19/11/2006 - XXXIII SUNDAY in ORDINARY
TIME - Year B
First Reading Daniel 12:1-3 Psalm 15/16
Second Reading Hebrews 10:11-14; 18 Gospel Mark 13:24-32
"You shall not covet..."! The last two Commandments penetrate the
innermost of our heart and commit us to a delicate and subtle discernment. What
are my desires? Where is the treasure of my heart? I cannot live without desire:
they are what give incentive and consolation, and the hope and power to act!
Am I doing what God desires? "Seek the things that are above" (Col.
3:1), San Paul urges. "Pursue peace and holiness with everyone" (Heb.
12:14). This is where we need to focus our desire: harmony with all men and
welcoming the Holy Spirit, in our lives! The most profound desire will become
prayer, and the Christian's prayer cannot be other than the one that our Lord
Jesus taught us: "Our Father". I want to be able to praise God, to
know His will and to welcome it, to fulfill His dreams by collaborating in His
Kingdom. I long for His bread, which is the Holy Spirit that had been promised
who, by loving, makes me similar to the Father! I desire His forgiveness, for
me and all my brothers, until there can be true peace in every home and in every
land. I wish that evil and the evil one would be far away from every human being,
and I pray for this insistently! I desire wisdom, so that I can help myself
and everyone else to live in harmony and in love, with one another. I cannot
be obedient to God's Commandments until I long to walk on the path of holiness,
the path which God, Himself, called me to follow, and to which He led me, when
He united me with His Son, Jesus!
It is difficult for me to comment on today's Readings. They use a language that
is not familiar! I will try: I should, at least, be able to center our attention
to our Lord, Jesus. Only the Father knows "that day and that hour"!
No one can intervene to change them or transform them: they are the day and
the hour in which the sun will be darkened, and when all that was created will
stop working, because "the Son of Man" will come with great power
and glory. This is a mysterious prophesy: to what does it refer? The end of
the world? The persecution of believers? The life of the Church? We have difficulty
in understanding: we would have to be in a such a difficult and trying situation,
as that in which the Christians of the first century found themselves, and have
such unquestionable love for Jesus, as they did, to be able to understand the
meaning of this type of communication. In any case, we perceive the greatness
of the news of the coming of the "Son of Man coming in the clouds with
great power and glory". This is the event which must be front and centre
in the minds of Christians, so that they can remember it as being the most normal
occurrences in nature, like the sprouting of leaves on the fig tree! "He
is near, at the very gates" !
Does the world move in all its importance, in all its divinity: sun, moon, stars
and powers, which are nothing, if not the image of the One in whom men personify
their dreams, their ambitions, their expectations, their riches, their habits
and false greatness? Look at the greatest of the world, who have kept millions
of human beings at bay, entire peoples, in fact; who have made laws and reigns,
and who brought down those laws and reigns; powerful men who led history for
decades! They all crumbled miserably, and so will all others, who continually
attempt to rise to success and domination, for the sheer purpose of making a
divine name for themselves.
The One who remains high above everything and everyone is Jesus, who humbled
Himself, who was humiliated to the point of death on the Cross. He remains high
at the top at Golgotha, on the Cross, the throne of His glory. On the Cross,
He carried and demonstrated the fullness of His love, the true face of God.
He continues to come, to be the first, the One who is most desired and most
awaited: He comes in the clouds; no one can capsize Him or make Him lose His
place. Our gaze remains fixed on Him. He is our desire. He offered the sacrifice
which makes us perfect, welcomed by the Father, capable of being real human
beings! Thanks to His sacrifice, our sins will be forgiven and we will be relieved,
and can look forward to the future joyfully. Yes, we can look at the future,
the future beyond death, without apprehension or fear. Michael "who guards
the people" will, also, be there. We are, therefore, accompanied by the
loving and invincible power of God in all phases of history. And nothing and
no one will be forgotten, because everyone will be re-awakened, "some to
everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace". The learned
will take the place of the sun and the stars!
The grandiose and strange images, fearing and reassuring, used by the holy authors
and by the Lord, Himself, are meant to make us aware of the chaos in this world.
Jesus is truly our only security and true joy, as the Psalm lets us sing: "The
Lord is my chosen portion and my cup: You hold my lot. I keep the Lord always
before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved". Let us
not be afraid, but decisive and stable; and secure in the One who is to come;
He whom the Father sent as the Emmanuel, God among us!