Prophetic Times

Prophetic Times

Nov. 13, 2022     33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - C

by Dcn. Bob Bonomi

Here we are, once again celebrating the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, cycle C.  It is sort of ironic that I stood here before you just three years ago, reflecting on these same readings.  For those of you who remember that weekend, I started with a general comment about how, as we approach the end of our liturgical calendar, the readings for the next few Sundays’ reflect an “es-cata-logical” theme.  I still hate the word as I continue to mispronounce it,  but the definition for it is clear: it’s the study of 'end things', whether it’s the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world.  Or, to quote the R.E.M. song used in the movie, “Chicken Little”, “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It”.  

I then went on to talk about the five main scenarios that are usually used to predict the end of the world in our movies today: an Alien Invasion; being hit by an Asteroid; a Catastrophic Geological Phenomena; our own Self-Inflicted Armageddon (whether that be from nuclear war, biological war or Climate Change; or (of course, my favorite):  the Zombie Apocalypse.  And, at least in the movies, we usually seem to avert annihilation.

However, who would have predicted – outside of maybe an ancient biblical prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah – that other than an invasion by zombies or aliens we would experience all those other events which, by any measure, would be worthy of a movie of impending doom.  For within roughly a month of my preaching, CoVid-19 hit – one of the worst pandemics in modern history.  During it we experienced massive natural disasters such as the catastrophic fires in the western US and Australia, record-setting heat waves in the Northwest and indeed globally, and a war between two “civilized” industrial countries which has displaced millions of people and which continues to this day.  All this has happened within the short span of the last three years.  And no, I had no idea of what we were about to face when I preached that Sunday.

By the way, the total number of deaths from CoVid, which at one point was thought by some to be the end of the world, is estimated to be just over six point six million, which is only about one-fifth of the number of deaths attributed to HIV/AIDS just a couple of decades earlier.

And yet, I think we once again find ourselves becoming, after the initial panic associated with these tragic events, like the villagers in the Aesop’s Fable story about the little shepherd boy who cried “wolf”: complacent about our own future.

Maybe even more so.  In past crises, people would turn to God for help and protection, but today it seems that as a society we are turning away from God.  At least when people blamed God for bad things, it indicated that they still believed He existed.  Today, I’m not so sure.  It’s like the recent Netflix movie about a planet-killing asteroid hurling toward Earth (movie scenario #2) called “Don’t Look Up”: everyone knows that it’s coming, but they don’t care.  God can work to heal one’s anger and pain; but how does He reach someone who doesn’t care if He exists?

And we should care, for even if the times are not signaling the End of the World As We Know It, there will always be events which will make it seem like it is.  And just as we need God to help us through those difficult times when we face them, we also need Him to help us care for those who are affected by tragedies of their own.  We all need someone who cares, and no one cares for us more than God, even if we don’t believe in Him or are angry with Him.

Now, since these things have been happening for over 2,000 years, does that mean that we are not living in the “end times” that Jesus warned us of?  No – of course we are.  But He points out that, while there will be many tragic events that may occur in our lives before the second coming, they, in and of themselves, do not mean that the second coming is here.

Each of us still has a mission to fulfill, despite the scary-ness of the times in which we live.  And each of us will face our own “End of the World” – we just don’t know when or where.

So each of today’s readings are just as important to us today as they were to the Israelites and the Jews of Jesus’ time, both as a warning to us against becoming too complacent in our lives and as a pointer to who we should be looking to in order to help us face those challenges: God.  And the true challenges we face are not aliens, zombies, nuclear wars, pandemics or other catastrophes.  The challenges are much more personal than that.

In the movie, “Rim of the World”, four misfit pre-teens are caught up in a doomsday scenario – the end of the world by alien invasion (that’s movie option number one, by the way).  Although these kids have to fight aliens and even their own people in order to save the world, their biggest challenges are in overcoming their own personal battles – the boy who is afraid of everything; the kid who has been labeled a criminal because he has a learning disability which caused him to make some serious mistakes; the girl who is an orphan because her parents didn’t “want” her; and the kid who has lost everything because his dad was sent to jail.  It wasn’t the aliens who threatened them the most; it was their own fears.

That’s US. And it is how we face our individual fears, those challenges, those OPPORTUNITIES to witness to others the love and mercy of God through the light of Christ, which will define how we will meet our own “end times.”  Not everyone will agree or accept our testimony.  We may face persecution; we may lose everything we have including our friends, our livelihoods – yes, even our lives.  But if we persevere; if we do not become complacent; God will save us.  

And we will receive the best of all possible end times – an eternity with God.