Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Agnes Church, Manhattan
Last Sunday after Pentecost
November 21, 2021
Col 1:9-14, Mt 24:15-35
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
Today in the ordinary form of the Latin Rite the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King, which is the culmination of the entire liturgical year, helping us to ponder not only the end of time but also how to live in the present time, recognizing the kingdom Christ inaugurated in but not of the world, entering into that kingdom, helping others enter into it, and living in such a way that we may share in its fullness forever. While in the extraordinary form, we celebrated Christ the King three weeks ago, today’s readings help us to revivify the graces of that feast, focusing us on actualizing the realities it indicates and preparing us for what is to come.
Today’s first reading literally does that, because it is from the same passage we heard 21 days ago, in which St. Paul reminds the Colossians and us that God the Father has “delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” Christ came to accomplish a rescue and a transfer, an exodus through baptism from the kingdom of this world into the kingdom of Christ by means of “the forgiveness of our sins.” St. Paul tells us that the new life of the “kingdom of [the] beloved Son” is supposed to flourish in seven different ways:
- First, we are “filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” To live in Christ’s kingdom means to have our minds renewed with Christ’s wisdom and understanding. The Lord wants to give us not just a “little” of this wisdom but to fill us with it and those who dwell in the kingdom hunger for it, receive it and respond to it. To seek this wisdom is a clear sign that we mean the words “Thy Kingdom come!”
- Second, we “live in a manner worthy of the Lord so as to be fully pleasing.” The summary of the Christian life is to please the Lord. We do so by living in a manner worthy of him, to live as Christians, or little Christs, seeking to model our behavior after his and follow him all the way. To live as Christians is to live differently than the rest, to be, but not of, the world, like Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, doing all the normal things of ordinary human life, but differently than the crowds, converting those ordinary things into opportunities to please the Lord.
- Third, “In every good work bearing fruit.” Our union with Christ as branches on the vine (Jn 15:1-8) is meant to produce fruit. When Jesus plants his seed within us — the seeds of his Word, the seeds of his Body and Blood as a grain of wheat — if we have good soil, we will bear 30, 60 or 100 fold. Our faith, our communion with God, is shown in the fruit of acts of love and lots of them. A clear sign of that we’re living in the Kingdom is overflowing charity.
- Fourth, “Growing in the knowledge of God.” The longer we are alive, the longer we’re dwelling in Christ’s kingdom, the more we are supposed to grow not merely in the knowledge of things about God, but in the personal knowledge of God, not just savoir but connaitre, not saber but cohecer, not sapere but conoscere. We come to know him personally. We deepen our friendship with him. We come to know him more than a wife and mom knows her husband, kids and best friends. This is lifetime project that happens as a result of our prioritizing prayer. It is something that makes living in the kingdom so exciting.
- Fifth, we are “strengthened with every power, in accord with his glorious might, for all endurance and patience.” Implied in this promise, and seen in the life of St. Paul, is that the Christian life is going to be hard. Christ the King was crucified because many in the world rejected his kingdom, and Jesus promises us that if they hated him, they’d hate us too. But God doesn’t leave us there. He strengthens us with every power, in accordance with his glorious power, so that we might endure with heroic perseverance, just as he did. These sufferings are part of the means by which he perfects our transfer from the power of darkness into the Kingdom marked by divine filiation, since in and because of these sufferings, we are helped, forced in a sense by circumstance, to choose God with greater faith, hope and love in the midst of the trials.
- Sixth, “With joy giving thanks to the Father.” The fundamental marks of Christians living in Christ’s kingdom are joy and thanksgiving. This is something we need to grasp even more deeply as we prepare for Thanksgiving Day on Thursday. Christ came so that his joy might be in us and our joy be brought to completion. He was the happiest person who even lived and he came to give us the good news and have us enflesh it. A famous 20th century French intellectual (Leon Bloy) once said that joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence, because when we are aware that God is with us — the creator and savior of the world, the Risen One, the one who brought the greatest good out of the worst evil on Good Friday — we are filled with joy. And thanksgiving goes with joy, recognizing the extraordinary gifts of God we have even in the midst of hardships and bursting out with thanks to God and others.
- Seventh, “Who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.” God has made us fit, worthy, capable, of sharing in the inheritance of all the saints in the light of Christ shining here in this world and illuminating the eternal Jerusalem. To live in the kingdom means to recognize our inheritance and be willing to trade in everything else for that pearl of great price. It means to take seriously that God has called us not just to be “good people” but holy people, holy like St. Agnes the patron of this Church, holy like St. Joseph during this special Holy Year, holy like Saints Cecilia, Miguel Pro, Columban, Clement, Andrew Dung Lac, and Catharine of Alexandria whom the Church will celebrate this week. He has made us worthy of being his sons and daughters, worthy of his very life within, worthy of his light and holiness. But to remember what St. Paul said early, we must live in a manner worthy of that gift.
To live in the kingdom to which Christ has transferred us is to be filled with God’s knowledge, wisdom and understanding, to live in the image and likeness of God, to please him, to bear fruit in acts of love, to grow in personal friendship with God, to endure hardships strengthened by God’s almighty power, to be full of joy and gratitude, and to live as saints, receiving Christ’s light and in him becoming the light of the world.
That description of the kingdom helps us to grasp how we are to live at every time, but also during the end times. In today’s Gospel, we get a harrowing description of the end times. We hear of a “desolating abomination,” of “great tribulation” such as the world has never seen, of people fleeing to the mountains, of woe for pregnant women and nursing mothers, of mourning, false messiahs and prophets, vultures gathering around corpses, darkened suns and blackened moons, stars falling, and quakes not just on earth but in the sky. At the time of Jesus, people got their orientation from the sun during the day and the moon and the stars at night, and Jesus was describing that there would come a time of total disorientation according to the ways of the world. He tells us that when all of this takes place, we’re not supposed to be frightened, running like scared children everywhere the mobs tell us to go, believing what the gurus or polls say, because Jesus tells us he won’t be in deserts or inner rooms, here or there, waiting for us but will come like lightning. When we see any of these things happening, Jesus wants us to know that already “he is near!” In fact, he will already be here, because he has already inaugurated his kingdom. And what he wants us to do is to build our lives on the rock of his holy word, so that whenever these storms occur and blow and buffet against us, against our families, against the Church, against the world, we will remain firm, because we have constructed our lives solidly on him. He wants us to find our orientation, our coordinates, in him. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” he says, “but my words will not pass away.” That’s why St. Paul prays for us to be filled with God’s knowledge, wisdom and understanding, to be strengthened by his power, and to live as saints radiating Christ’s light even with the sun goes dark and the moon is eclipsed. That’s what it means to live in Christ’s kingdom. It’s to base our life on his words that will never expire. That’s one of the reasons why we finish every Mass in the extraordinary form pondering St. John’s prologue and going out into the world remembering that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
The great way we are strengthened with every power in accord with God’s glorious might, the means by which God fills us with wisdom and understanding and helps us to live in a manner worthy of our calling, the way we are capacitated to bear fruit that will last into eternity, is here at Mass when with joy we give thanks — literally eucharistein — to the Father and are lit anew and more intensely with the light of Christ. It was on Calvary that Christ transferred us from the power of darkness to his own kingdom and it’s here that we enter into that new and eternal Passover. It’s here that we recognize the foolishness of when other people say, “Look, here is the Messiah!” or “There he is!,” because it’s here where John the Baptist tells us, “Behold the Lamb of God.” It’s here where we have the chance to hear and build our whole life on his words that will never pass away and on the Word made flesh, risen from the dead. And it’s here that we prepare best for what we hope to do eternally: by entering into a life-changing communion with him, fully living our transfer into his kingdom here on earth, that we are ready for the transfer from New York to the eternal Jerusalem.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Colossians
Therefore, from the day we heard this, we do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with every power, in accord with his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light. He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The continuation of the Gospel according to St. Matthew
Jesus said to his disciples, “When you see the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, a person on the housetop must not go down to get things out of his house, a person in the field must not return to get his cloak. Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days. Pray that your flight not be in winter or on the sabbath, for at that time there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will be. And if those days had not been shortened, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect they will be shortened. If anyone says to you then, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will arise, and they will perform signs and wonders so great as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told it to you beforehand. So if they say to you, ‘He is in the desert,’ do not go out there; if they say, ‘He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For just as lightning comes from the east and is seen as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. “Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things, know that he is near, at the gates. Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
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