Hope in a New World

November 14, Sunday

Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Some parts of Scripture, like today’s readings, speak of calamities and disasters as signs of an old world decaying and Jesus coming in judgment. Today’s television and other media bring into our homes the disasters and violence and suffering of the whole world; and people ask: where all this is leading us. These are signs for us today that the world in which we live is decaying, but we should not overlook the signs of hope too in a fairer and more unified world, the crumbling of tyrannies on the right and the left. These are, like budding branches on a tree, signs of hope in a new world that is growing, and in the coming of God among us, his people. Let us celebrate this hope in this Eucharist.

 

First Reading: Daniel 12:1-3

 “‘That’s when Michael, the great angel-prince, champion of your people, will step in. It will be a time of trouble, the worst trouble the world has ever seen. But your people will be saved from the trouble, every last one found written in the Book. Many who have been long dead and buried will wake up, some to eternal life, others to eternal shame.

 “‘Men and women who have lived wisely and well will shine brilliantly, like the cloudless, star-strewn night skies. And those who put others on the right path to life will glow like stars forever.

 

Second Reading: Hebrews 10:11-14, 18

Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this:

This new plan I’m making with Israel
    isn’t going to be written on paper,
    isn’t going to be chiselled in stone;
This time “I’m writing out the plan in them,
    carving it on the lining of their hearts.”

He concludes,

I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.

Once sins are taken care of for good, there’s no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.

 

Gospel: Mark 13:24-32

“Following those hard times,

Sun will fade out,
    moon cloud over,
Stars fall out of the sky,
    cosmic powers tremble.

 “And then they’ll see the Son of Man enter in grand style, his Arrival filling the sky—no one will miss it! He’ll dispatch the angels; they will pull in the chosen from the four winds, from pole to pole.

 “Take a lesson from the fig tree. From the moment you notice its buds form, the merest hint of green, you know summer’s just around the corner. And so it is with you. When you see all these things, you know he is at the door. Don’t take this lightly. I’m not just saying this for some future generation, but for this one, too—these things will happen. Sky and earth will wear out; my words won’t wear out.

 “But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, not even the Son. Only the Father. So keep a sharp lookout, for you don’t know the timetable. It’s like a man who takes a trip, leaving home and putting his servants in charge, each assigned a task, and commanding the gatekeeper to stand watch. So, stay at your post, watching. You have no idea when the homeowner is returning, whether evening, midnight, cockcrow, or morning. You don’t want him showing up unannounced, with you asleep on the job. I say it to you, and I’m saying it to all: Stay at your post. Keep watch.”

 

Prayer
God our Father,
through your Son you told us
not to worry about the day or the hour
when the old world will be gone,
for you alone know when it will happen.
Open our eyes to the sign of Jesus’ coming
and make us see him
already walking by our side.
Keep us faithful in hope
and vigilant in our love for you
and our concern for one another.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Between fear and hope

We are almost at the end of the liturgical year. When Mark writes this page of his Gospel, the Roman empire was ravaged by wars, plagues, calamities, and famines. The Christian communities were affected by the persecution and killings. Faced with such struggles Some fanatics began to spread rumours of an imminent catastrophe, the end of all creation, and the return of Christ on the clouds of heaven.

It is here, the evangelist feels he must intervene to put the events in the proper perspective. Jesus is not making some new predictions in the Gospel. Of course, he uses an apocalyptic language. But do not mistake them as invented by Jesus. It is taken from the book of Prophet Isaiah. In chapters 13 and 34, Isaiah says, the stars of heaven and the constellation Orion will no longer give their light; the sun shall be darkened at its rising, and the moon shall not give its light; all the host of heaven shall be dissolved.

Many run into the mistake of interpreting the words of Jesus in the literal sense and thus we have numerous blockbuster movies talking about the doom’s day or the end of the world. But,
Jesus is inviting his listeners to understand the history in a different way. He speaks of the days of beginning of sorrows. What sorrows is he talking about? They are the pains of birth, the birth of a new world; not the pains of sufferings and death. During the last supper, Jesus had used this image of the woman in childbirth. Although she is in pain, she would forget all her pains when she has the joy of having her child. The pains that we would undergo in this world are the pains of our birth into the new world.

With the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, a whole new world will begin. With the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel, the gods that had seduced humankind will begin to fall. Emperors and kings who justified slavery, moral corruption, and oppression of the peoples – they considered themselves to be the Sun, the Moon and the stars. But now, they will lose their splendour. All the rulers, from the Pharaoh to the Mesopotamian emperors, the kings… they all thought they were stars in the sky. Jesus says all these stars now fall; these stars must not be in heaven; they are not divinities. Where the light of the Gospel enters, all else will be darkened.

Jesus is giving an announcement of the joy; it is the announcement of an earthquake that will overthrow all the kingdoms of injustice and lies.

What are the false stars of the world that seduce and cheat people with their false promises of success today? Do you regard money, possessions and the accumulation of power achieved by trampling on everyone else, as the stars that you revere and honour? Then the fall is inevitable.

 

Video available on Youtube: Between fear and hope