SUNDAY NOVEMBER 17th
33rd IN ORDINARY TIME B
QUARR ABBEY
Leaves are falling. That is why this season is called The Fall in the States. But this falling is a beautiful one with a magnificent display of colours on the trees and on our paths. We are arriving at the end of the year, at the end of the liturgical year first, when we are invited to look forward to the Kingdom of the Father, which comes. The words of our Lord are announcing a great “tribulation”: “The stars, he says, will fall from the sky”, as our leaves are falling now.
Indeed, this world is passing; it has to pass. According to Matthew and Luke, Jesus has some terrifying sentences about the end of this world: “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs” (Mt 24, 6-8). We could add floods and a large amount of violence everywhere, and we have the picture of our present and alarming situation, with many frightening eventualities threatening. We know where the wars are, which are growing; we also know what kinds of weapons could be used by dangerous men who have the power: they are nuclear ones.”
“See that you are not alarmed”, says the Lord. And today in the Gospel according to Mark, he adds: “Learn a lesson from the fig tree” (13, 28). It is the fall for us, but Jesus turns our eyes to another season: “When the fig tree branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near”. He points our hearts to the heavenly season: he is the Summer, the pure Light and the full Heat, when the fruit of the Spirit become mature and can be stored for ever in the Father’s granary. “In the same way, Jesus adds, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates”, not it, the summer, but he, the Lord, the true and warm Light.
The prophet Daniel, whom we heard in the first reading, introduces us to the same light: “At that time, he warns, it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time. At that time your people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book. And the wise shall shine brightly like the splendour of the firmament” (12, 1.3). They will shine from the lamp of the Lamb (Rv 21, 23). If we are wise, we too shall shine in this glorious and eternal light: that is our hope.
As you know, in a few weeks we shall enter into the new Holy Year; it will start on Christmas evening, with this motto: Pilgrims of hope on the way of peace. Indeed, we do need hope for peace, and become peacemakers where we are, according to the seventh beatitude. “Hope does not disappoint us”, writes saint Paul to the Romans, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (5, 5).
In this fall, close to winter, we are looking forward to Christmas, to the Nativity of our Saviour. This world, our earth, is getting old, is going on dangerous ways, when men are planning death at different levels. Yes, we are in “the shadow of death” as we sing every day in the Benedictus. God wants life; he is Life and he plans life for us; he comes as a Saviour to restore a world of the living. “The whole creation is groaning in labor pains”, as says saint Paul (Rm 8, 22), in the “birth pangs” (Mt 24, 8). Jesus speaks of “regeneration” when Peter asks him about the reward he could have. We need a renewed world, but it starts with our own renewal, our own conversion to love rather than hatred, to gentleness rather than violence, to light rather than darkness, to life rather than death.
Pope Francis from the beginning of his pontificate urges us to become missionary disciples, but at the end of his beautiful Encyclical Letter on the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus, he adds an adjective: we have to become loving missionary disciples, lovers of the Good News, which are able to give life, joy and peace to the world.
As we sing every day in the hymn at the office of None at the beginning of the afternoon:
You are the spirit’s tranquil home
In you alone is hope fulfilled.
Amen.