christianity
Out of the gloom of our fallen nature, Jesus’ light will help us to see.
St. Augustine taught that the New Testament is hidden in the Old Testament and the Old is revealed in the New. We see this presented in the first reading as well as in the Gospel. We read how “the deaf shall hear” and “out of the gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind will see” (Isaiah 29:18). Then we read how Jesus healed the blind men who call out to him believing that he is indeed the Son of David, the messiah, the anointed one (Matthew 9:27-31).
Jesus acknowledged that their faith was a catalyst in healing them but he also pointed out covertly that they were still in need of spiritual healing. Yes, they could now physically see, but they, like the apostles and others who hoped for the messiah, were looking for their idea of a messiah that is like David, a political and military leader that will lead a revolution to overthrow the occupying power of Rome.
Jesus told them clearly not to tell anyone what had happened, because he was not about to promote a cult of personality, nor have them portray him in a false way. Yet, share they did. They shared their encounter with Jesus with great joy.
Though we may have eyes to see and ears to hear, we too can be spiritually blind to who Jesus truly is. Jesus came into the world just over two thousand years ago as, God’s Son and visible reality of God who is love. Jesus calls us to be conformed to this same love. If we see ourselves and each other with the eyes of our fallen nature, from the perspective of our past wounds, and our present day reactions, we are going to miss the mark.
The saints are those who followed Jesus in each generation from the apostles to our own. They were willing to be transformed by the fire of his love. They encountered Jesus, had faith in him, believed, and put into practice what they learned. Just as something like scales fell from the eyes of St. Paul so that he could see anew, we too can see with the eyes of faith.
Let us pray together:
Jesus, this Advent, help me to choose to walk out from the gloom and darkness of anxiety, fear, and insecurity, and place my trust in your revealing light that I may walk with confidence on your path of love. Free me from any sins, distractions, and diversions such that I may experience the closeness you know with your Father. Please help me to place my trust in you, and please heal my blindness so that I can see more clearly, reject the lies that lead me astray, and see the path that leads to the way, the truth, and the life.
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Photo: Walking back after holy hour Wednesday night, sight of the super moon.
Link for the Mass readings for Friday, December 5, 2025
“Religious confession is no substitute for personal relationship with Jesus”.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt 7:21).
I have written quite often, quoting and paraphrasing one of my favorite quotes from St. Irenaeus, that Jesus came to be one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity. In his becoming one with us in our humanity he invites everyone, no one is excluded, to participate in his divinity. Yet if everyone is invited, how can Jesus say that not everyone will enter the Kingdom of heaven?
The answer to that question is in the line that follows. The one who will enter heaven is, “the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” If this verse does not help, then it might be helpful to understand a little about heaven, as best as we can, as the mere mortal, finite beings that we are.
Heaven is not so much a place but a state of being in relation to God, in which we are privileged to share communion and a deeper intimacy with God for all eternity. We will still not know everything about God because God is infinite and we will still be finite even in heaven. God is without limit, we are limited. We will never exhaust our relationship, never get bored with God.
Maybe a more three dimensional, an earthly example may be of help. If we were invited to play a sport, an instrument, or to act in a play, with the end goal being that we would play in the upcoming game, concert, or performance, we might feel pretty excited about the offer. We tell the coach, conductor, or director “That’s great news!” Yet, in the days that follow, we do not attend any of the practices, we do not practice the skills required to play the position, instrument, or role and we do not return any of the follow-up invitations by phone, email, or text. The day of the big game, concert, or performance comes, we gather our self together and head on over to the arena or hall. We arrive to see the coach, conductor, or director but are denied entrance. We might say, “I don’t understand, you invited us to play!” The reply is, “Not everyone who says to me coach, coach (conductor, conductor, or director, director) is ready and prepared.”
Jesus invites us to play a part in God’s theodrama, everyone. Some say yes and some say no. Some say yes, and then don’t put into practice what is then asked, some say yes and do some things, some say yes and dive in. Most of us take a few steps forward and a step or two back. Just like preparing to play in a big game or perform in a big concert, or play, we need to be committed, disciplined, and persistent. Unlike a missed opportunity to participate in a game or performance, that we can correct and make another attempt down the road, we don’t want to miss the opportunity to spend eternity with God in heaven.
The above analogy does not imply in any way that we earn our way into heaven, or we can do so on our own effort and will power. The bottom line is that Jesus gave his life for all of us and through his grace, we have been saved. Our salvation is a gift freely given. Yet, we have to be willing to receive and open the gift. Our time here on earth is the time we are given to: open the gift we have received, work out our salvation, not just hear but to also put into practice Jesus’ teachings, and be about building our relationship with him. As we do so, we will be transformed by and conformed to Jesus, so that we can come to know his Father as he does, and then we can reflect the light and love we have received to others.
It is not enough to say that we believe in Jesus. “Religious confession is no substitute for personal relationship with Jesus and the obligation to obey his Father’s will. If our creed and our conduct are out of alignment, then our profession of Jesus as Lord is not a true submission to his lordship. The mere fact that believers can perform miracles in Jesus’ name, which is an exercise in charismatic grace, is no proof that sanctifying grace has penetrated their lives or brought them closer to Christ” (Mitch and Sri, 121).
If we want to know and put into practice God’s will, we need to know God. Advent is a time of preparation, a time of getting to know Jesus who is already with us and inviting us to let him have reign of every part of our lives. Jesus helps us to recognize and see what our lives are like without God and how they are with God. If we are willing to see, that clarity helps us to better choose our thoughts, words, and actions.
When we are humble enough to acknowledge ways that weaken our relationship with God, we can then repent and seek forgiveness. God never tires of forgiving us. Let us never tire of asking for forgiveness and committing more to knowing and putting into practice his will. Each time we seek and receive forgiveness, our minds and hearts are not only expanded but properly aligned to Jesus so that we may experience more of the love of the Holy Spirit, which helps our relationship to grow and to put into practice our Father’s will.
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Photo: “Prayer can truly change your life, for it turns your attention away from yourself and directs your mind and your heart towards the Lord.” – St. John Paul II
Mitch, Curtis and Edward Sri. The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010.
Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, December 4, 2025
When we come to sit at the feet of Jesus we experience healing and are nourished.
“Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, went up on the mountain, and sat down there. Great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others. They placed them at his feet, and he cured them” (Mt 15:29-30).
There is a key yet subtle point before Jesus began to heal that might be missed. Before great crowds came to him, Jesus “went up on the mountain, and sat down there.” This is no insignificant sentence. The posture of sitting on the mountain would have been recognized right away by the people of Jesus’ time. This was the posture of the teacher and sitting on the mountain a reference to Moses. Prior to the healing in this setting, as he did throughout the Gospels, Jesus most likely taught about the reign of God. In fact time and again, Jesus’ “works of healing took place in this context of his preaching of the kingdom of God” (Lohfink 2014, 58).
A great multitude of people came to Jesus to hear his message and also they came with a full range of needs. Jesus made himself available, exorcised, restored, and healed those who were brought to him. He encountered them as they were in their present condition of need. There is no record in this Gospel account that Jesus asked for any identification, that he discussed their belief system before healing them, nor did he ask if they were Jewish or Gentile, and nowhere in this account did Jesus deny anyone who came to him. The response of those to being healed and restored was that “they glorified the God of Israel“. This is because, “where God is master, there is salvation and healing” (Lohfink 2014, 62).
These recorded accounts of mass healings, are but a foretaste of the heavenly realm of eternal communion with the Father. Jesus is the kingdom of heaven at hand, for as St Irenaeus wrote, “Jesus opened up heaven for us in the humanity he assumed.” Jesus though was not done. The whole process took some time, which is probably an understatement, and as people were getting ready to leave, Jesus showed compassion yet again. He sought the assistance of the disciples because he did not want to send the people away hungry.
The disciples of course are taken aback because of the reality of the undertaking Jesus proposed. Jesus asked what they had and they shared just some bread and fish. Jesus took “the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full” (Mt 15:36-37).
This Advent let us surrender our will to God. May we pray with and meditate upon the Gospels such that they become relevant in our lives, so that we can serve God as Jesus did. Not stopping to ask for identification, religion, race, gender, creed, or political affiliation, but to see each person as God sees them as his children, human beings with dignity and value. In reading, meditating, and praying with the Gospels, we too come to sit at the feet of Jesus. We too can express our need, be nourished, and satisfied. We can then share what we have received.
Let us also not be dismayed by how little we have, but let us give what we do to Jesus in solidarity for his purpose, as did the disciples, so to experience with those we serve, the multiplication and abundance of the love, and grace we have received from our loving God and Father. For when God is our master, “there is salvation and healing.”
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Photo: Where I come to sit at Jesus’ feet during my holy hour each evening since returning to our renovated church a few weeks ago.
Lohfink, Gerhard. No Irrelevant Jesus: On Jesus and the Church Today. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014.
Walking with Jesus will help us to experience the joy of the Father and the Holy Spirit.
“All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him” (Lk 10:22).
God the Father knows God the Son and God the Son knows God the Father. They do not just know about each other, they know each other with a deep intimacy that is far beyond our human comprehension. Contemplating this reality can fill us with hope especially when we come to realize that Jesus is the Son of God who has come into our lives so that we can participate in the trinitarian communion of the Father and the Son and the love shared between them, who Jesus “rejoiced in” (Lk 10:21), the Holy Spirit!
Jesus has come as an agent of reconciliation, to restore our relationship with God, to undo the effects of the sin of separation that has so ruptured and wounded our relationship with him, each other, and his creation. Our hope this Advent is that we can come not just to a better understanding of God, but to restore our relationship with God and grow in intimacy with him through our participation in the life of his Son. Doing so, will also help us to do the same in our present relationships. Healing can happen when each of us are open to the Holy Spirit.
May the Advent season not get away from us before it even starts because of the external distractions from the material, commercial, and everyday busyness, nor from the everyday internal mental and psychological challenges that threaten. Choosing to be still, to breathe deep, and spend some time in God’s gift of creation, to enter into his natural rhythm, and bask in the wonder and vast expanse of it all can help us to step away from the distractions for even a little bit. In those moments we can find rest, reset, and react less. Reacting less helps relationships to heal.
I have done a lot of traveling in my life, but wherever I have gone, spending a year in the Bronx, six months in Los Angeles, a summer on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations, growing up and living in Connecticut for my first thirty years, or the last thirty years here in Florida, I have sought to spend time looking up at the sky. When I allow days to pass and I do not do so, I feel different and not for the better.
All of creation echoes the wonder and adoration of the gift that the season of Advent offers: Jesus, who became one with us in our humanity so we can become one with him in his divinity, invites us to participate in a deeper walk with his Father, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who knit us together in our mother’s womb, and who knows us better than we know ourselves! Please spend some time with God today in quiet reflection and allow him to love you where you are and as you are and rejoice in the Holy Spirit! Then share that joy with those in your lives.
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Photo: Walking on the way to our church hall for a meeting, turned back, and looked up. Wow. God is so good!
We begin another Advent to watch and pray for Jesus’ coming.
As the earth turned again one more time on its axis last night, and the shadows began to fall, night slowly crept over each part of our planet. Our sacred text, our sacred word, is not only written in the Bible, but the finger of God has traced his word across all of the earth, the galaxy, the universe, the whole of the created order. God continues to write and sing us his love song. The ground, foundation, and source of creation and our very being is the outpouring of the Trinitarian Love expressed between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
As the sun appeared to us to set, and night gently made its way across our minuscule earth in this part of the Milky Way last night, the vigil began and so also began the new liturgical year and we now find ourselves in the season of Advent. We heard or will hear again today the words of Jesus urging us to: “Stay awake” (Mt 24:42).
Paul in the second reading also sounds the alarm, for, “it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep” (Romans 13:11). Traditionally, the readings of the first two weeks of Advent focus on our watching for the second coming of Jesus. We are to watch and pray, to step away from the triggers of reacting. This Advent we are invited to slow down, observe how the daily cycle of day to night and night to day repeats itself. In doing so, we can enter into that daily rhythm of breathing, watching, and praying so that we can be more aware and more alert for the signs of his coming, like a watchman standing guard over the city. Then instead of reacting, we can choose to act according to God’s will.
During Advent, we also prepare in the final two weeks to remember again the first humble coming of Jesus, the Incarnation, in which the infinite Son of God took on flesh at his miraculous conception in the womb of Mary and became man. Fully God and fully man, Jesus experienced our human condition in the most vulnerable of settings. We are a people of memory, though we often forget, that is why we hear the story again of the simple birth of our savior, who many rejected even then, saying there was no room for him in the inn. Do we make room for Jesus to come to be present in our daily lives?
The third way we prepare for the coming of Jesus during Advent, is in our everyday experiences. We who have much in the way of material comfort need to remember, how God heard the cry of the poor and saved his people by sending Moses to free them from their bondage in Egypt. He sent judges and prophets to guide his people, and he sent his Son to be born in poverty, to free us from our bondage to anyone and anything that is not from him, anything that will lead us astray.
“God, in Christ, has come to set right a world gone wrong” (Grunow, 174). We have been made for God and nothing with fill our deepest desire to be in relationship with him. There is so much that attempts to lead us away from God. We can and do try to fill our deepest longings by grasping for anything but God and find ourselves dissatisfied time and again. We can’t save ourselves. The greatest willpower, discipline, and persistence is not enough. We need God, we need a savior. Let us remember this Advent who we are, whose we are, and who we are called to be. As we prepare for Jesus’ second coming and prepare to remember and celebrate his birth, may we also remember to set aside some time to enter into the rhythm of creation, to allow our hearts to beat in time with Jesus’ Sacred Heart.We have been created by Love to love. As gently as the night gave way to the morning rays of the sun this morning, may we live and move more gently upon this earth. May our thoughts, words, and actions be filtered through the holy hepa filter of the Holy Spirit. So that we filter out that which is not, and accept that which is, of God. As we prepare well, we will not need to know the time or the hour, because we will know our Savior and so will be ready. Let us then awake, watch, and pray.
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Photo: Ready or not, Sunday Vigil here at Holy Cross, Advent has begun!
The Word on Fire Bible: The Gospels. Park Ridge, Illinois: Word on Fire, 2020.
“Be vigilant at all times and pray.”
“Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man” (21:36).
These are the last words we will hear or read from this liturgical year from the Mass. The season of Advent and the new liturgical year begins tonight at the vigil Mass. They are not only good words to end the year with but that they would also be good words to read at the beginning of each day.
“Be vigilant at all times” are certainly words to abide by. This is not a call to be paranoid or to live in fear. This is a call to be aware, to watch, and pray. What we see, hear, and think is then important to bring to God in prayer. Being vigilant is also a reminder that we need to resist the temptation of speeding through life with blinders on and not taking time to listen to that quiet voice of God that is available to guide us day in and day out. The more we hear the subtle, quiet leading of the Holy Spirit and ignore it, the less we grow in our awareness of his presence in our lives or the presence of those who need his mercy, grace, and love.
Worse yet, the less we take the time to hear and know God’s word, the more we will be distracted, tempted, and persuaded by the myriad of other voices that are not from God, which can lead us astray. That is why prayer is so important, so we can develop an ear for our loving God and Father’s guiding voice heard when we are still. Once we begin to recognize his voice spoken in the silence of our hearts, we will begin to hear him speak in our daily activities.
Being vigilant also requires us to surrender our self-serving ego, for if we want what we want when and how we want, if we just keep up at a fever pitch pace, if we are feeding ourselves with apparent goods, we can open ourselves up to some unsatisfying and pretty horrible scenarios.
There are those who seek to do us harm from self interest and lack of awareness to forms that are unconscionable. Pretending that they aren’t there doesn’t work and being paralyzed with fear makes us more vulnerable. We need to be aware of, and establish clear boundaries for ourselves and communicate them with others. Each time we listen and follow through on the leading of the Holy Spirit, our conscience is better formed, we increase our confidence in who we are and who God is guiding us to be. We can also sidestep scenarios that can lead us down some dark paths.
Being vigilant and turning to God daily and often does not mean that we will be free of challenges. We live in a fallen world. There is imperfect actors within the Church as well. But in each and every case, we are to maintain hope in the one who we will be preparing for this Advent, the return of Jesus. He is the Light that shines in the darkness and will not be overcome by it (cf. John 1:5).
Though others may let us down or seek us ill, Jesus is the one we can trust. Jesus is the one who will accompany and strengthen us as we face any temptations, trials, and tribulations. As St Augustine said in one of his homilies, “while we are still in the midst of this evil, let us sing alleluia to the good God who delivers us from evil.” For, in the end, Jesus the Christ will be the one to lead us home to the Father’s embrace for all eternity. Watch and pray today and all days! It is the most important thing we can do each day.
Painting: Head view of Rembrandt’s Christ with Arms Folded.
With Jesus we can live more fully now and better prepare for eternity to come.
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Lk 21:33).
Jesus is emphasizing here the soundness of his parable of the fig tree and its allusion to the fall of Jerusalem which would happen within this generation or forty years. The fall of Jerusalem would indeed come in 70 AD. The great temple in Jerusalem would come down and this time not be rebuilt.
All that exists and that we know will pass away eventually because all things are finite, they are limited and material. The readings of this week repeat the same theme that we are not to place our hope and trust ultimately in the things of this world. The longer we live, the more we will experience loss, even the death of those closest to us. I remember my maternal grandfather share with me when he was around ninety years old that most of the people he grew up with were no longer alive.
All that which is physical and finite will pass away, but the words of Jesus will not pass away. Jesus’ words are life. He is God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is the Logos, the Word, the very reality of God. Hearing his word is not enough though. Once we hear his word, we are to then mediate, pray with, and ponder his words, put his words into action and practice them in our lives. In doing so, Jesus becomes one with us in our humanity and we, one with him in his divinity. In God’s time, we will begin to bear fruit. We will become like the fig trees when their buds burst open.
Momento Mori is the Latin phrase that means, remember you will die. Accepting the reality of death and contemplating on our own deaths is not a morbid exercise when we enter this pondering with the end goal in mind that we will be one day be with God for all eternity. Also, those who contemplate their deaths more regularly live their lives more fully now. When we practice our awareness of death, we better appreciate our and the lives of others more because we come to see the fragile nature of our human condition.
Contemplating our death from time to time, also helps us to determine who and what is important to us. Dr. Leo Buscaglia, a professor at USC, while he was still alive had assigned his students an invitation to imagine that they had one week to live. They were to come up with a list of what they would want to do for that week and with whom they would want to spend it. After they turned in their assignments, Dr. Buscaglia then returned the papers and said, “Why not live this way now? Why do you have to wait until you are dying to start living your life more fully?”
Jesus invites us to resist the temptation to avoid uncomfortable situations as well as to resist clinging to wonderful experiences once they are gone. This healthy indifference helps us to experience the present gift of the moment where we will experience God and hear his guidance more clearly. Jesus helps us to live in this way because he lives in the eternal present. We are going to die someday, putting off until another day may be too late, so let us start living now.
Jesus, please help us to acknowledge that not only are we going to die, but that we need to die each day, and be free of curving in upon ourselves. Help us to open ourselves up to your promise of eternal life. Help us to discern the path you would have us to walk, guide us through our challenges and trials, and help us to bloom where we have been planted. When we listen to, meditate and pray upon, and put your words into practice, we will live more fully and experience your peace, joy, and love more deeply.
Photo: Slowing down to God’s pace helps us to hear and follow his direction, for his words will never pass away.
We can meet the challenges of discipleship when we make the time daily to know Jesus.
Jesus said to the crowd: “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” (Lk 21:12).
Each of the predictions above; being seized, persecuted, handed over, and led before the rulers happened to Jesus’ disciples as was recorded by Luke in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus did not nor does he hide or paint a rosy picture of discipleship. He consistently shared and modeled in his own life how demanding it would be to follow him, the will of his Father, the demands of discipleship, as well as the reality of having to endure persecutions. This continues to be true today. In fact, the number of Christian martyrs in the twentieth century rose to a higher level than at any other time in history combined.
Since the first days of Jesus’ public ministry, there have been those who have said yes to the invitation to be his disciple and this has continued generation after generation up to an including today. Each of us has to make our own commitment to Christ. It is a personal invitation and a personal response. Though the demands, the sacrifices, and the expectations are high, Jesus is present with us through the journey. St. Paul equated discipleship with running a race: “Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one” (I Cor 9:25).
Any athlete, musician, artist, or person engaged in any serious endeavor, must discipline themselves to accomplish their goal of freedom for mastery, for excellence. A lack of concerted discipline will not lead to the fluency and the freedom for the sought after goal. The same is true with discipleship. Someone who only does something for an hour a week is not going to be proficient at that task.
The discipline required that Jesus presents in today’s Gospel of Luke is to remain firm in authentically living out our faith even in the face of pushback, persecution, and hostility. This pressure may not just come from those who would seek us harm, but from family, friends, and/or peers. This is where the issue of putting God first comes to bear. We are not to be belligerent, get in someone’s face, or shut down dialogue about what we believe but meet others with love, mercy, and respect. Nor ought we back down from what we believe.
It is important to share, listen, respect and allow another the opportunity to do the same. From a place of mutual respect and honoring each other within and without of our own faith traditions, as well as those having none, we grow. People are free to decide as they wish. Sometimes people will react emotionally, rudely, crudely, or even violently. Yet that is not an excuse nor does it provide the green light for us to respond in kind. If we do, then we will often feed into and justify another person’s preconceived notions.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen said: “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” As disciples of Jesus Christ, it is important that we know our faith, explain what we believe, live authentically, clarify as needed through respectful dialogue, and above all to be icons of hope and love. We need not be afraid. The Holy Spirit will give us the words to speak as well as the ears to hear. The gift of respectful dialogue will result in the deepening of our relationship with the one who has made us for himself and one another. For where there is the truth, there is God who is Truth.
Photo: Making friends with silence, helps us to listen better to God and one another. We will also then know better when and what God wants us to speak.
No matter what is on the horizon, Jesus will guide us through.
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” (Lk 21:5-6).
As we read yesterday, Jesus observed the widow donating her two coins. Today Jesus observes those who are commenting about the wonders of Herod’s temple. Jesus responds by sharing, as did Jeremiah, that the temple will fall, and not a stone upon another stone will be left. The reality of this statement would come to pass in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the temple and crushed the Jewish rebellion during the Jewish War from 66-70 AD. The only significant remnant of the temple still to this day is the outer retaining wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.
The people of the ancient Near East certainly witnessed and passed on tales of the rise and fall of mighty kingdoms beginning with Egypt’s impressive reign from about 3,000 to 721 BC, followed by Assyria who then gave way to Babylon. The Babylonian army would destroy Solomon’s temple as predicted by the prophet Jeremiah. The Persians would then overtake the Babylonians and push west only to be repelled by the unification of the Greek city-states under the Macedonian Philip and then his son Alexander the Great who would continue south and east all the way to India. The massive Greek empire would then give way to Rome. Rome would then fall in 476 AD.
As each empire fell, and especially during the fall of Rome, there was a great concern that the end of the world drew nigh. Throughout the ages up until the present day, nation has continued to “rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…” and the world has experienced “powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place” (Lk 21:10-11). Each made their historical impressions on those who lived through them. There has also been a plethora of end of the world predictions from the ancients up to the more well known modern prognosticators such as Jeane Dixon, Pat Robertson, a handful of predictors around 2000, and more recent but also slipping into the rearview mirror of doomsday prophesies, Harold Camping. He caught a lot of attention with his prediction of the end of the world that was to have happened on October 21, 2011.
As of this typing, we are still here. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew record Jesus addressing the same concern of those questioning him: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (see Mark 13:32 and Matthew 24:36, RSV translation). In Luke’s presentation from today’s Gospel, he moves further away from Mark and Matthew’s eschatological or end of times talk and spoke more toward the destruction of the temple.
We have a few more days of Luke and Ordinary Time to go before the end of the liturgical year. Kingdoms have and will continue to rise and fall (hopefully not in these next few days). Abuse of power continues to lead to many who are displaced from war, terrorism, violence. Many reach out to provide compassion and support but there is never enough help. Many are enamored by our technological ingenuity and advancements, as were those who were admiring the adornment of Herod’s temple. Are we in the final days? Only the Father knows.
Yet, we are not to be anxious about tomorrow as Pope Francis encouraged those in his homily when he spoke at Tokyo Stadium in Japan a few years ago. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and “to re-evaluate our daily decisions and not to become trapped or isolated in the pursuit of success at any cost… [that] leave us profoundly unhappy and enslaved, and hinder the authentic development of a truly harmonious and humane society”.
When we place our hope and trust in Jesus, the Son who knows the Father, he will guide us through any challenge and strengthen us against any storm. Let us risk feeding the temptations of anxiety and worry. Instead may each thought, word, and action pass through the filter of a deep slow breath and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As we do so, we will know Jesus, his voice, and the will of the Father better. We will be able to abide and rest in God who is our refuge and strength no matter what comes.
Photo: Jesus Christ, our King, fights for us.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 