TAKE CARE NOT TO BE MISLED

November 23, Tuesday

THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

      In a time of unrest in the Church, with our search for living our faith in a renewed way, the readings of today bring us a message of hope and trust. Kingdoms built without God will decay, destroy one another, and be ultimately replaced by God, the Lord of history, with God’s indestructible kingdom. This is the message of the Book of Daniel to the persecuted Jews.

      Jesus speaks of times of trials, directly of the fall of Jerusalem, which is a symbol of the end time. We may not forget that for us here and now the time of judgment is now: we prepare it now, we undergo, or better, create it now, by the way we live individually and as a community. “Do not be misled,” says Christ. In other words, his message is meant to shake us, to wake us up to live the Gospel now.

 

First Reading: Daniel 2:31-45

“What you saw, O king, was a huge statue standing before you, striking in appearance. And terrifying. The head of the statue was pure gold, the chest and arms were silver, the belly and hips were bronze, the legs were iron, and the feet were an iron-ceramic mixture. While you were looking at this statue, a stone cut out of a mountain by an invisible hand hit the statue, smashing its iron-ceramic feet. Then the whole thing fell to pieces—iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold, smashed to bits. It was like scraps of old newspapers in a vacant lot in a hot dry summer, blown every which way by the wind, scattered to oblivion. But the stone that hit the statue became a huge mountain, dominating the horizon. This was your dream.

“And now we’ll interpret it for the king. You, O king, are the most powerful king on earth. The God of heaven has given you the works: rule, power, strength, and glory. He has put you in charge of men and women, wild animals and birds, all over the world—you’re the head ruler, you are the head of gold. But your rule will be taken over by another kingdom, inferior to yours, and that one by a third, a bronze kingdom, but still ruling the whole land, and after that by a fourth kingdom, ironlike in strength. Just as iron smashes things to bits, breaking and pulverizing, it will bust up the previous kingdoms.

“But then the feet and toes that ended up as a mixture of ceramic and iron will deteriorate into a mongrel kingdom with some remains of iron in it. Just as the toes of the feet were part ceramic and part iron, it will end up a mixed bag of the breakable and unbreakable. That kingdom won’t bond, won’t hold together any more than iron and clay hold together.

“But throughout the history of these kingdoms, the God of heaven will be building a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will this kingdom ever fall under the domination of another. In the end it will crush the other kingdoms and finish them off and come through it all standing strong and eternal. It will be like the stone cut from the mountain by the invisible hand that crushed the iron, the bronze, the ceramic, the silver, and the gold.

“The great God has let the king know what will happen in the years to come. This is an accurate telling of the dream, and the interpretation is also accurate.”

 

Gospel: Luke 21:5-11

One day people were standing around talking about the Temple, remarking how beautiful it was, the splendor of its stonework and memorial gifts. Jesus said, “All this you’re admiring so much—the time is coming when every stone in that building will end up in a heap of rubble.”

They asked him, “Teacher, when is this going to happen? What clue will we get that it’s about to take place?”

He said, “Watch out for the doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I’m the One,’ or, ‘The end is near.’ Don’t fall for any of that. When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history and no sign of the end.”

He went on, “Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Huge earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. You’ll think at times that the very sky is falling.

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
our faith is not a quiet possession
of the truth and of rites
that may give us security.
Make us realize that it is tested
and that you call us
to be credible witnesses
in our time and our situation
of the passion and resurrection of your Son.
Give us your Holy Spirit
to guide us and to keep our hope alive
that Jesus is our Lord
and you our God for ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

God has a plan for us, a plan of hope!

Social unrest, financial insecurities are religious intolerances are few of the causes that disturbs peaceful coexistence in our society today. We are in the final week of the liturgical calendar and the Church wants us to reflect on the end of days and the end of the world. By the time that Luke wrote his Gospel, the previously unthinkable had happened. The temple of Jerusalem had been destroyed for more than ten years. Judaism had survived. The Christian disciples had survived, too, even though they had found themselves under acute pressure from their fellow Jews, before and after the destruction.

Luke’s main concern was to point out that Jesus had foreseen the inevitable destruction of the temple – that is the actual physical building and, more importantly, the whole temple-based corrupt system that the temple had come to embody. Not only would the building be destroyed, so also would the oppressive religious and social structure.

Jesus’ words are perennially relevant, even for us today, living in the 21st century too. Jesus repeats to us: “Take heed that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name” (v. 8). This Christian virtue of understanding is a call to discern where the Lord is, and where the evil spirit is present. The presence of false “saviours” who attempt to replace Jesus are all around us – people who promise magical results if we agree to follow them and their directions. Jesus warns us: “Do not follow them!”.

Jesus tells us today, “All that you see here—the days will come when everything will be thrown down.” Our days here on this earth are not infinite. We are sometimes mesmerized by the glitter of our earthly existence, but the words of Jesus remind us that something better awaits us. If only we could live in this assurance, how many of our crosses would vanish!

We get frightened and desperate when we let ourselves be led away by illusory promises, and by exaggerated fears. Of course, the Gospel presents a scary picture of wars, uprisings, strife, disasters – but then, he also gives us the promise that he will always be with us, until the end of times. He dispels all fears and banishes all lies. He is the Lord of life and history. And that makes all the difference.

But our human tendencies lead us to be very anxious for the future. Difficult things happen to all of us–sickness, setbacks, missed opportunities. Yet, we shall not be scared because God our Father has been preparing a future for us from the very beginning, “plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). May we not be anxious but instead trust in the Lord.

Video available on Youtube: God has a plan for us, a plan of hope!