Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, November 16, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, B, Vigil
November 16, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday. During the month of November, the Church always ponders what are called the “four last things,” death, judgment, heaven and hell. This Sunday Jesus speaks to us in apocalyptic language about the end of the world, when he says the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give light, the stars will fall from the sky and the heavens will be shaken. He declares that then everyone will see him coming with great power and glory as he sends out the angels to gather the elect from all corners of the earth. He tells us that when we see these things happening, we should know that he is near. He adds that we should similarly always be ready, for no one knows the time it will take place except God the Father.
• In graphic language, Jesus is describing the truth we proclaim every Sunday in our profession of faith: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” But many of us are afraid of this reality. If angels were to come in vast numbers right now to announce that the end of the world were coming today, most people, rather than rejoicing, would be screaming in fear. Most people would not be ready. That’s not, however, the reaction the Lord wants from us, for it shows a lack of faith and love. When the early Christians reflected on this reality of Jesus’ second coming, they used to cry out, “Marana tha,” “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20). They looked forward to this event with great expectation, because it would lead to their full unity in love with the Lord forever. Our attitude is supposed to be similar. We pray in every Mass, after the Our Father, “By the help of your mercy, may we be always free from sin … as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ!” The attitude we’re called to have versus Jesus’ second coming is a holy “hope.”
• I remember once when I was preaching a retreat in Los Angeles, an elderly woman came to me, asking, “Father, is it sinful for me to look forward to my death so that I can, God-willing, be with Jesus forever in heaven?” I replied tenderly, but emphatically, “No. It’s not a sin!” Then she said to me, “Then why doesn’t anyone else seem to have this longing?” It was a very sound observation. Few do seem to have this longing. One reason, I think, is because so many of us are focused the things of this world, obsessed about the imminent political changes taking place in Washington, various dramas in our workplaces or families, or the latest happenings in sports or entertainment. Our mind, heart, soul and strength are not focused on God and the things of God but what Jesus elsewhere in a parable would call “worldly cares and anxieties, the lure of riches and the craving for other things” (Mk 4:19).
• Another reason, I think, may have to do with the first part of that prayer I just cited from the Mass, and the link between our being “free from sin” and our ability to wait in “blessed hope” for the coming of the Lord. I’d like to illustrate this point with a story from my childhood. When I was a kid, most days I would wait with eager expectation for the return of my dad from work about 4:15 in the afternoon. At about 4:00, our black Labrador retriever would start pacing around the house with its tail wagging. Each of the four kids would take regular glances at the clock. Eventually we would hear the shutting of the heavy steel door of my father’s van and we would all hustle toward the back door through which he would come, all wanting to be the first to jump into his strong arms and give him a hug and a kiss. We loved our dad and couldn’t wait for him to return so that we could be with him. This was what happened, as I said earlier, on “most” On other days, I would actually dread his return — precisely on those occasions when I had done something that I knew he wouldn’t appreciate and about which my mother had promised to inform him on his arrival! On those afternoons, when 4 pm came around and our dog began his excited daily ritual, I was looking for a place to hide behind the clothes in the closet in my bedroom. I think that experience is a parable for our disposition in front of the return of the Lord. If we really love the Lord, we are impatient for his return, so that we can be with him. We’re like family members in airports awaiting the first sight of loved ones returning from deployments or trips overseas, ready to scamper across arrival terminals to embrace them. Similarly, if we’re ready to greet Jesus, it is a time of “blessed hope” and expectation. For those of us who have “done something wrong,” however, who have not been “free from sin,” who haven’t been doing what we ought to have been doing with the gift of life, then it’s something to which we do not look forward — something even that we can dread.
• How do those of us who do fear the coming of the Lord — either at the end of time or at the end of our lives, whichever comes first (and either may come in a matter of minutes) — become those who can await his coming full of “blessed hope”? The great saints have told us the secret to this transition: it’s by living each day as if it is our last, by being ready at all times to meet the Lord, by getting everything in order, so that not only we will never really be caught off guard when he comes but rather on fire for a loving reunion.
• In Thomas à Kempis’ spiritual classic, The Imitation of Christ, he counseled all believers on how to do this. He wrote, “Very quickly will there be an end of you here; take heed therefore how it will be with you in another world. … O the dullness and hardness of man’s heart, which thinks only of the present, and looks not forward to the future. You ought in every deed and thought so to order yourself, as if you were to die this day. … Happy is the man who has the hour of his death always before his eyes, and daily prepares himself to die. … When it is morning, reflect that you shall not see the evening, and at eventide dare not to boast yourself of the morrow. Always be prepared, and so live that death may never find you unprepared. Many die suddenly and unexpectedly. ‘For at such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man will come.’ … Strive now to live in such a way that at the hour of death you may rather rejoice than fear. Learn now to die to the world, so shall you begin to live with Christ. Learn now to spurn all earthly things, and then you may freely go unto Christ. … Think of nothing but your salvation. Care only for the things of God. Make friends for yourself by venerating the saints of God and walking in their footsteps, so that when you die, you may be received into everlasting dwellings. Keep yourself a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth, to whom the things of the world belong not. Keep your heart free and lifted towards God, for here we have no lasting city. To Him direct your daily prayers with cries and tears, that your spirit may be found worthy to pass happily after death to its Lord.”
• Kempis’ spiritual wisdom, which has formed many saints over the last six centuries, is based on the insight that it is only when we realize that today may be our last day, that we may not have the opportunity to put off the truly important things until tomorrow, that we begin to think clearly and get our priorities straight. We act differently toward people when we realize our last interaction with them might be our last. We begin to look at time differently and no longer wish to waste it on diversions. We’re not tempted in the same way toward the harsh word, or the impure thought, or the vengeful action, knowing that that might be the last thing we ever do. We begin to have a far deeper appreciation for prayer and the Sacraments and the Church. We cease to sleepwalk spiritually and become fully alert to the meaning of every moment, thought, word and deed.
• Back in 2011, two days before he would retire as Archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali wrote for the priests of his archdiocese an extraordinarily beautiful meditation on Christian preparation for death. “Preparing for death is the greatest opportunity in our lives,” Cardinal Rigali wrote provocatively. Rather than dreading death as the inexorable occasion in which our life will be taken from us, we can all learn from Jesus, he said, how to make our death an act of supreme self-giving love. He advised that we focus on two Gospel passages. The first is Jesus’ words, “No one takes [my life] from Me; I freely lay it down” (Jn 10:18). Just as Jesus made his death an act of self-giving love, so we can do the same. “Seen in this perspective,” the Cardinal continued, “death is the moment to give all, to surrender all with Jesus and in union with His sacrifice. … When anticipated by an act of loving acceptance, death is an opportunity to say ‘yes’ to the Father, just as Jesus did; to say ‘yes’ with all our heart, as Jesus did.” That leads us to the second passage, Jesus’ last words from the Cross, when he cried out, “Father, into your hands I commend My spirit” (Lk 23:46). Our self-giving love is a self-entrustment to the Father, something the Cardinal urges us to do every day before we go to bed, as the Church does in Compline. He comments, “When the hour of death comes, we may not be conscious. It may come very suddenly, by reason of an accident, by reason of a heart attack; there are a million and one possibilities left to our imagination, but this does not matter. The point is: the surrender will have been made thousands of times! The Father will understand that each of us had the power, which we exercised, the power, with His Son Jesus, to lay down our life freely, lovingly and definitively. Then there will be no obstacle to the consummation of our love. Life and holiness will be ours forever in the communion of the Most Blessed Trinity.” Since preparing for death is the greatest opportunity in our lives, Cardinal Rigali concludes, “Now is the time to give all!”
• Let us take full advantage of this month of November, and the consequential conversation with Jesus in the Gospel this Sunday, to form in ourselves this habit of daily self-offering. Each day let us pronounce the definitive “yes” to God that we want to say on the last day of our life, at the hour of our death, and for all eternity. This is the means by which when the sun and moon darken and the stars seem to fall, when Christ comes in glory to judge the living and the dead, rather than be afraid, we will run out to meet him, free from sin, as the fulfillment of “blessed hope,” ready to jump into his gloriously scarred hands to be embraced by love. That’s the way we make practical the Church’s beautiful bridal call, “Marana tha,” “Come, Lord Jesus!”

The Gospel passage on which the homily was based was:

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