretending to be blameless, the return of Christ for those who love the Lord means a time of salvation and the rectification of all that evil has ruined, so that the souls of the just can have eternal rest.
    The key, then, is what team we are on?  Not Team Edward or Team Jacob (you’re welcome, “Twilight” fans), but Dies irae-Day of wrath or spem dedisti–a hope given.  Because the end will mean suffering.  Our Lord outlines the things that will precede the end: wars, insurrections, powerful earthquakes, famines, plagues, and persecution of the followers of Christ.  Those who work against Christ will think that they have won.  They will try to get Christ’s faithful to abandon their virtue, to abandon Christ, and will offer apparent ways out of the tribulations that may even mean less or even no suffering in the short terms.  But for those who remain faithful to Christ, who persevere, the time of sorrow and suffering will lead to a day of hope and victory in Christ, who will reward those who remained true even when turning away seemed easier and more enjoyable.  
    [Ava & Wade: you are choosing to follow Christ today, and Christ receives you as His catechumen.  This means that Christ already recognizes you as a follower, even if you have not yet become part of Him through Holy Baptism.  You are abandoning the logic of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and striving to live according to the logic of the Logos, the Divine Word, who helps us understand how God has truly created the world.  You are choosing hope in place of wrath, and for that we give thanks to God and promise you our prayers.]
    The end comes, seemingly ever faster.  We find ourselves closer to the return of Christ in glory today than we were yesterday.  This time of year reminds us to take stock of our choices, which do not only have consequences in time, but have consequences into eternity.  Christ will return in glory, and how we view that day will depend on how we lived each day before that: for or against Christ.  May the words of Dies Irae apply to us as the just so that, “When the wicked are confounded, / Doomed to flames of woe unbounded, / Call me with Thy saints surrounded.”

The Parable Against Sharing

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
    This is the sort of Gospel that a young kid wants to hear: the ladies who had enough oil didn’t have to share with the ladies who used up all of theirs.  Where was this Gospel when someone wanted me to share my Halloween candy with other kids?

    Of course, sharing is generally a good thing.  We have a responsibility to care for others, especially those who do not have enough.  But what are we to make of this parable?  Because the five wise virgins didn’t share their oil with the five foolish virgins who burnt theirs all up, and Jesus commends the wisdom of the five.  And Jesus commends them because there was a chance that, if the five wise virgins shared, they would have run out of oil, and you would have had ten foolish virgins, rather than just five.
    The main point of the parable is that, when it comes to welcoming Christ, one ought to be ready at all times, and nothing should stand in the way of making sure that we are ready.  The five wise virgins are praised because they focused on welcoming the bridegroom above everything else.  While those who were not ready for the bridegroom’s return were left outside, and though they were invited to the wedding, because of their foolishness, the bridegroom says, “‘I do not know you.’” 
    St. Paul describes the day of Christ the Bridegroom’s return as a day that will come “with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God.”  On that day, as we will hear on the Feast of Christ the King, God will separate the just from the unjust, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  For the sheep it will be a day of great rejoicing as they are led into heaven.  For the goats it will be a dies irae, a day of wrath, as God respects their rejection of Him and they are locked outside in the fires of Hell.
    The sequence, Dies Irae, used to be said or sung at every funeral before the liturgical reforms of Vatican II.  And if you only pay attention to the first two stanzas, it does seem quite harsh:
 

Day of wrath and doom impending!
David’s word with Sibyl’s blending,
Heaven and earth in ashes ending!

Oh, what fear man’s bosom renders,
When from heaven the Judge descendeth,
On whose sentence all dependeth.

Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;
Through the earth’s sepulchers it ringeth;
All before the throne it bringeth.

But the later verses display great faith and confidence in Christ’s salvation:

Faint and weary, Thou has sought me,
On the Cross of suffering bought me.
Shall such grace be vainly brought me?…

Through the sinful woman shriven,
Through the dying thief forgiven,
Thou to me a hope hast given….

With Thy sheep a place provide me,
From the goats afar divide me,
To Thy right hand do Thou guide me.

And this is the point of being ready: that when we are prepared for Christ to return at any time, the surprise of when it actually happens will be a joyful one, rather than the fearful surprise of Christ’s return if we live in a way that shows that we do not want to be with Him eternally.  It’s like the difference between being a kid left home alone, but doing all the chores that mom and dad asked you to do, and they get home earlier than expected and being a kid left home alone, figuring you have plenty of time to do those chores, so you’re going to leave it to the end, but then you’re having so much fun you don’t realize how quickly time is passing, and then mom and dad come home early.  The return is the same; your reaction can be quite different.
    How do we live like the wise virgins, then?  How do we keep our lamps trimmed so that our oil does not run out, and when the Bridegroom does return, we can still have lit lamps?  Part of the best advice is to keep Christ at the front of your mind throughout the day.  How often do you think about Jesus throughout the day?  How often do you make a short prayer, or even just the sign of the cross as you progress through the daily grind?  When we remember Christ, we tend to remember better how He taught us to live, and we are more likely to follow through than if we don’t keep our Lord in mind.
    Do we keep death in front of us?  No one hopes for an early death, but no one plans for an unexpected death, either.  That’s why they call it unexpected.  If we are doing our best to avoid sin, and making regular confessions, then we’ll be ready, either for death or for Christ’s return, which is closer today than it was yesterday.  One mortal sin on our soul at the time of death could erase the years of grace that we have lived.  So avoid those sins at all costs, or if you do fall, make sure you’re going to confession and working on eradicating those sins from your life, which is only possible with God’s grace anyway.
    Today’s Gospel does not tell us that we shouldn’t share.  But it does tell us to make sure that we spare no attention in preparing ourselves for the return of the Bridegroom and welcoming Him.  May the day of the Bridegroom’s return not catch us off guard, and so become a dies irae, but may it rather fulfill our lifelong hopes and joy of waiting for Christ, and so, as the Dies Irae chants, “Call [us] with Thy saints surrounded.”

Confutatis and Lacrimosa

 Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
    One of my favorite pieces of classical music is Mozart’s “Requiem” Mass.  I first heard it by watching the movie “Amadeus,” which is the story of Mozart’s troubled and amazing life.  Part of the music which is, in my opinion, angelic, are the two movements: “Confutatis maledictis” and “Lacrimosa.”  These two movements come from the larger sequence, “Dies irae,” which used to be used in every funeral, or requiem Mass.  
    At first you might think that “Day of Wrath,” (which is what Dies irae means) may not be the music you want to hear at a funeral.  And that first verse is, “Day of wrath!  O day of mourning! / See fulfilled the prophets warning, / Heaven and earth in ashes burning!”  These images come from the Biblical images that we heard about in today’s readings.  In our first reading, we heard the Prophet Daniel prophesy, “it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time.”  And even Jesus says the end shall include a time where “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”  That is somewhat sounding like a Dies irae. 

   These very stressful images comes from God making things right again.  The world has a way it likes operating in its fallen mode.  It has become comfortable with sin and death.  But as Christ returns, sin and death will be brought to an end, which will be traumatic on the system of sin and death.  It’s like the world is a car driving 70 mph on the freeway, and Jesus’ return is kicking it into reverse while driving.
    But it’s not just the world.  As we think about the end, we can also examine our own lives.  In what ways have we become comfortable with sin?  What sins do we excuse as “natural” and “everyday” issues.  This is not to say that some sins are not more egregious than others; that’s why we delineate between mortal and venial sin.  But even the smallest venial sin is not part of God’s original or final plan for humanity and the world.  Even a venial sin offends God and made Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross necessary.  So in our own life, if we are comfortable with sin, the change to no sin will seem quite traumatic for us, as traumatic as death is in the face of life.  We know death is not supposed to happen, and it pains us deeply.  In fact, we fight against it with all we have.  That will be like what happens when Christ comes to undo the reign of sin and death in us.  And that is why the Church talks about Purgatory as a purification.  Purgatory is that process after death of changing us from a life of sin to a life of holiness.  It’s a total overhaul.  And overhauls can be painful.  The end result is always worth it: eternal life.  But until the end product is achieved, it’s painful to be retooled.  
    Still, the end is worth it, and it’s not all pain and suffering.  Even in the Dies irae we hear verses such as: “Think, kind Jesu! –my salvation / Caused Thy wondrous Incarnation; / Leave me not to reprobation.” and “With Thy sheep a place provide me, / From the goats afar divide me, / To Thy right hand do Thou guide me.”  And the sequence even ends with, “Lord, all-pitying, Jesus blest, / Grant them Thine eternal rest.  Amen.”  
    The end of the change from a world of sin is the final completion of what Jesus achieved on the cross: the end of sin and death forever.  But, as with so many things in life, the peace only comes after the struggle.  However, with Jesus, the struggle isn’t a competition where we wonder who will win.  Jesus has already won, and we’re just waiting to taste the fruits of that victory.  
    So when we talk about the end times, do we, as Catholics need to fear?  We are, each day, one day closer to Christ returning in glory to judge the living and dead, as we profess each time we say the Creed.  Should the Day of Wrath be something that we fret about?
    That depends on how we’re living our life.  The more we live like we’re in heaven, the less that we will experience a Day of Wrath at the end.  The more that we’re responding to God’s will, saying yes to the invitations of God each day, the less painful it will be at the end of our lives.  The more we live like earth is all there is, the more we will be on a trajectory for “when the wicked are confounded, / Doomed to flames of woe unbounded,” and “that day of tears and mourning,” as the Confutatis and Lacrimosa state in the Dies Irae.  
    And the good news is that Jesus is there to help us.  He stands at the right hand of the Father, as we heard in our second reading, interceding for us, and showering His grace upon us so that we can live the heavenly life here on earth, and put to death on earth our fallen, sinful nature, while we rise to our glorified, heavenly nature.  For in the end, only Christ’s grace will be able to transform us.  Pie Iesu Domine, / Dona nobis requiem.  Merciful Lord Jesus, grant us eternal rest.  Amen.