Posted on 11/12/2016 8:26:55 PM PST by Salvation
Daily Marriage Tip for November 13, 2016:
Jesus says in todays Gospel, By your perseverance you will secure your lives. Pray today for the grace for you and your family to persevere even when life is most difficult.
Pastors Column
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 13, 2016
Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Luke 12:33-34
In these days when many Americans are still experiencing financial insecurity or wondering where a safe investment might be that provides a decent return, Christ has some wisdom for us. For even if we succeed in finding such an earthly monetary investment, we cannot in the end hold onto our possessions, our wealth, or anything else in this world that seems to promise security but, in fact, offers nothing of the kind.
Jesus strongly advises us to make sure we are investing wisely, that is, investing with him. Every alms or tithe or sacrificial giving, every act of charity toward another, every unseen kind action is like putting a great quantity of wealth in the bank of heaven, where Our Lord promises it will be safe and pay handsome returns forever! Who could pass up an offer like that? Well, many of us do pass it up, either because we dont believe Christ or because we are too attached to the things of this world, and dont think enough about the things of heaven.
How do I know where my treasure really lies? Here are some ways to check it out. What or who do I habitually think about? Am I a generous person or stingy? Do I practice planned giving? Where do I spend most of my time and money? What proportion of these are Gods?
What things do most people yearn to possess? Wealth, status, prestige, to be noticed, to be thought well of, to be healthy, to be beautiful or handsome, to have lots of stuff, (or in my case to have the latest gadget!), granite countertops, a new 3D TV, the list is endless. In all honesty, we usually want these things because we think they will bring us happiness or security, and then after we obtain them (if we ever do!), we begin to worry about whether we are going to lose them or not.
Christ offers us a better way, and that better way is called detachment. Whatever I am blessed with in my life is meant to be shared with others, and this very act of sharing brings us untold wealth in this world and the world to come. If I find very precious things have been taken away from me lately, how angry have I become about it? Am I able to give this over to God, who can restore all things one day? Christ warns us not to worry excessively about possessions and the stuff in this world at the expense of the concern we ought to have about the world to come. The Lord may come at any time, and when we walk through that door, everything we did not send ahead stays here to be divided among others!
Father Gary
Readings:
Malachi 3:19-20
Psalm 98:5-9
2 Thessalonians 3:7-12
Luke 21:5-19
It is the age between our Lord's first coming and His last. We live in the new world begun by His life, death, Resurrection and Ascension, by the sending of His Spirit upon the Church. But we await the day when He will come again in glory.
"Lo, the day is coming," Malachi warns in today's First Reading. The prophets taught Israel to look for the Day of the Lord, when He would gather the nations for judgment (see Zephaniah 3:8; Isaiah 3:9; 2 Peter 3:7).
Jesus anticipates this day in today's Gospel. He cautions us not to be deceived by those claiming "the time has come." Such deception is the background also for today's Epistle (see 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3).
The signs Jesus gives His Apostles seem to already have come to pass in the New Testament. In Acts, the Epistles and Revelation, we read of famines and earthquakes, the Temple's desolation. We read of persecutions—believers imprisoned and put to death, testifying to their faith with wisdom in the Spirit.
These "signs" then, show us the pattern for the Church's life—both in the New Testament and today.
We too live in a world of nations and kingdoms at war. And we should take the Apostles as our "models," as today's Epistle counsels. Like them we must persevere in the face of unbelieving relatives and friends, and forces and authorities hostile to God.
As we do in today's Psalm, we should sing His praises, joyfully proclaim His coming as Lord and King. The Day of the Lord is always a day that has already come and a day still yet to come. It is the "today" of our Liturgy.
The Apostles prayed maranatha—"O Lord come!" (see 1 Corinthians 16:22; Revelation 22:20). In the Eucharist He answers, coming again as the Lord of hosts and the Sun of Justice with its healing rays. It is a mighty sign and a pledge of that Day to come.
Luke 21: 5-19
While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, “All that you see here– the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” Then they asked him, “Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?” He answered, “See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he, and ‘The time has come. Do not follow them!
When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky. Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you,
they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I turn to you today with faith, knowing that you are the Lord of life and history. Aware of my weaknesses and failures, I set my hopes in you, for you always fulfill your promises. As I contemplate your love that becomes fidelity, I, too, desire to repay you with my fidelity. I am here before you to listen and, in listening, discover your will for me today.
Petition: Lord, grant me the grace to set my heart on what is eternal and everlasting.
1. Things Change: Like the people gazing at the physical beauty of the Temple, we, too, can be mesmerized by the fleeting glitter of the treasures of this world. Time, experience and our faith teach us that things change, including relationships. Our relationships with one another are never static; they are either being weaved more intimately, or they are fraying or coming apart at the seams. This also holds true for our relationship with Christ. All we do moves us deeper into his Sacred Heart or moves us away from him.
2. Christ Is Always the Same: Christ is the most sacred of temples; he is the Temple. Yet he changed. His body suffered the wounds that man inflicted upon his body. Christ changed interiorly, too. He suffered loneliness of the worst kind, when he experienced the effects of sin in the depths of his soul separation from the Father and separation from his closest friends, his apostles. Yet in essence, Christ always remained the same, for he is love itself, and love is everlasting. Christ suffered physical and interior changes in his human nature so that we might partake of his divine nature, which is the same yesterday, today and forever.
3. The Gift of Perseverance: In order for us to enjoy eternal life, we must persevere. St. Paul talks about running the race, and moreover, about winning the race. Christ teaches us about the final victory and that to achieve this we must never deny him. Yet we are weak, and there are many ways that we deny our Lord. How can we who are so weak run the race and win the gift that lasts forever? Christ gives us the answer: Trust in him, not in ourselves or in the things or ways of this world. We will persevere through the grace he won for us on Calvary.
Conversation with Christ: Lord Jesus, your beauty transcends all creation, even my holiest of thoughts. Please bless me with the gift to appreciate more perfectly the limited beauty of created things and the infinite and everlasting beauty of you, my Lord and my God.
Resolution: Today I will reflect on the beauty of Gods creation and on the reality that all creation changes. As well, I will see and respect the everlasting beauty that resides, or should reside, in the hearts of all men, so that I will treat all people with the highest degree of respect.
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 13, 2016
First Reading: Malachi 3:19-20a
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111316.cfm
With the darkness that surrounds us, many of us Christians struggle with the virtue of hope. Yes, we can look forward to Heaven, after death, but this world often seems lost, broken and hardly redeemable. Yet the Gospel tells us that God so loved the world We cant give up just because of the troubles around us. In fact, we are called to stand firm in their midst, in the evil day (Eph 6:13). And still, theres a question that nags at the back of our minds as we watch the sad stories of the world unfold, Do we win?
This brings us to the last question given voice in Malachis prophetic book. The book is structured as a series of six disputations with God, where his people ask him difficult questions to which he responds. Our first reading for this Sunday, one of only two in the Sunday Lectionary from this prophet, is the Lords response to the sixth and final dispute. The faithful have accused God rather harshly of being unfair:
It is vain to serve God. What is the good of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts? Henceforth we deem the arrogant blessed; evildoers not only prosper but when they put God to the test they escape. (Mal 3:14-15 RSV)
While historians have a hard time placing Malachis book precisely in the timeline of ancient Israel, it is from the post-exilic period, after the Jews have returned to the Holy Land from exile in Babylon. While a humble temple has been built, there is no Jewish king, the economy is lousy and one can find precious little of the blessings promised to the faithful in the Old Testament. It would be easy to look around at the surrounding pagan and prosperous nations with a tinge of envy. Even if you kept the hard questions to yourself, everyone would be thinking the same thingsWhy would God do this to us? I thought we were his Chosen People! Where are the blessings he promised? In fact, it looks like divine providence is working in reverse. The righteous suffer, while the evil prosper. What justice is there in that?
In response to the complaint of the righteous, the Lord writes a book of remembrance (Mal 3:16). He promises once more that their names will be written in the book and that they will be honored and rewarded for their faithfulness to him. He insists that they will again be able to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked (Mal 3:18). God is not going to leave them in their suffering forever, but change their fortunes for the good. (A side note: the NAB translation follows the Hebrew numbering, so our reading is Mal 3:19-20a, whereas it is Mal 4:1-2a in RSV and other English translations.)
Thus when we get to the beginning of our reading and the Lord promises a day of judgment, burning, ovens, and fire, we are not looking at mere vindictiveness. Rather, the Lord is reassuring his beleaguered and downtrodden people that he really will judge the evildoers and honor the righteous. The fire of Gods judgment will come, but it will only destroy the wicked. It will spare those who are faithful to the Lord. This distinction is vital to honor justice and to encourage the people of God in the midst of suffering. Wrongs will be righted!
The fire of Gods judgment appears multiple times in the Bible: fire comes out from the sanctuary to consume the disobedient priests Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:1-2); fire comes down on soldiers coming to arrest Elijah (2 Kgs 1:10-11); John the Baptist threatens that the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire (Matt 3:12); the disciples want to call down fire from heaven (Luke 9:54); and the enemies of God are cast into a lake of fire (Rev 20:14-15). Yet for Malachi, the righteous will not encounter the judgment-fire of God, but the sun of righteousness, with healing in its wings (Mal 4:2). While it might seem like the fire of judgment and the healing sun of righteousness are at opposite ends of the spectrum, I think it is more likely that they are the same, fiery presence of God. If we are against God, then the fire will overwhelm us, but if we are his servants, then we will experience it as a blessing.
Gods presence provokes two opposite reactions: judgment for the unholy and healing for the holy. The trial of suffering can produce holiness and patience in some people, but it can bring about bitterness and anger in those who do not receive it with grace. Likewise, persecution can produce glorious martyrs, but also it can expose many duplicitous hearts who capitulate under pressure. The Eucharist is the same way, it brings blessing and holiness to hearts in a state of grace, but judgment to souls in mortal sin. Our standing before God is put to the test in moments of encounter with him.
What Malachis message teaches us is that even in the darkest of moments, even when the whole world seems set against us, we are still the Lords children. We are still in his hands. He is still in control. No amount of suffering, persecution or trial can upend the logic of His universe. The evildoers will never prosper in the long run. The righteous will not be forgotten forever. The Lord brings his fiery presence against those who oppose him and he rewards those who seek him with that same presence. So, yes, we do win in the end, but it might take some patience to get there.
Jesus once overheard a conversation about the glory of the Temple in Jerusalem. He then made a startling prediction. What was it?
St. Luke tells us Jesus had a conversation with His disciples about the Temple in Jerusalem. It began when some people were speaking about how the Temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings. To the Jews of Jesus day, the Temple was the signature symbol of their long covenant with God as His people. It was the place on earth where God and man literally met, an encounter that took place once a year in its inner chamber, the Holy of Holies. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter and make a sacrifice for the sins of the people, and Gods glory would come down and overshadow the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant as He accepted the offering and granted forgiveness (see Lev 16). Over Israels long history, the Temple began to be revered as a sign that nothing would ever change Gods relationship with His people. If God dwelt in their midst, how could they be anything but safe?
If we know this, we will understand how disturbing it must have been for anyone to hear Jesus startling prophecy: The days will come when there will not be a stone left upon another stone that will not be thrown down. Naturally, this provoked questions: When will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen? We might have our own question: Why would God allow the sacred symbol of the Temple to be destroyed?
In Jesus day, the Temple had actually become an empty symbol. There was little rigor in the religion of the Jews; it had become largely externalized (remember Jesus cleansing of the Temple because it was meant to be a house of prayer). In addition, the Temple sacrifices were never meant to be ends in themselves. How could animal blood ultimately atone for human sin? The Temple, with its beauty and sacred action, pointed toward something beyond itself. When Jesus came in to the world, He came to be the human fulfillment of the animal sacrifices. Innocent human blood would atone for human sin in the New Covenant He made with us. By His Death and Resurrection, He became the new Living Temple of God, where God and manall people, not just the Jewish high priestmeet. Believers, as St. Peter tells us, are now being built as living stones in this spiritual Temple, the Mystical Body of Christ (see 1 Pet 2:5). The Temple in Jerusalem was no longer necessary; it had served its purpose.
Yet why did the Temple have to be thrown down? Why not just keep it as a relic of sacred architectural history for the Jews and the whole world? To answer this question, Jesus describes a time of terrible turmoil. We know that He was predicting a coming judgment on JerusalemGods just judgment on its rejection of Jesus as their Messiah. Within just one generation of this statement, about forty years, the Romans entered the city and sacked it (70 A.D.). Nothing was left of the Temple except a portion of one wall (the Wailing Wall, still standing today). Jesus words were literally fulfilled. The sack of the city was preceded by three years of terrible mayhem within its walls. Many insurrectionists claimed to be the Messiah sent from God to deliver Judah militarily from Rome. Factions forms and warred against each other. A devastating famine grew so severe that animal sacrifices in the Temple came to an end because there were no more animals. When the Romans finally did enter the city, there was a blood bath. It was horrific. The Temple had to come down not because it was outdated but because it had become a symbol of the disobedience of Gods people.
However, we see Jesus told His disciples that before all this happens they would undergo their own upheaval because of persecution: They will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of My Name. He also warned them that their fidelity to Him could cost them relationships with family and friends. Some would know betrayal and even death. Remarkably, Jesus told the disciples not to prepare their defense beforehand, because I Myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute (see Acts 6:9-10, the martyrdom of St. Stephen, as an example of this promises fulfillment). In the coming time of trial for the disciples, perseverance would be necessary: By your perseverance you will secure your lives.
We know whenever Jesus spoke in the Gospels about the destruction of the Temple and the coming judgment on Judahs covenant unfaithfulness, He was also foreshadowing Gods Final Judgment on the whole world at the end of time. The Jews believed the Temple to be an architectural microcosm of the universea kind of replica of heaven meeting earth, of God and man together. If the Temple was destined to come to an end because of disobedience, so is this world. So, although most of what Jesus said about the Temple and the fate of Jerusalem was meant for people living in His day, the words and images reach far into the future, too.
What did Jesus want His disciples to be doing before Judahs judgment arrived? The persecution they were sure to face would do something wonderful: It will lead to your giving testimony. What should we be doing in this long stretch of time as we wait for the Final Judgment? Exactly the same thing.
Possible response: Lord Jesus, help me do all I can to spread the Good News of salvation. Now is the time to be bold.
Malachis prophecy of Gods judgment came at the time of the Jews return to the Promised Land after their exile in Babylon, about the first half of the 5th century B.C. It shows us two elements of Gods justice: punishment on evil, reward for goodness. When the Jews returned from exile, they began rebuilding the Temple that had been destroyed. However, they were half-hearted in both their building efforts and in their covenant fidelity. Through Malachi, God warns them the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evil doers will be stubble. Yet, there is also a promise of blessing for those who fear His Name: There will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays. We understand this to be a Messianic prophecy of the coming of Jesus. He came in the fullness of time, as St. Paul once wrote, as Israels Messiah. Although He was rejected by the religious elites in Jerusalem, the Gospel was preached in His Name by the apostles for forty more yearsa generation. Resistance against Jesus actually hardened in Judah during that time, although the Gentiles enthusiastically received the Gospel. Ultimately, Israels long history of faithlessness had to meet with judgment; this is the event of which Jesus spoke in our Gospel. Ultimately, this worlds rebellion against God will also be judged. Until then, the Church calls everyone to find healing in the rays of the Sun of JusticeJesus.
Possible response: Heavenly Father, thank You for being both just and merciful. Jesus is proof of that.
When we are confident in Gods justicethat evildoing will not go on forever unpunished nor goodness forever forgottenwe will want to sing a psalm like this one out of joy: The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice. So much of what makes life a struggle for us is that we are grieved by the evil that goes on all around us. It never stops; it is always breaking out in one form or another. However, Jesus is going to return to this fallen world someday and bring evil to a complete, powerless end. Because of this hope, we can sing: Let the sea and what fills it resound, the world and those who dwell in it; let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains shout with them for joy.
Possible response: The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.
This is a very interesting epistle reading for us as we think about the Second Coming and Final Judgment. St. Paul and all the apostles preached the reality of this great doctrine of our faith. However, some of the early converts misinterpreted Jesus Return as an excuse not to work. If Jesus is coming back, why get involved in working? Unfortunately, with time on their hands, these Christians were conducting themselves in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others. St. Paul reminds them of the example he and his co-workers set for them while they were in Thessalonica. They worked hard to support themselves (St. Paul was a tentmaker) and did not accept any free food or support. Even when he was still among the Thessalonians, he instructed them if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.
Waiting for Jesus, then and now, doesnt mean waiting in idleness (which usually leads to trouble). Waiting for Jesus means living for Him and with Him in the work He has given us to do. Knowing that someday He will come back and ask us for an accounting of our time on earth should make us more engaged with life in this world as His followers, not less. How foolish it would be for us to be indifferent to the world for which Jesus left heaven and gave His life. Very foolish indeed.
Possible response: Lord Jesus, sometimes I long for Your return so that I dont have to live through any more messes. Help me embrace those messes as my preparation to see You whenever You return.
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