Four Last Things, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), November 7, 2010

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA
Thirty-Second Sunday in OT, Year C
November 7, 2010
2 Macc 7:1-2,9-14; 2 Thes 2:16-3:5; Lk 20:27-38

The following text guided today’s homily:

• I was re-reading recently Crossing the Threshold of Hope, the great 1994 book by Pope John Paul II in which he replied at length to the questions of Italian journalist Vittorio Messori. In one of the questions, the reporter asked, “Recently in the Church, words have multiplied. It seems that in the last 20 years, more ‘documents’ have been produced at every level of the Church than in the entire preceding 20 centuries. Yet to some it has seemed that this very loquacious Church is silent about what is most essential: eternal life. Your holiness, do heaven, purgatory and hell still exist? Why do many Churchmen comment interminably about topical issues, but hardly ever speak to us about eternity, about that ultimate union with God that, as faith teaches, remains man’s vocation, man’s destiny, and ultimate end?”
• John Paul II admitted that “in pastoral practice, this perspective has in some ways been lost.” He remembered the time, not so long ago, when “in sermons during retreats or missions, the Last Things — death, judgment, heaven, hell and purgatory — were always a standard part of the program of meditation and preachers knew how to speak of them in an effective and evocative way. How many people were drawn to conversion and confession by these sermons and reflections on the Last Things!” He said the style was “profoundly personal,” reciting from memory what he himself had heard and probably preached: “Remember that at the end you will present yourself before God with your entire life. Before His judgment seat you will be responsible for all of your actions, you will be judged not only on your actions and on your words but also on your thoughts, even the most secret.” It could be said that these sermons… went to the very heart of man’s inner world. They stirred his conscience, they threw him to his knees, they led him to the screen of the confessional, they had a profound saving effect all their own.”
• He then got to the heart of the matter. Why, if preaching on the truth of the last things led so many people to conversion, why is it not as popular today? Why, as the journalist said, there are documents about almost everything, why doesn’t the Church stress it as much as it once did? His response was remarkably candid. He said because many in the Church, including priests, catechists and teachers, are lost and confused. He said, many “no longer have the courage to preach the threat of hell.” He added, “and perhaps even those who listen to them have stopped being afraid of hell (because of secularist materialism and the experience of various hells on earth)”
• So, on this Sunday, we need to have the courage to preach about the four last things, to preach about eternity, and to overcome our indifference to the things that matter most.
• A few months ago someone came to see me. She was having some problem with her daughter, who was 16 and wanted to start using birth control so that she could begin sinning with her boyfriend. The mother had made some mistakes in her life in the past, having children out of wedlock as a teenager herself, and didn’t really know what to say to her daughter so that her child wouldn’t think of her as a hypocrite. As a former high school chaplain as well as a teacher of John Paul II’s theology of the body, I’ve heard and used many different arguments to help teens recognize why they shouldn’t fornicate, out of fidelity to their future spouses, out of respect for their not allowing themselves to be used for others’ pleasure, out of a love for God who says that they should become one flesh only with those to whom he’s joined them in one flesh in marriage, even out of a sober realism about the consequences of sexual activity, from pregnancy to sexually transmitted diseases, to more. But I didn’t give the woman any of these arguments. I suggested that she simply tell her daughter, “Honey, you shouldn’t do it, because it would be a total offense against God for which you and your boyfriend could spend eternity in hell. I beg you as your mother never to do something that will offend God in this way. I beg you to think about eternity, about the fact that God is real, and that fornication is a mortal sin for which, if you happen to die with it on your soul, the consequence would be everlasting separation from God by your own choice. What boyfriend, if he really loves you, would endanger your eternal salvation? How could you, who claim to love him, risk eternity for the sake of momentary pleasure?” The mother initially was shocked at the force of the words, but she used them, and the daughter, brought to conversion, came to see me a few days later to ask to go to confession.
• We all need to think far more about eternity, because it will help us to choose correctly here on earth.
  • Brothers in the first reading today. Like so many Christian martyrs after them, they refused to betray the Lord.
  • King Antiochus IV wanted to unite all people in the same beliefs, customs and religion. He wanted to impose it on the Jews. Many resisted to the heroic degree of giving their lives for God. They were unwilling to eat the food of certain animals, especially pork, on behalf of the law of Moses. Antiochus tried to break that custom.
  • The brothers trusted in God, that God would compensate them for their fidelity.
    • First brother: “We’re ready to die rather than transgress the law of our fathers.”
    • Second: “After we have died, God will raise us to new and eternal life.”
    • Third brother recognized God had given him his hands and feet and that God will give them to him again.
    • Fourth brother: It’s beautiful to die from men to await from God the fulfillment of the hope of being resurrected by him.
    • The other brothers said the same thing.
  • The king appealed to their mother, thinking that she, out of a mistaken earthly love for her sons to have them remain with her, would try to convince them to capitulate. Here’s what she said to her son: “Son, have pity on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought you up, educated and supported you to your present age. I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them; then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things; and in the same way the human race came into existence. Do not be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in the time of mercy I may receive you again with them.”
  • That’s what a lively understanding of eternity can give us. It can give us courage to undergo insults, physical suffering, even emotional heartbreak, because we know something greater is coming. Pope Benedict calls this the “great hope,” the hope that can sustain us and motivate us like it motivated them.
• So we come briefly to the Last Things:
  • Death
    • It is certain. We will die. The question is whether we will die well or die poorly, whether we will live and die with the Lord, or live and die apart from him.
    • If we’re going to die well, we must prepare for death. Jesus gives many images about how death can come like a thief in the night. We need to be ready.
    • Many saints have talked about meditating on their death each day. Living each day as if it’s your last. That helps you to really live with gratitude as well as with love.
    • It’s unsurprising that the devil, who wants us to die poorly, tries to distract us from thinking about death. He wants it to catch us as a thief in the night. We can’t let him.
  • Judgment
    • When we die, we will be judged upon our actions. We won’t be judged about our good intentions, but about our thoughts, our words, our deeds and our omissions. We will be called to render an account for our time, for all the talents God has given us, for all his gifts.
    • We will be separated on the basis of our deeds, some to the resurrection of life, others to the resurrection of condemnation.
    • Mt 25 — two sides on the basis of deeds.
    • Jesus said in St. John’s Gospel that we judge ourselves on the basis of our correspondence to his word.
    • Choices.
      • Do we give other things more importance than him, like work, or family, or sports?
      • Do we choose him by prayer, by Mass, by a moral life, by loving others, or do we choose against him?
    • We need to prepare well for this final exam. It’s not a pop-quiz. We know everything that will be on it. We know that God wants us to pass. Are we going to be a good student, someone who is learning this, or a bad student, someone who blows off preparation, hoping that the exam will be easy or there’ll be a curve?
  • Heaven
    • Jesus speaks very much about heaven in today’s Gospel.
    • Parables.
    • Happiness. Wedding banquet.
    • He came to help us enter into that life, to remind us of who we are, that we’re called to be saints, to rejoice with him forever.
    • But as I mentioned on Monday on All Saints Day, we need to have the desire.
  • Hell
    • Jesus spoke forcefully about Hell.
    • Snapshot that more are on the road there.
    • It’s real. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. Fire of Gehenna.
    • Jesus doesn’t want to send any of us to Hell, but we choose it by choosing to separate ourselves from him in this world. CS Lewis, 2 types of people.
• So today we come here to reflect on these most important realities.
  • JP II talked about a Christocentric eschatology.
  • Gospel today was about the God of the living and of the dead, a God of individuals.

The readings for today’s Mass were: