One Hundred Fifty Thousand

Yesterday, 150,000 people, died.

Every day, worldwide, about 150,000 people die.

Some days are busier than others.

One day in 2004, 230,000 people died in just one relatively small area around the Indian Ocean. 

The result of an earthquake and tsunami.

One day in 1945, 70,000 people died in just one city—in just five seconds.

Hiroshima.

We all know we’re going to die.

At least intellectually we know it.

We know of all the historical figures who have died.

We don’t know of anyone alive who’s older than 110 or so.

We know of all the deaths we read about or hear about every day.

We’ve even seen friends and relatives die.

We feel their absence.

Yet, at some level our minds play down the fact that we’re going to die too—relatively soon.

As we enter these last few days of our liturgical year, our Gospel speaks of the end times.

The end of this world.

Some unknown day—some far distant day—this world will end.

Some unknown day—a not so distant day—our time in this world will end.

There’s a standard cartoon image.

Long lines of people, queued-up in the clouds, waiting to see St Peter.

He’s sitting there at the Pearly Gates with his quill and his ledger book

Clearly, that’s no way to process 150,000 arrivals per day.

And clearly, we don’t really know the full details of the time-of-death process.

But we do know that after death we’ll move on to our new life.

And it’s there that we’ll await the final end of time and the transformation of this world.

Our Gospel’s focus on the end times draws us to consider our own end time.

Even with our incomplete knowledge, we have a lot of material for contemplation.

Pondering our own death could be a fairly depressing exercise.

If we looked upon death as a final end.

But we look beyond death to that glorious life to come.

With that glorious goal in view:

Are we making the best of this “present” we’ve been given?

How prepared are we for our end time?

There’s always room for improvement.

What course corrections might we make now?

Tuesday, 34th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 21:5-11           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Necessary Words

We can talk to almost anyone about fluff like entertainment and sports and gossip.

And even weightier subjects like world events, social issues, moral issues, and the economy.

We can even discuss our personal politics, health conditions and finances.

But in today’s culture, any talk of God seems proper only in strictly restricted settings.

Settings where everyone knows that they’re going to be exposed to that kind of talk.

Settings where their consent to exposure is implied by their knowing and voluntary presence.

Maybe I exaggerate just a little.

But in our culture, how can we be expected to go out and spread the Gospel?

And yet the last three popes have been calling us to a New Evangelization.

Calling us, as individuals, to help spread the Good News.

To share what we’ve found in our Church and in our relationship with Christ.

Share not with some isolated tribe deep in the Amazon.

But with our family, friends, neighbors, coworkers—the people we encounter every day.

For some reason many of us are reluctant to do that.

Maybe we’re just naturally private or shy.

Maybe we don’t want to risk a conversation that might feel awkward or uncomfortable—

Either for ourselves or for the person we’re speaking with.

We might even fear that we’d offend the other person.

They might think we’re acting holier-than-thou.

Or maybe we don’t feel like we’re expert enough to start a discussion about God.

That might lead to a discussion of religious beliefs or doctrines.

We could end up having to explain or defend our beliefs.

We can seek some comfort in the old quote:

Preach always, and when necessary use words.

Preaching by action could be an easier form of evangelization.

And a truer, more genuine form.

Far better than Do as I say, not as I do.

But it relies on people not only noticing our good actions,

But also seeing the link between our actions and our faith.

Living a life of good example is certainly required.

But as even the quote concedes, words too are—at least sometimes—necessary.

Our Scripture readings today show examples of good actions combined with necessary words.

And they confirm, as we already know, that good actions are not always easy.

The leading scribe, old Eleazar, gave his life when he could have opted for an easy out.

His torturers offered to let him merely pretend to join in the idol worship.

But he was concerned that his pretense might lead others astray.

So Eleazar chose to endure torture and death rather than set a bad example.

And he didn’t go silently—he used words.

He explicitly stated his reason for choosing death and he proclaimed his devotion to God.

Zacchaeus also chose to take actions that weren’t easy for a man who loved his money.

And he used words to pledge those acts.

Saying he’d donate half his wealth to the poor and repay four-fold for any prior cheating.

And he made those pledges in public and in the clear context of his faith in Jesus.

...

God, help us to share the necessary words.

Tuesday, 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 19:1-10           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

The Time Has Come

Today we celebrate the 33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Those weeks outside the four seasons of the Church year: Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.

This is the last numbered Sunday of the Liturgical Year.

The last green vestments we’ll see for a while.

Next Sunday is the 34^th and final Sunday, but we call it the Feast of Christ the King.

And the Sunday after that we begin a new year with the Advent Season.

So, the end is near.

The end of our liturgical year.

A year that traces through the birth, life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.

A cycle that we repeat and relive each year.

And as we near the end of that year, nature points us to the end times.

We haven’t yet had much of the bone-chilling cold.

But we have the short days, the bare trees, the flowerless gardens.

The dead leaves swirling into heaps along the sidewalks and gutters and doorways.

And our Scripture also points us to the end times.

The end of the world as we know it, with the second coming of Jesus.

We hear of the signs of that second coming.

We all want to know when it will be.

We all want to be prepared for it.

Jesus has told us that no one except the Father knows when that will be.

But we wonder and ask anyway.

In our Gospel today, the people ask about the destruction of the temple.

And Jesus’ answer addresses both the end of the temple and the end of the world.

But the signs he tells them to look for are signs that we see in every generation.

Wars, famines, earthquakes, plagues, mighty signs from the sky.

One other sign he mentions has always intrigued me.

False prophets.

People publicly claiming to be Jesus in his second coming.

They say: I am he.  The time has come.

Surprising as it may be, those false prophets are always around.

Wikipedia lists more than a dozen out there today; some well known with many followers.

I’ve been doing an annual check on one of them for nearly ten years.

Jose’Luis De Jesus Miranda.

Jose’ was a preacher who began his notoriety by claiming to be The Man Christ Jesus.

Eventually expanding his claim, saying he’s both Christ and the Antichrist.

He travels around in a Cadillac Escalade with a posse and lots of bling.

He claims to have millions of followers in thirty countries.

Even if he exaggerates those numbers,

It’s a fact that he does have radio stations, multiple churches and many followers.

Every year I expect to see his fall, but it turns out that 2013 was a big year for Jose’.

His ex-wife reported on YouTube that he died this past August in a Texas hospital.

But in a September video, Jose’ himself says he’s back.

There’s a lot of buzz among his church officials and followers.

As they ask, Did he die?  Is he dead?  Is he alive again?

They debate this great mystery on their Internet sites.

They debate as if they couldn’t simply consult the official State of Texas death records.

Jose’ and other would-be-Christs and would-be prophets like to predict the end of the world.

They point to those same signs that we see in every generation.

They themselves, unwittingly, fulfill the sign of the false prophets.

They ignore the fact that Jesus told us no one can know the hour or the day of his return.

And that his return will be unmistakable.

As clear as lightning filling the sky from East to West.

Why do we even worry about the end of the world?

People have been waiting for it for the past 2,000 years.

And there’s no reason to think they won’t go on waiting for thousands more.

So, the probability that the end will come in our lifetime is pretty remote.

Maybe we’re enthralled by the enormous scope and finality of it.

Doomsday, a day of dread.

The end of the world; the end of time.

The day of reckoning; the great general judgment of all who have ever lived.

But that finality isn’t an ultimate end.

It’s the end of only one stage of humanity’s existence.

It’s also the start of the final stage; the eternal stage.

The day of reunion of soul and body.

A day we should look forward to with great joy and hope.

We’ll all be there on that day.

But the overwhelming odds are that we’ll have died long before.

We’ll have already, at the time of our death, faced our particular judgment and learned our fate.

So there’s the end time we really need to prepare for.

The day of our death and particular judgment.

Our last day of opportunity to exert any impact on our own eternal fate.

But we don’t know when that day is coming either.

We do know it won’t be a thousand years from now.

It will be relatively soon—in a few decades or years or months or minutes.

In two weeks we’ll have one of those landmark occasions for new beginnings, for renewal.

The start of a new Liturgical Year.

We can use those two weeks to reflect on how we did in reliving this last cycle.

This specially-designated Year of Faith.

Maybe there’s something more we’d like to accomplish before it ends.

Or maybe we can consider the things we hope to accomplish in the fast-approaching new year.

We’ll probably have many more opportunities in this life for renewal.

Every new day can be a fresh beginning,

But some day—some day neither we nor the false prophets can know—

That day’s opportunity will have been our last.

33rd  Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lk 21:5-19           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Servant Spirit

Count the many major roles you’ve filled in life.

Child, student, employee, volunteer, friend.

Maybe spouse, parent, sibling, caregiver, adviser, leader and protector.

Maybe aunt, uncle, grandparent or mentor.

And at a more mundane level, we’re all consumers, patients and clients.

If you’re still counting, you’ve probably run out of fingers by now.

Each title there implies a relationship with someone else.

Child/parent, student/teacher, friend/friend, and so forth.

Each role carries a set of obligations.

And each requires a certain level of commitment and effort for success.

A number of us here might add the role of public servant.

We don’t all have the word servant explicit in our titles.

But all of our roles involve some kind of service.

So we’re all servants.

Serving the other person in each of those relationships.

Doing at least the minimum things we’re expected or obligated to do.

Or failing in that relationship.

A friend told me about an experience he had when he began his public service career.

He went to a seminar for newly appointed leaders.

And a prominent speaker there gave the group his three key rules for government executives.

(Or executives in any large institution.)

  - Show up at work.

  - Keep your hands out of the till.

  - And keep your hands off the employees.

No lofty talk of dedication, commitment, excellence or achievement.

Just a warning to meet the barest minimum obligations.

My friend says he was shocked and appalled at what he heard.

But now, thirty years later, he gives that old seminar speaker some credit.

My friend says he’s seen a number of executive ousted in the last thirty years.

And all were for violation of one of those three embarrassingly-low standards.

Meeting the bare minimum service level may be enough to avoid total failure.

But surely we aspire to higher performance in our own roles and relationships.

And especially in our one most important relationship.

The one we hear about in today’s Gospel.

Our master/servant relationship with God.

Jesus tells us, 

Don’t expect thanks for doing just the absolute minimum.

You’re obliged to do at least that much.

You’re an unprofitable servant if that’s all you do.

So how can we go beyond the minimum in our master/servant relationship with God?

What service does he want from us?

He wants us to show real dedication and commitment; pursue real excellence and achievement.

And to bring that servant spirit not only to our direct relationship with him.

But to all the many roles and relationships of our lives.

Tuesday, 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 17:7-10           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Fix It Up

Jesus has accepted an invitation to a Sabbath meal with the leading Pharisees.

There’s already tension between them.

They’re scrutinizing his sermons and his actions with the crowds, and he knows it.

In yesterday’s Gospel, he started the dinner with a lesson on dinner invitations.

He told them they shouldn’t invite powerful people who might repay them with worldly favors.

But rather, invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the outcast.

If they would do that, they would be rewarded in Heaven.

That’s the setting of today’s Gospel passage.

And that explains the harsh response Jesus gives to the Pharisee’s seemingly innocent comment:

Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.

The Pharisee’s comment showed that he still didn’t get it.

Jesus had just finished describing the kind of actions that lead toward a Heavenly reward.

He had just finished suggesting that they needed to change their ways.

And this Pharisee responds with his overconfident, highly presumptuous statement.

In effect saying,

We already know who’s going to Heaven, it’s us holy and privileged Pharisees.

And so, Jesus spells it out for them in a parable.

A generous host honored some special guests with an invitation to the great feast.

The Heavenly banquet.

But those invited guests failed to appreciate the invitation.

They placed a higher priority on tending to their wealth and other worldly matters.

They insulted the host by declining his generous invitation.

They took the host for granted.

They were presumptuous—self-assured of their worthiness of the host’s favor.

But Jesus’ parable said they were wrong.

They were forfeiting their invitations.

They were forfeiting their special status with the host.

The parable was both a condemnation and a warning for the listeners.

A call to examine their special relationship with God and to do their part in maintaining it.

Those Pharisees recognized the parable was aimed at them, and they were moved to action.

The action they chose was to begin plotting how to get rid of Jesus.

We can be a lot like the Pharisees.

We too can be the presumptuous, unappreciative, insulting invited guests of the parable.

And when we recognize that the parable is aimed at us, we too should be moved to action.

But we know a lot more about Jesus than the Pharisees knew.

We know who needs to do what to fix the problem.

Tuesday, 31st Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 14:15-24           Read this Scripture @usccb.org