A Concord Pastor Comments: Homily for November 18

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Homily for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Scriptures for today's Mass

Audio

We’re only two weeks a way from New Year’s -

on the church calendar -

where the new liturgical year will begin on December 2

with the First Sunday of Advent.

At the end of every November, as the old year of grace winds down,

the scriptures turn apocalyptic, speaking, as you just heard,

of a time “unsurpassed in distress”

a time of great “tribulation,” the “darkening of the sun and moon”

and the “stars falling from the skies.”

In other words: the end of the world as we know it.

No one knows when this will happen

but the Word of God calls us to prepare for it

as if it were going to happen tomorrow.

As the year of grace 2018 is about to pass away into history then,

the church reminds us that at some point

the whole of creation will pass away and be forgotten

and Christ will come again in glory.

In every age there are those who believe they see signs of the end time.

In our own day there are more than enough natural disasters

shaking, flooding and scorching the earth;

a surplus of hatred, rancor and division in public discourse;

and nearly daily news of mass shootings

to make us wonder if the end is in sight, if our time is up.

Add to all that the man-made troubles

shaking the Catholic Church to its core,

and the resulting anger, disappointment, shame and mistrust

engendered by the failure of so many to protect

the innocent and vulnerable -

and you have a mix that only deepens a crisis of faith

in the hearts and souls of many believers.

The events at this past week’s annual November meeting

of our nation’s Catholic bishops were

surprising, disappointing, bewildering and disheartening.

The Vatican’s unexpected intervention, asking our bishops

to postpone voting on the very proposals before them

that offered some much needed hope,

was, for some, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

As dispirited as I was by what did and didn’t take place at the meeting,

it wasn’t the last straw for me

and I hope I might rightly conclude from your presence here today

that it wasn’t the end of the story for you either.

Or, perhaps you’re here but find yourself on the brink of leaving.

Let me share with you what gets me through all of this.

Many of you have said to me,

“Father Fleming, I’m so troubled by what’s going on in our church

- but it must be even worse for you.”

I wouldn’t know how to begin to discern who’s having a harder time here:

the people of the church or her pastors.

Actually, I think our anger and pain is in most ways more equal than not -

although we might feel and experience it in different ways,

each of us according to our state in life.

What helps me through all of this

is precisely what we find in today’s scriptures.

Even if this is, indeed, a time “unsurpassed in distress”

when the heavens and earth and the church are shaken to their core,

my hope is not in the church as an institution or organization,

nor is my hope in popes and cardinals or bishops and priests.

Rather, my hope, my trust and my faith are in Jesus

whose body the Church is

and whose ministry is entrusted to weak men,

- and sometimes to the weakest of men.

Why this is so, I don’t know.

Why Jesus chose the 12 apostles he did boggles my mind

especially when I consider that in his hour of greatest need:

one of Jesus’ closest friends betrayed him;

none of them could stay awake for an hour to pray with him;

one denied ever having known or associated with him;

and all of them fled when the authorities came to arrest him.

Of the 12, only one, John, stood at the foot of the Cross of Jesus

when he was crucified.

The others went into hiding, fearing they might meet the same end.

Of course the history of the church is replete with stories

of thousands of men and women who were, in troubled times,

of far greater and much deeper faith

than were the apostles at the time of Jesus’ suffering and death.

I don’t offer the failure of the apostles as any kind of excuse

for the ways in which a bishop or priest or any of us fails

in fidelity to Jesus,

but rather to show how the power of Jesus, the grace of Jesus,

the love of Jesus, the mercy of Jesus, the presence of Jesus

is never, can never, will never, ought never be overshadowed

by the sins and failures of those sent to preach and live the gospel.

And I haven’t given up on our bishops, either.

The apostles are prototypes for our bishops

and of that cowardly original band, 10 ended their lives as martyrs.

ultimately laying down their lives for Jesus

whom they had betrayed, denied, fled and abandoned.

Only faithful John died a natural death of old age

and Judas died by his own hand.

This weekend’s scriptures make it clear

that the distress and disasters of the end time

are a troubled prelude to the coming of Christ in glory.

No, I’m not saying, suggesting or even hinting

that the end of the world is at hand.

I’m simply pointing to the truth that nothing

(no distress, no disaster, no calamity, no sin, no failure, no infidelity)

and no one

(no pope, cardinal, bishop, priest or deacon)

should or can keep us from the power and presence of Jesus.

The Church as we know it exists for one end and this end only:

to announce the gospel, the good news of Jesus;

to be the source of Christ’s saving blessing and grace for all;

and to be the Body of Jesus in the world today.

The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ among us

and we, you and I, are its members.

When others fail in fidelity