Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B 2009
Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-14
Mark 13:24-32
When I was a senior in college, a friend of mine, Ron, was going into Chicago with a friend of his. On US #20, just outside of Galena, IL they missed a curve, went down an embankment, both were thrown from the car which came to rest on Ron’s friend, literally crushing him to death. Ron suffered a slight concussion and scalp laceration.
I visited him in the hospital early the next morning and I shall never forget it. “ Ev, WHY? One minute we are sitting next to each other just inches apart. Within that minute, Mike is dead and I am still alive. WHY?”
In January of ’73, after one of the Sunday Masses, the president of Lease America came up to me and said that they had purchased a new company airplane, a King Air. He asked what my day off was and if I would want to ride along?
Being an enthusiastic pilot, I jumped at the chance to sit in the co-pilots’s seat of a plane like that. But that afternoon, while ice skating, I broke my leg and got a full length cast. So, I took a rain check.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the new King Air crashed about 20 miles west of Cedar Rapids airport and all 6 on board were killed. I sat in my room, stunned, as I watched the news and asked myself: “WHY?”
While we have conquered many fatal diseases and our life expectancy has drastically increased, it seems to me that my generation is the first to have accidental and violent, traumatic death as one of the leading causes of death. We face the fact that the person sitting next to us could very well be dead next week. Yet, ironically, I think we handle death less well than did our parents/grandparents. We are more afraid of death than perhaps any generation before us.
The Scriptures today aim to have us come face-to-face with the fact of death; and to do that with hope. A hope, which allows us to understand death and judgment as something, we do rather than something that is done to us.
In Christian spirituality, death is the final drawing together of whom I am – a beloved child of God, a brother/sister of Jesus, and a participant in His resurrection, His victory of death. Judgment is a final affirmation of all that I am and have done. It is an invitation to see my life as a journey of growing in faithfulness to Jesus.
How we see the future radically affects how we live life today. Look at the.
Early Jewish converts to Christianity:
kicked out of Judaism
Roman emperor begins to persecute them
Earthquakes destroyed Ladocia
Mt. Vesuvius destroys Pompeii
Eventually a famine hits Rome
But they were filled with hope, not morbid or preoccupied with death. Their hope was in Jesus Christ, not in themselves. We can see how their hope in the future affected their day-to-day life.
How we see the future radically affects how we live life today. I am reminded of Thomas Edison when fire destroyed his laboratories and everything that he had been working on. His wife became very depressed. Edison said: “All of my mistakes have been destroyed. Now I can start over.”
Many today have a fear of final judgment, which I think is rather unscriptural. The Hebrew scriptures, like our psalm today reflect that we see Jesus as our inheritance. The Christian scriptures basically have the stance that we have nothing to fear in life or in death, because in Jesus our God is with us. We began this month of remembrance with the feast of All Saints. Saints are people who were love by God, they are forgiven sinners; not people who were scared to death!
We live in a country with so much apathy & despair because of our uncertainty regarding the future. We live in a society, which is riddled through, and through with violence on the screen and in real life: in our families, on streets, at school, and at work.
As the prospect of violence and death surround us, Christians must be a witness to the HOPE that “in death, life is not wiped away, but only changed”. (preface to Eucharistic Prayer)
We come to the end of our liturgical year. Next Sunday is Christ the King and then we begin a new year with Advent. Both the end of the year and the season of Advent are filled with great HOPE. We are a people of hope.
As we sang today, “You are our inheritance O Lord."
Communion meditation
I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the Praise of others.
I was given weakness that I might feel the needs of others.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all, most richly blessed!
- unknown author