33rd. Sunday (Year B) (Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-14, 18; Mark 13:24-32)
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the Scripture readings today we are encouraged to consider something the world prefers to ignore and wants to forget, something the world fears to such an extent that it will not even entertain the possibility of it: namely, the coming Judgement.
However, we Catholic disciples of Jesus, being well aware
that He once said (Mt. 24:35):
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but My words will not pass away;
are today both reminded and reassured by Jesus’ words in
our Gospel reading, of the eternal truth of Christian teaching concerning the
judgement to come, in which the righteous will be recompensed and the wicked punished.
The prophet Daniel, continuing our first reading, spoke (12:10)
words which we find verified by our own experience and that of Mother Church in
our world today:
Many shall be refined, purified,
and tested, but the wicked shall prove wicked; the wicked shall have no understanding,
but those with insight shall.
It is, indeed, a fact today that we see all around us “the
wicked proving themselves wicked”: we find that wisdom and understanding, far
from being valued and sought-after, are mocked and disregarded, while the most
abominable practices are openly flaunted and accepted; indeed, they are even
being covered over with a cloak of pseudo-respectability, to such an extent
that some simple Christians and even some Catholics, are troubled, as Jesus
foretold:
False messiahs and false prophets
will arise and will perform signs and wonders in order to mislead, if that were
possible, the elect. (Mark 13:22)
In our Gospel reading Jesus again mentions “the elect” as
you heard:
Then they will see the Son of Man
coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and then He will send out the
angels, and gather His elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to
the end of the sky.
Who are these “elect”? Daniel told us in those words: "many shall be refined, purified, and tested”, because the elect are those faithful disciples who throughout their life on earth are being formed into a likeness of their Lord through the sacraments of Mother Church and by the gifts and guidance of the Holy Spirit, whereby they are enabled to walk perseveringly and faithfully along the way of Jesus.
Indeed, a notable part of the purging and
purifying of the faithful elect is accomplished by the sufferings they have to endure
in order to remain true to Jesus despite the allurements and trials of life;
and today mockery is one of the great trials Christians have to endure for
Jesus, in particular, mockery of Jesus’ teaching about a future judgement.
Now Jesus speaks of the coming of that judgement day when
He says:
After that tribulation (the appearance of
false messiahs performing their signs and wonders), 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.
Constantly hearing and learning of primeval powers at work
in our own sun and the Milky Way around us, in the immense galaxies light years
upon light years distant from us, we can imagine something of the calamitous
nature of such pre-judgement events; but much more immediately instructive has
been the calamitous advent of Covid19 all over the world, the end of which is
not -- despite massive programmes of vaccinations and scientific studies -- yet
in view, nor is its potential and ultimate magnitude able to be envisaged. Indeed, over and beyond even such a threat,
is the possible religious significance and warning behind Covid’s occurrence:
for our Scriptures repeatedly interpret such past events in Israel’s history – that
is our history as People of God – as the result of worldly sin, in the
lives of those called to be holy.
For the psalmists of old, the heavens spoke of the glory of
God: in those days, there were few facts available other than those our human
senses could immediately discern; however, being filled with the gifts of humility
and wisdom, the psalmists were able to understand and interpret aright what enduring
facts were known to them. Today, however,
for many moderns, what appear to be facts are so multitudinous and often so
tenuous that the human mind is overwhelmed as it seeks to co-relate them into a
real and comprehensible whole. Moreover,
where faith has been lost and pride acknowledged as an acceptable guide, many
falsely interpret what they have correctly but only partially observed, with
the result that their reading of the heavens proclaims not the Glory and the Goodness
of God, but rather the purposeless, chaotic being of powers ever-beyond present
human awareness and ultimate comprehension.
Our probes into the secrets of nature extend ever farther
and deeper and yet, scientists find it increasingly difficult to gain an understanding
of them that can embrace and unify such an immense diversity of facts new and
old. Newton came up with such an understanding
-- which we call a hypothesis -- which seemed to embrace and unify the then
known facts, and caused scientific circles great rejoicing. Later, Einstein came up with another
explanation, another new hypothesis, which again rejoiced the minds of
scientists, and again led many to think “Now we can explain all things.” The flow of new facts, however, continued
and continues, and not all fit into even our very-latest hypotheses and so, today
we are increasingly aware that we experience and are aware of so very, very,
little of the totality of what is real.
Think of it in this way: when it is light, we see; and we
then think that light shows us everything.
Normally, however, we only experience ordinary light, while science tells
us that such ordinary light contains many, many, different wavelengths, each revealing
different objects, such as infra-red light, ultra-violet rays, X rays, all
opening different views of what we had thought we knew well enough.
And so, scientific understanding is always playing catch-up
with the latest discoveries, and the fact is, that only religious truth can give us
an appreciation and a right understanding of ultimate reality: science can only
hope to explain something of what is naturally experienced; it cannot apprehend,
let alone explain, what is supernatural; and so, it cannot speak to us of the ultimate
significance and purpose, the final destiny, for which God in His goodness has
created our own selves and the universe we inhabit at His behest.
Now, Judgement Day will be one of the most supremely
majestic of supernatural events; it will
be the supreme manifestation of the power and holiness of the Lord and Master
of creation, and, as the letter to the Hebrews told us in the second reading,
only Jesus, the Incarnation of God’s creating Word, is – by the power of His
Spirit -- able to lead us through that Judgement to salvation:
(Jesus) offered one sacrifice for
sins and took His seat forever at the right hand of God; now He waits until His
enemies are made His footstool. For by
one offering He has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.
Jesus is the only Saviour: God-made-man, His word is Truth
and His power to save is almighty and eternal.
The mockers who think they know, will be made a stool for His feet; and, for
their mockery and boasted worldly wisdom, there will be on Judgement Day, a
judgement awesome in its inevitability and power, and glorious in its
unforeseeable beauty:
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but My words will by not pass away. But
of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son,
but the Father alone.
Now, People of God, we are not really concerned with
science here, we want to learn how we can survive that coming judgement and
find eternal blessedness, for, as our readings today warn us, when the
Judgement Day comes:
Many of those who sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, others to everlasting
reproach and everlasting disgrace.
Now, is the time of trial: even at this very moment,
the process of choosing and preparing the elect is going on all over the world,
going on in you and me.
But the wicked shall prove wicked;
(they) shall
have no understanding.
It has always been so, the wicked rejoice in their
wickedness and they convince themselves that nothing will happen to them; they
surround themselves with others who think as they do, distracting their minds
with projects, and silencing their consciences with pleasures. Nevertheless, for those who seek to live
before God and are willing to be guided by the Scriptures,
Many shall be refined, purified,
and tested (as I have said by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the
light of Jesus’ teaching in Mother Church) and those with insight shall (have understanding).
There lies our vocation, People of God: whilst we have the
time, we are called to seek understanding and urged to live wisely, for (Daniel
12:3):
Those with insight shall shine
brightly like the splendour of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice
shall be like the stars forever.
Therefore, dear People of God, do not let yourselves be
troubled by scoffers who ignore the teaching of truth; who walk, indeed run,
merrily, along ways that lead to destruction.
Let Mother Church guide you, let the Spirit of Jesus lead you, to
righteousness and insight; for then you will come to know -- even here on earth
-- something of the plenitude of peace and fullness of joy promised by Our Lord,
before ultimately sharing in His transcendent glory when those other words of
Jesus find their fulfilment:
They will see ‘the Son of Man
coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then He will send out the
angels and gather (His) elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to
the end of the sky.
