Hearts That Are Vigilant, Prayer, Strong and Standing Before the Son of Man, 34th Saturday (I), December 2, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Saturday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Advent Day of Recollection for Columbia Catholic Ministry and for the Leonine Forum
December 2, 2023
Dan 7:15-27, Dan 3:82-87, Lk 21:34-36

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following is an edited transcript of the homily:

• Today is New Year’s Eve in the church, as we finish up one liturgical year and prepare to enter another one. And the proper response the church gives us today takes from the heart of the Prophet Daniel’s prophecy words that the church lifts up to the Lord on any major solemnity, at Lauds in the morning, as well as on the most important Sundays of the year. With response to all that has come, and to all that we await, we say, “Bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all, forever.” Every human being, Israel, New York City, priests, servants, spirits and souls of the just, everyone who is of humble heart, is called to bless the Lord, to praise and exalt Him above all, forever. Blessed Solanus Casey, here in the city, used always to talk about thanking God ahead of time for everything, because no matter what comes, whether seemingly adverse or propitious, out of others’ charity and generosity, or even out of evil, everything, God wants to bring a greater good from. Therefore, we should always thank the Lord in advance for the good he’s going to give us either directly, or the good he will draw from the evil we have had to endure. So today, we bless the Lord, we praise and exalt Him, above everything, above everyone, and make the commitment to do that for ever.
• Throughout this week of the solemnity of Christ the King, in the Gospel passages, Jesus has been preparing us for his final triumph, and what would precede it. In the first reading, we have been pondering the prophecy of Daniel, which God revealed to Daniel when he and his fellow Jews were in captivity in Babylon. It describes in a prophetic way not only what’s going to take place on earth, but what God’s response will be to it.
• Let’s begin with what God has been telling us to Daniel this week. He’s described the idolatry of Nebuchadnezzar, who built a 30 foot golden statue of himself because he wanted to be worshipped like a god. But then God revealed to Nebuchadnezzar in a dream there it was all going to come crashing down: the 30 foot statue in his dream, the face of gold, silver torso, bronze, belly and thighs, iron tibias, and iron and clay feet. And Daniel was brought in to interpret the dream. He said you’re the golden face, but you’re going to be succeeded by the Persians of the silver torso; they’re going to be succeeded by Alexander and the Greeks, the bronze belly and quads; then the iron tibias are going to come who are the Romans, but because of the weakness that was built into the Roman Empire, in which they were constantly giving into the humble fallen nature of vessels of clay, eventually out of nowhere, this rock not thrown by a hand would come crushed the clay and the iron feet, and everything would come tumbling down into dust. And that stone thrown would be the one rejected by the builders who has become the cornerstone, the Messiah, the Son of God, whom we know now is Christ the King. But this was happening five-plus centuries before his birth.
• That’s what was happening there. And Daniel continued yesterday and today with even more ferocious images of a lion with wings like an eagle that could fly ferociously and attack — that was supposed to be the Babylonians; succeeded by a beer with tusks for teeth, ripping people apart, those were the Persians; followed by a leopard with four heads so it would be able to see 360, likewise with four sets of wings to be able to fly even faster to attack — those were the Greeks; but finally came a beast, for which there was no analogy, a beast that was fearsome that a 10 heads and 10 horns, and then had an 11th horn, that was just destroying everything. This is meant to describe the Romans. We encountered that beast yesterday. And Daniel, at the end of his vision, asks what it means. He was frightened. But at the very end of the vision, something happened. Yesterday, the Ancient One, portraying God the Father, united to God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in a throne of fire, came, and then someone looking like a Son of Man, coming on the clouds of heaven, who would receive all the Dominion after that last Beast was finished. This image continues in today’s first reading and we see what happened at the end. The kingship and dominion and majesty of all the kingdoms under heaven were given not just to the one looking like the Son of Man but to the “holy people of the Most High,” Christ was coming to share the everlasting kingdom with us. When Christ the King comes, every other kingdom is relativized.
• We see the fulfillment of the prophecies that Daniel described in the way the Romans attacked the Jews, eventually destroying the temple, sieging Masada, murdering so many, taking the objects of the temple with them to Rome. But we likewise see it in the attacks against the Christians, the 13 ferocious, anti-Christian persecutions led by the Roman emperors, from Nero in 64 all the way up to Diocletian in 304. The beast was ferocious against the church.
• We can sometimes ask as Catholics, “What about that stone crushing the 30 foot beast? What about the Ancient One coming to finish off the beast with 11 hours? What was taking so long? How could the Kingdom of Christ coexist with the destruction by the beast of that King’s Church? They could coexist by God’s plan. Jesus had already defeated and he was going to bring great good even out of the attacks.
• As he said earlier this week when he was describing weird things happening in the heavens before he would come, weird things happening believers when he would come home, how we would even be hated by all because of him, he then said why He permits it: because it will lead to our giving testimony. It would be a great pulpit for us. The way the Roman Empire was converted were because of two reasons. First was the charity of the first Christians. Even though in the Roman Empire if you weren’t firstborn you got nothing. There was no fraternity. People used to have to beg for survival after their dad’s death. The paterfamilias had the ability to just have his family members executed legally, to divorce wives on a whim, you name it. And then the Christians come around and they began to sell all their property, voluntarily laying the proceeds at the feet of the apostles to distributors, as was most needed. Even if Romans didn’t treat their siblings like siblings, Christians were treating each other like much beloved brothers and sisters. And people were busting down the doors to get in, because we’re made for that type of love. That was the first way the Roman Empire was converted.
• The second way was the witness of the martyrs. When the Romans who had perfected brutality, even inventing crucifixion, in order to try to deter any copycats of the types of actions for which they were crucifying people, sought to execute Christians, the Christians were shockingly joyful. Christians were singing songs. Christians were forgiving those who were executing them. Christians were acting like Christians unafraid. That converted so many of the soldiers guarding them, so many of the executioners presiding over their demise. The blood of the martyrs was a seed of new Christians. And people recognized through their witness that Jesus was worth living for, worth dying for, and trusting into eternal life. And so the Lord permitted even that ferocious Roman beast to attack the church, because God was going to bring far greater good than even the terrible evil.
• We had a chance to talk about a little earlier today, that when St. Paul was one of those terrorists, ripping Christians out of their home preceding approach, presiding over their execution, when Jesus met him 137 miles north of Jerusalem outside the gates of Damascus, he said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Jesus takes all of this persecution personally. But he rose from the dead after his own crucifixion to show us not to be afraid, how to even endure it.
• This readings throughout this week point to how we’re supposed to respond to the evils that we have to suffer in life. Over the course of this last year, the world, including Christ’s Mystical Body, has suffered a lot. So many Ukrainian brothers and sisters have had their houses destroyed by bombs being ordered from Moscow. The land of Jesus birth has become a war zone, with terrorists coming in destroy Jesus’s fellow Jewish brothers and sisters, and the response involved starving whole populations without food and drink and so many civilian casualties. We can look close to home. How many in this last liturgical year havebeen mowed down by automatic weapons by people walking into schools and other places wanting to kill vast multitudes of strangers? How many others have had to endure smaller scale hits, the type of hatred that tries to justify terrorism even on our campuses, the type of polarity in which people are trying to set up earthly fiefdoms, including by those who say they’re Christian. We’re still experiencing lots of evil. But Christ’s kingship hasn’t been annulled,  and he wants to draw even greater good from these evils.
• That’s why at the beginning of today’s Gospel passage, Jesus tells us beware that our hearts don’t become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness, because often we’ll try to drink our problems away is if somehow that’s going to help it never does. Jesus says to our hyper-anxious age, don’t be driven away by the anxieties of daily life. For he says that these persecutions will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. What’s the remedy? He gives us three verbs: be vigilant at all times, stay awake, be alert; pray, pray that you will have the strength; and stand before the Son of Man. What does this hat trick of responses mean? In the midst of it all, we are called to be vigilant for the Lord’s coming, for the Lord’s action, for the way that the Lord wants to send us in. We’re eavesdropping on every syllable that comes from his mouth, however mutely whispered. We’re hearing the Lord and are alert to him. Second, we are praying, we’re uniting our life to his. Prayer is ultimately an exchange of persons, not just a holy exercise. Third, we’re supposed to stand. At the Gospel, we stand out of reverence for the Lord who speaks live. We stand before the Lord out of reverence, we look up to him, we await him. And we stand so that when he says, “Come follow me,” because we’re ready to move.
• These three related verbs characterize our response as we finish one year and prepare for another: to be awake, not drowsy; to be praying, rather than diverting; and to be standing, rather than seated. That’s what the Lord wants, because he’s here, the one who has conquered sin and death, and called us to be as disciples. And that’s why we fear nothing: this King is with us, whose so much stronger than 30 foot statues, so much stronger than fearsome beasts. He comes to lead us to victory by following him along the paradoxical path that looks like a total loss. If he can bring evil out of the crucifixion, he can bring evil out of any other suffering.
• The great model we have of how to do this is Our Lady. As we finish this liturgical year and begin the next, the old and the new are meant to be Marian. Our heart is supposed to be like her Magnificat, piecing together all that’s occurred over the last year, because we know it’s all part of the Lord’s plan. And we’re called in response with all to say, “My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior”  But likewise, she’s a woman of faith, she faced the future, even though she had those prophecies of what would happen to her heart being pierced seven times, even though she knew the prophecies of what would occur to her Son. She was nevertheless there at Calvary, vigilant not away, praying not distraction, standing not swooning before the Son of man who likewise was the Son of Mary. And she wants to show us how to be vigilant at all times, to pray for the strength to stand with her, who never ceases to stand with and for us.
• As we finish this day of recollection, as we finish this liturgical year, we look forward to the Mass, we ask Mary to help us to bless the Lord her Son, so that one day we may, with her, praise and exalt Him, above all, forever. Praised be Jesus Christ!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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