Nothing to lose and everything to gain: 33rd Sunday, OTB

So much of popular Christian literature and culture is wrapped in the theme of the rapture, the Second Coming, the End Times. Quite often, those who make the attempt to produce films or author novels about such themes are rarely rooted in anything steeped in Tradition or Truth.

It's quite popular to portray end times or the end of the world as some hybrid of the plagues of Exodus, amplified with 20th century carnage and warfare. When, in reality, this is not an accurate representation of any truth found within Sacred Scripture, nor the ongoing Tradition of the Church.

So what are the real end times? What will it mean and what will happen? It probably shouldn't be a surprise that the answer is "I don't know". It should be music to the ears of the Catholic who recognizes that almost everything of our faith is cemented in the Mystery of a Triune God who was incarnate of a Virgin, suffered death and rose from the clutches of the underworld to bring all men to Himself. If you can somehow condense all that and make simple sense of it all, then you truly do not believe!

That is a great charism of our One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church - we embrace mystery, we find solace within the endless chambers of the the Heart of God.

When we read these passages in the Scriptures that alludes to the End Times, let us not get ourselves all worked up over some looming destruction and hell-hot coals consuming our earthly flesh; rather, let us truly understand the impetus of Jesus' words.

Jesus' sermon has now turned to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The destruction would take place 40 years after this great sermon in the year 70AD. It was in that generation that they would witness the horrendous destruction of the center of all Jewish sacrifice and life. There has not been a sacrifice offered by any Jew since that very day.

Within the Temple were endless displays of celestial ornamentation, paintings, weavings, tapestries and symbolism that gave the Jewish people a visual reminder of the constant presence of the God of the universe in their midst and that indeed this is where the heavens kissed the earth.

And it is from the destruction in 70AD that the Jews await their messiah - their King - to come and rebuild the Temple, defeat the enemies of chosen people and to rule for all time and make jerusalem the capital of creation. It is a restoration of the rubbled Old that they await for.

We Christians, specifically Catholics, await for a fulfillment, for the New Earth and the New Jerusalem. We await the coming of our King at the end of the Ages to come and rule over Heaven and Earth where He will reign in every galaxy, solar system, planet, continent, nation, community and heart. When He comes, He wont rebuild, He will transform!

We await the fulfillment of the New Covenant itself where every sin and sleep of death will be obliterated by the light of His reign and will be no more. It is where we will be face to face with our King, and a 'cushy, fluffy, weak, homemade, feel good, spiritual but not religious, it doesn't matter what I do cause God loves me anyways life of nonsense' will no longer cut it. Nor will the 'fundamentalist bible thumper kind either where ignorance of the Truth and depth of Scripture is encouraged' - It will be about His Church, His Law, His Commandments and His Truth.

We will come to finally come to see that our parish really is connected to the Church which is the Body of Christ extending every outpost of time and space where membership is eternal. It is through His Church, just like through His Temple, that the real presence will be fulfilled on earth. His reign will be so mighty and bright that the sun will fade into darkness. It will be blinding - that's why souls go through purgatory, preparing to gaze upon that light of the King.

That is why we need to be vigilant, because we know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will come. We need to be prepared to stand, not only in front of Him and beam with joy in the presence of His light, but along side Him as one body united in Truth and Love.

What will all this look like? Entail? Our transfigured bodies and world: what will they look and feel like?

Truthfully, it doesn't really matter. Those details wont change their reality or their imminence. What does matter is that we live lives as virtuous Catholics, ardently defending our Church, our God,  and the Truth of Jesus Christ. Though the Jews are waiting for something we don't believe will ever happen, we need to remain united to them, not only as our great brothers and sisters of the Old Covenant and of antiquity, but their passion for the presence of God as the center of their lives - as seen in the Temple.

The truth is, our King will come! We are in those end times, after the destruction and waiting for the new. But these are not days of waiting for destruction, vengeance, pestilence and red rivers throughout the lands. We are in a period of waiting for Love enfleshed to stand in our midst and kill every evil. Our King, born to us as a baby, died for us on a tree, will come to hold us close in the warmth of his embrace and allow us to hear the beating of His heart.

We have nothing to fear and everything to gain if we live a life deserving of that King and His victory. Perfection may never be achieved in our lives, but an ardent desire to love God and follow His will is definitely what we can achieve.

26th Sunday, OT year B

So often, we become over zealous in pointing out and scrutinizing the faults of others, the differences among us and segmenting each other into artificial categories. We do this all the while proclaiming our excellence and making our lives the marker for others to follow. This is such a prevalent and easy habit to fall into in our culture, and perhaps for many cultures over many millennia.

What makes this such an issue, especially in light of this weekend's readings is that this attitude towards life is the direct result of sin and thus perpetuates sin among our brothers and sisters. This leads us to not uniting in Christ, but instilling hate and resentment and setting people up to hate each other and themselves - this is not the message of the Gospel.

The first reading and the Gospel give us episodes of people running to Moses and Jesus reporting about others preaching in God's name. Both Moses and Jesus gives sort of a "don't worry about it" response and sends the message "worry about getting yourself to heaven with your brothers and sisters"and a little less critiquing.

Jesus goes further and hyperbolically exclaims that it is better to cut off our limbs and enter eternity maimed than to enter Hell intact.

If you don't believe that we do this, just examine every institution, media outlet, chamber of government, workplace and household - it happens all the time. From instead of debating the various philosophies of governing, conservatives are told to hate liberals and liberals hate conservatives. Instead of people of different faiths and creeds dialoging to come to a fuller understanding of their purpose in the mind of the universe, we're bread to hate and sometimes kill them. Instead of having a family meeting to discuss an issue in the household, we create divisions and factions to the point of exponential divorce rates and domestic violence.

Sin, at its very root, is turning in on ourselves with little to no regard for those around us, our brothers and sisters, the ones we love.

Scripture is clear that conquering sin, living for God, leading others to the Truth of God, establishing a world aflame with Love is our primary focus and mission. We are responsible for the salvation of those we minister to and are in contact with. It is not just the job of the priest to get us to heaven, but it's everyone's. Husbands are responsible for the salvation of their wives and vise versa. Family members, siblings, friends, loved ones, colleagues, strangers: we are responsible for their salvation. Failure to do so makes amputation of our limbs more desirable.

Scary? Sure. Real? We better believe it. Christ has won for us eternal life - the door is open. But we need to live lives worthy of that victory Christ won on the cross. We need to follow the path to that portal by living lives of virtue and bringing others along with us.

27th Sunday, Ordinary Time

Some thoughts...

The First Reading is the background and context for Jesus' parable of the vineyard and the tenants

Isaiah tells a story of his friend who had a vineyard and, after doing everything right, the crops were rotten

- God is that friend and we are the crops that were rotten

- God has done everything for us, yet we reject Him and sin

- We are deserving of being destroyed like the friend threatened to do

- Yet, we are not!

The parable is of a vineyard whose tenants turn against the landowner and refuses to pay the share of the crops. They end up killing the landowner's servants and even his own son!

- God is that landowner and we are the tenants

- He gave us the vineyard to tend to and, rightly so, expects us to act accordingly

- We have, though, rejected His prophets, witnesses and even killed His only Son, Jesus!

We are the harvest in Isaiah's story and the tenants in Jesus' parable, in both instances we fail.

God has labored to bring about a ripe and abundant harvest. He desires us to be good, juicy and delicious fruit - He has done everything and given us everything to ensure that - but we sin.

Sin and every act against the God who loves us spoils the fruit God desires. We know what needs done, God gives us every faculty and resource that we need - but we bear rotten fruit.

God has offered us the vineyard to take care of and to work on so that we can bring about an abundant harvest and give back to the landowner. We, instead, turn against him and viciously and greedily kill everyone who comes in his name - even his own son!

The message of today's scripture is one of persistence. God is persistent with us. We have, throughout our whole history, been in a back and forth struggle with God. We are with Him and then we are against Him. We love Him and then we hate Him. We obey Him and then we disobey Him. He is our love and then He is our enemy.

We go back and forth all the time in this extraordinary relationship with our God, but God does not!

God is never against us, never hates us and never our enemy - He is always the one who gives Himself wholly and completely while always desiring us to be and bear ripe and abundant fruit.

This, though, does not mean we are saved by default. No, though He is Love, He is does guarantee salvation no matter what - this is the point to remember! Though the landowner desired nothing more than a delicious harvest, though the friend did everything he could to ensure a fruitful harvest - sin prohibited both!

God can only desire and make available every grace and blessing that we need - we are the ones that have to accept them and put them to use to ensure the harvest is ripe and the fruit delicious.

Ultimately it is our choice; are we going to allow ourselves to be the fruit God has desired or are we going to allow ourselves to become rotten?

Are we going to give God what is His and care for His vineyard, or is greed and sin going to corrupt us so much that we kill and destroy everything and everyone that comes and speaks in His name?

God desires...God plants...We accept or We reject