Friday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, December 1, 2023

Luke 21, 29-33

Jesus told his disciples a parable. “Consider the fig tree and all the other trees. When their buds burst open, you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near; in the same way, when you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near. Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

The Lord Jesus, having entered Jerusalem in triumph a day or two before to expectations that he would now restore the kingdom to Israel, warns about the end of the world.

“When you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near.”  The chief signs of the imminent approach of the Kingdom of God are the appearance of false prophets, the defection and apostasy of bishops and other Church leaders,  and a fierce, world-wide persecutions.  We learn this from the words of Christ and the Book of Revelation.  Concerning the false prophets, the Lord says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7, 15).  These are not merely those who teach falsely concerning the revealed religion of Jesus Christ but who claim to speak for God and point to another figure as the Lord.  They shall persuade many: “There shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect” (Matthew 24, 24).  Concerning the defection and apostasy of bishops and other church leaders, perhaps including popes, the Lord’s words in Mark 13, 24–25 apply: “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light.  And the stars of heaven shall be falling down and the powers that are in heaven shall be moved.”  The Fathers interpreted the “sun” in this verse as Christ himself, the “moon” as the Church, and the “stars” and “powers” in heaven as bishops.  Thus, the work of the false prophets will diminish belief in Christ in the world, and so “the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24, 12).  The Church will be so affected and so many of the faithful will depart from her that she will give forth very little light to the world.  And the bishops and church leaders who are like stars in the heavens through their positions in the Church as heirs of the Apostles, will defect and fall to the earth just as Satan did ages before: “I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven” (Luke 10, 18).  And regarding the worldwide persecution of the Church, the Lord said, “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matthew 24, 9).  In addition, it is thought that at the end, the Jews will convert.  In Romans 11, 25–26, St. Paul explains to the Roman Christians, primarily Gentile converts, that the ongoing resistance to  Christ had led the Apostles to turn their effort to the Gentiles, but that when the Gentiles were converted, the Jews would convert too: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits) that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. 

And so all Israel should be saved.”

Those who are alive at the time of these signs should know that the Kingdom of God is near, that is, that the world is coming to an end. The Lord warns that not many believers will remain that that time, but when he comes the angels will bring all those who ever lived to be judged.

“I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”  This verse has been misinterpreted by those who do not understand what the Lord means by “generation”.  These assume that the Lord means the people alive during his lifetime.  The Greek word and the Hebrew word it translates means a definite period of indefinite length.  For this reason, the word might be better translated as “age” rather than “generation”.  The Greeks and Romans spoke of four of these ages in their history: the golden, silver, bronze, and iron.  The Jews spoke of seven ages of the world, with the first extending from Adam to Noah and the fifth from the fall of Jerusalem to the advent of the Messiah.  The Birth of Christ inaugurated the sixth age or “generation” which will last until he returns, at which time the seventh, final, one begins, the eternal Sabbath.

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”  Let us consider that not even the Prophets dared to speak like this.  Only God could.  We might wonder what the people thought who heard this carpenter from Galilee who raised the dead said this.

Though the signs the Lord spoke of have not occurred yet, at least not fully, the time since his Resurrection has seen many of them take place in part, almost as preludes of that which is to come.  

 Thursday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, November 30, 2023

The Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle

Matthew 4, 18-22

As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.

“As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers.”  The story of how Jesus called his first Apostles is familiar to us, but we should note the strangeness of the Lord Jesus calling them in this place and st this time.  He does not call them while they are in the synagogue on the Sabbath day.  He does not call them while they listen to him preach.  He does not call them while they are on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.  The Lord calls them at around sunrise, when only the fishermen on the sea are awake and about.  No crowds mill about and the light is just beginning to break so that it is still very dark.  He calls them while they are at work.  He goes to them, he seeks them out.  They are exhausted from the night’s labor and soaked with the sea.  He comes to them as they are.  He takes them as they are.  He does not choose fine-living Pharisees with their pretension of knowledge; he chooses hard-living fishermen with their strong work ethic, stamina, and simple faith.  

St. Andrew was aged between fifteen and eighteen when he accepted the Lord’s call.  We know this because he was living in his brother’s house, not his own.  He was not married, then, but approaching the age for it.  He spoke Greek as well as Aramaic, for he had been given a Greek — not a Hebrew — name.  This was not unusual given the proximity to Greek-speaking areas and the need to converse with traders who passed along that way.  His parents, at the time Jesus called him, were dead, and that was why he lived with his brother and not with them.  At some point he had gone off to Judea, evidently with John, the son of Zebedee, a fellow fisherman from Capernaum, to listen to John the Baptist, and while there, he heard John point to another Galilean and say, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”  Of all in the crowd that day, only Andrew and John followed after this man, and at his invitation they spent the day with him.  Those hours changed Andrew’s life and he knew that he had to bring others to the Lord, beginning with his older brother.

He followed the Lord over the course of three years of constant travel, little rest, uncertain, constant threats from the Pharisees, and the amazement of hearing the Lord’s teaching and witnessing his miracles.  With the other Apostles, he saw the risen Lord after the Resurrection, heard him command them to preach the Gospel to all the world, and saw him ascend into heaven.  He was with the others when the Holy Spirit came upon him at Pentecost.  And after spending a few years in and around Jerusalem, he went out to the world to spread the word of God.  Early Christian writers tell us that he worked in the region around the Black Sea, going so far as the city now known as Kiev.  Around the year 60 he was crucified for the name of Jesus in Greece.  The earliest tradition spays that he was bound to a traditional Latin cross.  A little later a tradition emerged that he was bound to an X-shaped cross.  A greeting he is said to have made to his cross has made it into the Divine Office used in the West as an antiphon: “God bless you, O precious cross, be welcome to the follower of Him who hung on you,  my Master Christ” (translated from the Latin).

 Wednesday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, November 29, 2023

Luke 21, 12-19

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. 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.”

St. Luke continues his account of the Lord’s words about the end of the world.  If we compare his account with that of St. Matthew we find that the latter provides greater detail.  This is because Matthew wrote his Gospel in order to prepare the early Galilean Christians for the final judgment.  Throughout his Gospel he emphasized the teachings of Jesus about this judgment, about the threat of eternal punishment for unrepentant sinners, and the need to persevere in times of persecution (such as the Galilean Christians were experiencing at that time from the Judean leadership in the south).  St. Luke, a Gentiles Christian writing for Gentiles, reports on the Lord’s teachings about the last days but he emphasizes in his Gospel the work commissioned to those who believed in Christ to perform good works, especially in serving the poor (a distinctly new idea to the Gentiles) and to spread the Gospel beyond the confines of Israel.   

“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.”  In the time of Jesus, the synagogue was a meeting place where the Scriptures were read and discussed, but also where local issues could be hashed out.  To be turned over to the synagogues meant that a person accused of breaking the Mosaic Law would be put on trial there, with the usual result entailing loss of one’s livelihood, one’s home, being ostracized by Jewish society, and possibly stoning.  Being delivered to prison meant to be held in a secure place until execution.  Likewise, only a person already condemned was handed to over to kings and governors.  The authority in question might grant the condemned person a reprieve, but this happened rarely.  His role was to make official his guilt and set the time, place, and manner of .execution.  “Because of my name.”  That is, because, as a Christian, you share in my name “Christ”.  And to the extent that you share in my life and death you will share in my glory.  “It will lead to your giving testimony.”  St. Paul was very conscious of this.  For him, his arrests and trials served the purpose of making the Lord known to the world.  During one particular imprisonment he wrote to the Christians at Philippi: “Now, brethren, I desire you should know that the things which have happened to me have fallen out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel so that my chains are made manifest in Christ, in all the court and in all other places” (Philippians 1, 12-13).

“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.”  In the Greek and Roman world, hiring a skilled orator played a large role in how one’s fate was decided in court.  But the Lord does not want the Christian to rely on orators or lawyers or fancy speeches — the purpose for the Christian believer was not so much to evade death as to proclaim Jesus Christ.  Jesus is everything for the believer.   “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.”  You will be handed over by those for whom the teachings of the Lord Jesus come as a threat to their self-indulgence and dedication to worldly things and carnal pleasures.  Those forcibly separated from the things to which they are addicted or on which they have become dependent can become very violent, threatening and even attacking their loved ones.  They hear any word spoken against their vices as deeply personal attacks. And, urged on by the devil, they can react viciously.  So it is in the case of religious persecution in which the existence of the Christian as an attack against them.  “But not a hair on your head will be destroyed.”  Meaning, by the grace of God you will be saved and when your body rises on the day that your persecutors will be sentenced to hell, your body will shine gloriously.

“By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”  This teaching rings out through the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation.  If we could summarize the message of the New Testament I’m just a few words, we should say, “God is in love with you,  Persevere is your love for him and you will have him forever.”  

Tomorrow’s Gospel Reading ordinarily would follow today’s in the Gospel according to Luke but it is preempted by the Gospel Reading for the Feast of St. Andrew.  But to comment briefly on it (Luke 21, 20-28): The Lord speaks of an attack against Jerusalem and warns its inhabitants at that time to flee from it, leaving everything behind.  This Reading can be compared to Revelation 18, 4: “Go out from her, my people; that you be not partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues.”  In this way we can understand Jesus as speaking of Jerusalem as the world of humans dedicated to wickedness, among whom we live out of necessity.  We are to intensify our fasting, praying, and almsgiving, thoroughly separating ourselves from the attitudes and mindsets of those around us, purging every mark of their influence from our souls.

 Tuesday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, November 28, 2023

Luke 21, 5-11

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.”

“Some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings.”  The spectacular Temple in Jerusalem with its broad porch and enormous courtyards dazzled the eye forty years before the Romans destroyed it.  Few temples in the ancient world rivaled it, and the Jews rightly took great pride in it.  It presented a sign of God’s presence among his chosen people and also reminded the people of their past glory, for as much as possible, it was modeled on the Temple Solomon had built a thousand years before.  And like .solomon’s Temple in its day, it seemed like it would last forever.  “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.”  The Lord’s words, approaching blasphemy, must have shocked his hearers into silence.  First, those who had followed him from Galilee and acclaimed him as king when he entered Jerusalem a few days before, believed that he had come to proclaim the restoration of David’s kingdom.  They had become convinced that a new great age for Israel was about to begin, and here was the One whom they expected to begin it announcing that instead Israel was coming to its end.  And the devastation of the Temple would be total, exceeding even that wrought by the Babylonians on the original Temple.  

“Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?”  When the people regained their voices this asked in hushed tones about the timing.  They do not scoff, they do not ask why.  They ask when, that is, How soon?  They believe in him even after hearing these terrible words.  Perhaps their minds went back to the Prophet Jeremiah who foretold the destruction of Jerusalem if the people did not repent from their idol worship, but no one at the time believed him.  “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!”  That is, claiming to be the Son of Man.  “Many will come”.  He does not say over the space of how much time they will come.  But the proof that none of these is the Son of Man returned from heaven is that they make the claim and then declare that the end has arrived.  And indeed, many, many people have come forth over the centuries claiming to be experts or prophets and announcing that the world will end due to this or that cause, but it has not.  Teaching that the world will end in the very near future through earthquakes induced by the lineup of the planets, or overpopulation, or over cooling, or overheating,  pollution, or by the bombardment of large meteorites has become a cottage industry.  This is because people who panic spend money and yield power to those who panic them.  And then there are the religious charlatans who form cults which sometimes become established religions after their prophecies do not come true.  “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.”  The next war, the next drought, the next flood, the next fall of an empire does not portend the end of the world.  The coming of the Lord will happen at a time no one expects.

“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.”  The lectionary Gospel Reading cuts off here, but in the Gospel of Luke the Lord goes on to say, “But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you” (Luke 21, 12).  Perhaps the greatest sign that the world is nearing its end is a persecution.  St. Matthew gives the Lord’s description of how grievous this shall be: “[A] great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be again. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24, 21-22).  The persecution will cause so many to apostatize that in another place the Lord wonders if when he comes again any faithful people will remain (cf. Luke 18, 8). 

It is necessary for us who want to be saved to pay attention for the signs that the Lord Jesus gives and not to put too much stock in the predictions of any others.  In tomorrow’s Gospel Reading the Lord will teach us what to do in any persecution or temptation against our faith, pertaining most of all to the end of the age.

 Monday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, November 27, 2023

Luke 21, 1-4

When Jesus looked up he saw some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins. He said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.”

We can compare Jesus and this widow.  First, we note that she was poor and even voluntarily gave up her “whole livelihood” for God.  The Lord Jesus became poor, willingly giving up his glory with the Father and joining his divinity to a human nature which was susceptible to pain and need.  Second, she was surrounded by the rich who made a big show of their donations.  Jesus, the Son of God in whom is all wisdom and knowledge was surrounded by the pretentious Pharisees who made a show of being well-versed in the Law and the Prophets.  They did all their works “to be seen by men”  made their phylacteries broad and enlarged their fringes (cf. Matthew 23, 5).  Third, she shows much courage in going to the treasury to put in her few coins.  She does not think of the snide comments others were bound to make but is supremely confident even in her destitution.  Likewise, the Lord was known not to respect the stations of other men or to care about anyone’s opinion (cf. Matthew 22, 16).  Fourth, she gives up to God everything by which she could sustain herself.  The Lord likewise holds nothing back in his obedience to the Father but gives himself up to be crucified.  Fifth, she asks for nothing back.  She does not make a loud prayer beseeching God for help or complaining about her poverty.  The Lord Jesus asks nothing from the Father when he gives himself up to death except for the forgiveness of those who crucified him.  Seventh, the widow acted out of love.  She did not act out of fear or out of habit.  She gave all that she had to God simply out of her love for him.  Jesus obeyed the Father out of his infinite love for him.

If a poor widow can be like Jesus in so many ways, so can we all, with the help of his grace, each of us according to the circumstances of our vocations.

 The Solemnity of Christ the King, November 26, 2023

Matthew 25, 31–46

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him.”  We can compare the aspects of the Lord’s first coming among us with his last, of which he speaks here.  In his first coming, he did not come in glory but in the lowliest humility.  His angels did not attend him visibly but appeared for a few moments to some shepherds who happened to graze their sheep nearby.  It was to his humble throne of a manger that these few shepherds came in the darkness of the night, while when he comes again he shall come in brilliant light and all the people on the earth will see him together.  The living and the dead of all the ages will come before him, and while the shepherds scrutinized the scene in the place where the Lord was born, the Lord will judge all of mankind while seated on a glorious throne.  His companions at his Birth were some domesticated animals, but then he shall be surrounded by wondrous angels.  The Lord’s first coming occasioned great wonder and joy among the shepherds but terrible dismay and confusion among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  His second coming will bring great wonder and joy to the just and despair to the wicked.  The wicked will cry out in their terror: “Who is this King of glory?”, to which the angels will reply, “The Lord who is strong and mighty: the Lord mighty in battle” (Psalm 24, 8).  

Our Lord Jesus Christ rules the universe even now, though allowing his enemies to continue so that they might have the chance to repent, but the time will come when the Father will put his enemies under his feet (cf. Psalm 110, 1).  And his rule means that we shall rule with him for we are members of his Body by virtue of our baptism and faith, reinforced by our good works.  We rejoice especially on this solemnity and proclaim with the angels whose ranks, depleted by the fall of the wicked angels, we pray to fill up in heaven one day: “Alleluia: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, has reigned” (Revelation 19, 6). 

 Saturday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 25, 2023

Luke 20, 27-40

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

The fact that God had the law regarding the raising up a son from a childless widow  to carry on the dead man’s name shows his mercy for the widow.  In other middle eastern cultures it was up to an individual if he wanted to follow the custom or not.  And this custom did not exist at all in the west.  For the Jews, this was written in the Law.  It meant the care of the widow who might face poverty otherwise, and the consolation of a son who could grow and eventually take care of his mother.  It also meant that she was not cut off from the family into which she had married.

The Sadducees raise an interesting question which their very materialist outlook cannot answer.  Members of the Sadducee sect tended to be upper class and associated with Temple authority.  They arose as a counter to the Pharisees in the years of Greek rule and then the short-lived independence under the Maccabees.  Where the Pharisees accepted the writings of the Prophets as Scripture, the Sadducees did not.  They took what we might call a fundamentalist attitude and denied any teachings which were not found in the Pentateuch.  Thus, they rejected the interpretations of the Pharisees on such matters as the Sabbath and the purifications.  At the same time, they denied doctrines such as the resurrection from the dead, clearly taught by prophets such as Ezekiel.  Their conception of God and heaven came out of a belief that there was no spiritual component to a human being, nor any angels.  Death meant the extinction of the individual.  References to Sheol were understood as merely poetic.  Perhaps they envisioned God as a sort of giant man with great powers, something like the gods of other Ancient Middle East peoples like the Babylonians.

The Lord answers their question to him with patience, not mocking their beliefs as the Pharisees would.  “Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.”  “The coming age”, the seventh age, the eternal Sabbath.  The Lord Jesus comes at their question by revealing the spiritual reality of the life of heaven, something the Sadducees could not do, so blinkered were they by their presuppositions.  With the end of life on earth comes the end of earthly institutions such as marriage.  “They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.”  The Lord speaks of the souls of the just as being like angels.  And because the souls are spiritual, there is no need for marriage, an important purpose of which was to produce children through whom the parents would live after they died — this being the only way the Sadducees considered a person could exist after death.  

“That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  That is, God identified himself to Moses thus:  “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  God does not say “I was” the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, and so on.  God speaks to Moses as though Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph still live.  The Lord Jesus uses the Bible of the Sadducees to prove to them that there is life after death and that it is a spiritual life.  The Lord connects the truth of life after death with the reality of a resurrection to come.  He is able to do this because if all souls survive death, there must be a great judgment to come, for surely not all the souls will enter heaven.  This judgment will require not just a gathering of souls but a resurrection of the dead so that body and soul, the whole person could be judged.  “He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”  That is to say, God does not destroy anyone with death but preserves even sinners in life after death.

“Teacher, you have answered well.”  The scribes belonged mainly to the Pharisaic party and had looked on with interest to see if Jesus could defend the doctrine of the resurrection.  They may have opposed him on many matters, but here they offer their public approval.

We all carry about with us presuppositions and definite outlooks that prevent us from coming at new information and experiences in such a way that we might understand them on their own terms.  It is so necessary for us to be able to see through anything that might blinker us from seeing the work of God in the world.  His ways are not our ways, and if we expect him to act as we would we will miss signs of his presence in our world.

 Friday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 24, 2023

Luke 19, 45-48

Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And every day he was teaching in the temple area. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death, but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.

At the beginning of the prophesy from which the Lord Jesus quotes Almighty God speaks through Isaiah: “Let not the son of the stranger, who adhere to the Lord, speak, saying: The Lord will divide and separate me from his people. And let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs, They that shall keep my sabbaths, and shall choose the things that please me, and shall hold fast my covenant: I will give to them in my house, and within my walls, a place, and a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name which shall never perish” (Isaiah 56, 3-5).  The prophesy is about how God will gather into his Temple the Gentiles and well as the Jews.  This turns on its head a thousand years of understanding the Law of Moses as making Israel the very distinct people of God.  It was to the Israelites alone that the Law was given, not even to their relatives the Edomites.  But now God announces that the Gentiles too shall be brought into his worship.  The prophesy goes on to say, “And the children of the stranger that adhere to the Lord, to worship him, and to love his name, to be his servants: every one who keeps the sabbath from profaning it, and who holds fast my covenant:  I will bring them into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall please me upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for all nations” (Isaiah 56, 6-7).  Notice how there is no mention of circumcision.  It is as if God were saying, “It is I who make these my children, not physical descent from Abraham or mere physical circumcision.  I call them and they respond with faith.”  

And so when the Lord Jesus cries out that the Temple is a house of prayer, he fulfills the prophesy which he quotes, for he overthrows the remnants of the sacrifices of the Old Law through his driving out the animals used for this purpose, and he shows, at the same time, that the old priesthood has come to an end.  All Gentiles and Jews are to worship God together in the Temple and in the Holy Church which succeeds the old Temple which will shortly be destroyed by the Romans.

 Thursday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 23, 2023

Luke 19, 41-44

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

The Scriptures tell us of only two occasions in the Lord’s life in which he wept: at the time of the death of Lazarus, and here.  In the first case, he wept, mourning over the sin of Adam and Eve by which death entered the world and brought so much grief and pain with it.  In the second case, he wept that the human race had continued and would continue to choose sin, which brings death — not only the death of the body but of the soul.

“He saw the city and wept over it.”  Normally, the one who made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem rejoiced upon finally seeing it.  Here, the Lord weeps in sorrow.  “If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes.”  St. Matthew shows how the people of the city were so absorbed in their own affairs, concerned only about worldly things, that the arrival of their long-prophesied Savior came as a bad shock.  In Matthew 2, 3 the Evangelist tells of their reaction to the arrival of the Magi who are searching for the new-born King of the Jews: “King Herod hearing this, was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.”  The Greek text has, “thunderstruck”.  And Matthew shows the reaction of the people when the Lord Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph with his crowds of followers: “And when he was come into Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, saying: Who is this?” (Matthew 21, 10).  The Greek word for the verb is better translated as “shaken”, as, “the whole city was shaken.”  The people did not rejoice.  They panicked.  And the Lord wept, for the very people who should have been waiting excitedly for him, did not.  What was it that made for their peace?  The Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace.  He was “hidden” from their eyes because they were too busy admiring themselves in their mirrors, dismissing out of hand any stains of sin they may have spotted on themselves.  In fact, they hid their eyes from him, thinking that of they did not look, he would go away.  But they could not keep this up: they might try to ignore him, rejecting him, but the consequences of rejecting their Savior would come upon them at last, and they would be “smashed to the ground”.  Jesus seems to link the rejection of him by the Jews with the destruction of Jerusalem some thirty-seven years after his crucifixion and Death.  And so we should see that rejection of the Lord ever results in disaster for those who do reject him: “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved: but he who does not believe shall he condemned” (Mark 16, 16).  That is, he who refuses to believe.

“Because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  Jerusalem should have recognized the time of her visitation.  The Jews had the prophesies, they could count the number of the generations, and no one preached as Jesus did or perform miracles as he did.  Within a few hours walk of the city he raised a man from the dead.  Within the city he performed breath-taking healings.  He silenced the cleverest of the Pharisees and the Sadducees with his teaching.  And still they did not know, or, if they did, they would not bow to him.

The time of our visitation is this day and every day of our lives.  Let us rejoice that God has sent his Son into the world to redeem us and to lead us into heaven.  “This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118, 24).

Today Americans celebrate a day of Thanksgiving, calling to mind all the good that we have received in this country.  The first Thanksgiving celebrated by the people of the Plymouth Bay Colony took place hundreds of years ago after the prosperous harvest that followed their first bitter and hungry winter in this land.  Let us who bear the name of Christian be sure to give our thanks to Almighty God for whatever he has given us in his mercy.  Our culture, firmly in the grip of materialism, emphasizes that we should only celebrate ourselves, but we know that without the grace of God, we are nothing.

 Wednesday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 22, 2023

Luke 19, 11-28

While people were listening to Jesus speak, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’ But when he returned after obtaining the kingship, he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money, to learn what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’ He replied, ‘Well done, good servant! You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.’ Then the second came and reported, ‘Your gold coin, sir, has earned five more.’ And to this servant too he said, ‘You, take charge of five cities.’ Then the other servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your gold coin; I kept it stored away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man; you take up what you did not lay down and you harvest what you did not plant.’ He said to him, ‘With your own words I shall condemn you, you wicked servant. You knew I was a demanding man, taking up what I did not lay down and harvesting what I did not plant; why did you not put my money in a bank? Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.’ And to those standing by he said, ‘Take the gold coin from him and give it to the servant who has ten.’ But they said to him, ‘Sir, he has ten gold coins.’ He replied, ‘I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.’”

“They thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately.”  Some had hailed him as the Messiah from the earliest days of his Public Life.  Others had to be slowly convinced.  Many refused to believe.  But as the Lord Jesus made his way to Jerusalem this last time, large numbers of people joined him in expectation that he was the one the Pharisees had sight them to expect: the one whose coming would being about the establishment of the new kingdom of Israel, with the destruction of its enemies.  He would seize power and proclaim that David’s rule had returned.  The Romans would be swept away as decisively as the Egyptian chariots had been overwhelmed in the Red Sea.  The crowds that surged alongside and before and behind the Lord were so certain of this.  Of the four Evangelists, St. Luke especially emphasizes this belief, as in his remark here, in quoting the two disciples who go to Emmaus after the crucifixion (Luke 24, 21), and in what he says about some of the disciples before the Ascension in The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1, 6).  Luke does this for his Gentile Christian readers to remind them of how the Jews seriously misunderstood Jesus, who never preached rebellion and refused to call himself by the title “messiah”.  He pointedly accepted only “master” or “teacher” and “Lord” — the latter used by those who believed in him as the Son of God.

“A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.”  However, here the Lord hints at his Kingship, a Kingship of unimaginable extent, but he as a King who rode not on a horse but on a lowly, common donkey — a King who came to serve.  “Engage in trade with these until I return.”  This noble who was about to go off to a distant land to receive his kingdom displays great confidence.  He hands over his money as a matter of course to these servants, expecting them to make more money with it before he returns, which he fully expects to do.  “We do not want this man to be our king.”  These citizens show a foolhardy contempt for their new ruler.  The noble has been appointed king and goes to take possession of his cities.  The citizens have no say in this and would be wise to continue going about their business.  Instead, they attempt to reject him and are arrested when he comes.  

“Well done, good servant! You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.”  This slave has traded well with what was entrusted to him.  This has required hard work, constant attention, and probably a few sleepless nights.  The ruler puts him in charge of ten of the cities he has received, replacing those who had been in authority, perhaps some of whom had shown contempt to him.  And so it goes down the line until the last slave who did nothing with the money given to him.  His failure is magnified because none of his nine fellow slaves had acted as he had.  He does not merely fail; he does not even make an attempt.  This amounts to contempt as deep as that of those who had objected to the ruler in the beginning of the story.

“tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”  The gold coins signify faith.  It is given as a gift and is received as a gift by nine of the slaves, but it is not received by the last one, who treats it with disgust.  The good slaves increase their faith through prayer and good works, persevering through all the time their master is away, using all the time available to grow in faith to as much as possible and never ceasing in their efforts until their master returns.  These are rewarded with cities, that is, with high places in heaven.  The one who treated the gift of faith his master wanted him to have with contempt loses it, but it is as though he never really possessed it.  

“Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.”  The Lord shows the consequences of those who reject him: eternal death, which these rebels seemed to court with their needless arrogance and useless pride.  This day and every day, Almighty God gives us a choice we are to make: “Consider that I have set before you this day life and good, and on the other hand death and evil: 

that you may love the Lord your God, and walk in his ways, and keep his commandments and ceremonies and judgments, that he may bless you in the land which you shall go in to possess. But if your heart be turned away, so that you will not hear, and being deceived with error you adore strange gods, and serve them: I foretell you this day that you shall perish, and shall remain but a short time in the land to which you shall pass over the Jordan, and shall go in to possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that both you and your seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30, 15-19).