33^rd Sunday, Year B, IC 3-12, November 16, 2003

You can tell that the end of the Church year is drawing to a close when the readings of the Mass forecast the final days of the earth. There is something utterly awesome in contemplating that time. It will indeed be ominous: the sun and moon will cease to give off their light and blacken; there will be falling stars; storms; and the terrible return to earth of the Son of Man, come now as its Judge. The poetry of the Church’s liturgy has captured this time well in the wailing strains of the Dies irF: the day of wrath, that day when the earth will dissolve in ashes! The gentle Jesus Himself did not hesitate to speak of the trauma of that coming time. Evidently we are meant to take His warning about the final days seriously. It will be a visible convulsion, an upheaval of the universe. The first reading foresees the protective role of Saint Michael against that time of unparalleled calamity. The friends of God, those who are in a state of grace and have practiced their faith will survive. In the end, the just will be radiant like the stars of heaven, although they will not be shielded from the alarm and chaos of those times. But it is the final outcome that matters: only the wicked will be in everlasting horror and disgrace, according to the words of the Daniel’s prophecy.

The weal or woe of eternity is given pictorial description in the Scriptures to incite us to shun sin, to abound in godly deeds and to become holy. Everything hereafter hinges upon how a person chooses to live his short span of years on earth. He will be the servant either of Christ or of the devil, but a servant inevitably. The gentle yoke of Christ’s service is made easier by the help of His holy word and the consolation of the Holy Spirit. The terrible servitude of the devil is made agreeable by his perverse counsels and by the enticing but short-lived pleasures of sin.

Saint John Fisher, in his masterful commentary on the penitential psalms, describes the life of the man who is practiced in penitence. The Saint notes the custom that we still observe of striking the breast in the recitation of the Confiteor at the opening of Mass. This is a gesture derived from the our Lord’s depiction of how a publican prayed in the temple, the one who dared not lift his eyes when he prayed, but rather in humility only struck his breast repeatedly saying, “be merciful to me, a sinner.” he was the one who found favor with God. The significance of this little sign of penitence must surely escape many people today, if indeed they observe it at all. It is a sign of self-reproach, a self-inflicted punishment on the body, but one that is meant to penetrate to the inner heart: it is striking the seat of evil affections which is the source of all our trouble. It is the symbolic ‘spot’ of which our Lord spoke when He said: “What comes out of a man is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, impurity, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.” (Mk 7:21-22).

God’s holy word, our Catholic faith, makes goodness to come forth from those poor abused hearts of ours. His divine word refreshes them and makes them ready to produce good works. His is the word that restrains our evil impulses, that strengthens us, that makes us do upright and reasonable deeds. By contrast, the word of the devil causes spiritual dryness and emptiness so that those who obey him are dull and sluggish to do good. His word stirs up, instead of calms, the passions; it makes one spiritually feeble and weak, ready to obey the flesh rather than reason. The result is not only that one who lives perversely loses God’s grace, but he also debases his humanity as well.

I would like to say that life is also easier for the good, but that is not true. Certainly, life will have truth, beauty and integrity only when it is lived in accordance with God’s laws, but this requires unstinting vigilance and plain ol’ hard work. It requires the cultivation of patience that is necessary to confront the evils that will inevitably attack the good man. We can’t shield ourselves from every suffering, insulate ourselves from every hardship. One must brace himself against these with the help of God’s grace. I believe that there will always be a certain measure of peace for the just man, even amid so many opposing forces, because he will be living by right reason and will have at least the mental satisfaction that he follows the way of God. In the Imitation one finds Jesus speaking to his disciple, saying that “My will is that you do not try to find a place free from temptations and troubles. Rather, seek a peace that endures even when you are beset by various temptations and tried by much adversity. If you say that you cannot endure that much, how will you endure the fires of purgatory? Endeavor patiently to endure for God’s sake all the ills of this life, so that you may escape eternal punishment.”

The people who are members of the Saint Monica Sodality have realized that the business of saving souls, theirs and those of others, from eternal loss is a serious one, indeed, the only serious one that will have mattered in the end. Further, they recognize that leaguing up in the unity of the mystical Body for a common cause, they can be props for those who are weak, more observant for those who are negligent, dutiful for the indulgent, and penitential for the self-satisfied who follow the path of eternal ruin. We will be offering Mass for their intentions once each month so that those for whom they have been praying to return to the faith, or to embrace it for the first time, may come alive: alive in Christ, alive in His grace.

I would like to leave you with a hopeful thought, an encouragement. God did not fashion us so that he would punish us eternally. He made us, as we say in the catechism, to be with Him for ever in heaven. We must not let the tendency of the modern age–which is to ridicule the serious consequences of sin and the real possibility of damnation–to deter us from the pursuit of sanctity nor to interceded for others who are headed for destruction. Our Catholic faith is the greatest ‘union’ that has ever existed. It is a constant support and strength for all who are members and it enables them to extend their reach to others in need and to bring them into the saving arms of Mother Church.

God spare us from “everlasting dis-grace” by the accessible gift of His saving grace!