Meaning of Life

                        33nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                    

This Sunday marks the next to last Sunday in the Church’s liturgical year. As we get closer and closer to the end of the year the readings remind us not only of the of the end of the world but also ask us to consider our own personal end. The reading from the Prophet Malachi sets the tone.

            Lo, the day is coming blazing like an oven,

            When all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble…

            But for you who fear my name, there will arise

            The sun of justice with its healing rays.

Today’s gospel reading takes up most of the 21^st chapter of St. Luke’s gospel. Immediately after this chapter we get into the story of the Passion and Death of Christ. However, to begin this chapter Luke tells the story of the poor widow who gave a small but to her a huge donation to the treasury of the Temple. Onlookers look down on her and point out how the temple “was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings.”

Jesus turns the tables on them and warns that all these costly adornments will not be worth anything on the day of salvation. He says, “the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” He had been teaching in the Temple and the onlookers ask, “when will this happen?” They also ask for warning signs and he foretells a time of a great persecution.

In the passage following our reading Jesus even seems to predict the fall and utter destruction of Jerusalem, which would take, place only 37 years after his death. He warns his followers that when they see an army surrounding the city, they should escape to the hills surrounding the city. We know for a fact that immediately before the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD the Christian community did leave the city while the rest of the Jewish nation stayed behind.

What are we to do today in our lives when we try to confront the dangers and evils that surround us both individually and as a nation? Although we are in no imminent danger of foreign invasion, our Nation has been at war for almost a decade and no end is in sight. At home the culture war goes on every day and has even invaded our homes through TV, the Internet, and sophisticated cell phones. What are we to do? How are we to act or respond?

In the distant past Christians left cities endangered by war or moral decay to enter monasteries secluded in mountains, deserts, and swamps. There they tried to build a new life based on spiritual renewal and hard work. Centuries later other religious orders appeared, like the Franciscans and the Dominicans, that sought spiritual renewal not by leaving the corrupt cities but by staying and reforming them. These new orders even created what were called “third orders,” laymen and women who would share in the work of renewal. Later, it would become more and more apparent that the work of reform was the work of all Christians, clerical or lay.

Whatever response we make, it is clear that one option is not open to us. It is ok to leave the corruption behind. We can throw out the TV and the computer and home school our children. On the other hand, we can work to make these important elements in our culture better. But we cannot give in and surrender to the enemy. We cannot accept and accommodate. To say that this corruption is ok, or that everyone does it, is not only wrong but also madness. Just look at the advice columns in our daily newspapers to see how messed up people’s lives have become in our society.

I remember a 70-year-old Catholic woman who once told me that after all her years she was still trying to figure out who she was. Maybe this is something we should all consider as we approach our own end of the world. A good place to find the answer is always in the letters of St. Paul.

In today’s letter to the Thessalonians he told them to honor their life of hard work.

            You know how one must imitate us.

            For we did not act in a disorderly way among you,…

            On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day

            We worked, so as not to burden any of you.

He also warned them to mind their own business. Someone once said that when our own business is not worth minding, then we mind the business of others. In other words, a life spent in diligence or hard work, whether in a monastery or a convent, whether in the home, school, factory or office, will need no justification.

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Reading 1. Malachi 3: 19-20a

Reading II. 2 Thessalonians 3: 7-12

Gospel. Luke 21: 5-19 (Nation...against nation).