Homily for 33d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
33d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Nov. 14, 2021
Mark 13: 24-32
St. Joseph Church, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“He will send out the angels and gather his elect” (Mark 13: 27).

Jesus speaks of disasters coming upon the earth as a prelude to his own 2d coming.  Disasters are nothing new, even if in our time they seem to be bigger and worse than ever:  hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes, wildfires, floods, pandemics, melting ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctica.  Certainly we’re more aware of such things than we used to be.   

Climate change and natural disasters aren’t the worst of what’s going on when we consider the moral disasters that human beings inflict on themselves and others:  war, abortion, ethnic cleansing, human trafficking, religious persecution, etc.

None of all that means that Jesus’ return, “the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory” (13:26), is imminent, that the so-called “end times” are upon us.

Yet it is a gospel certainty that human history will end some day.  It is certain that our Lord Jesus will return as the universal judge.  “No one knows that day or hour, not even the Son, but only the Father” (13:22).  But that day and hour will come, when Jesus Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead” (Creed).

If the end is certain, if final judgment is certain, then it’s equally certain that we must be ready—ready to receive the Lord, ready to welcome him, ready at any time.

Is his coming something to fear?  Is our Lord Jesus someone to be afraid of?  Not if we have done our best to follow Jesus faithfully.  Not if we agree with the psalmist:  “O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot.  You will not abandon my soul to the netherworld” (16:5,10).

After all, we are his elect.  That means he has chosen us.  The eternal Son of God entered our history in the womb of the Virgin Mary in order to reclaim us for God, to lead us into the kingdom of God, to live with him forever.  In Baptism he claimed us as his own.

On the last day, his angels will gather all who belong to him, and if we belong to him, we look forward eagerly for his coming to complete our redemption from all the evils and disasters of this present world.  One of the great prayers of the 1st generations of Christians was, in Aramaic, “Marana tha!”—“Come, O Lord!” (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20).  So we conclude our profession of faith with this statement:  “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”  We look forward to being gathered to the Lord, to dwell in his household, to be happy beyond measure and without end.