Turning to the Lord Who Comes to Judge the Earth, 34th Tuesday (II), November 24, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Andrew Dung Lac and Companions
November 24, 2020
Rev 14:14-19, Ps 96, Lk 21:5-11

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

• Throughout the month of November, but especially in this last week of the liturgical year, the Church has us ponder the four last things. Today the Church puts before us lessons on the first two last things, death and judgment. The lesson is for us to prepare well for it, to prepare correctly, to prepare as true Christians.
• Many of us when we think about death and judgment we can be filled with fear, anxiety, even dread. On the surface today’s readings might buttress those trepidations. In the first reading, the Book of Revelation describes the time of judgment as two angels and someone looking like a son of man coming out with sharp sickles in their hands to reap the harvest of judgment, being instructed to use that sickle to “cut the clusters from the earth’s vines, for its grapes are ripe” and then throwing them into the “great wine press of God’s fury.” In the Gospel, Jesus describes how all the stones and votive offerings in the resplendent Temple of Jerusalem will be thrown down, how there will be impostors coming and saying deceptively “I am he” and the “time has come!,” how there will be wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues (like the present coronavirus pandemic) and “awesome sights and mighty signs” from the sky. All of this can make us think that death and judgment will be straight out of a Stephen King horror movie in which we’ve become the victims.
• But fear is not supposed to be our reaction. Jesus tells us in the Gospel, “Do not be deceived,” “Do not follow them!,” and “Do not be terrified.” He’s describing these events so that we can be at peace while they occur. We see it in St. Matthew’s parallel version of today’s Gospel. After he describes what will happen at the end of time he says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” He wants us to build our lives on his word as the foundation of rock that will keep us secure even when the earthquakes, wars, insurrections, famines and plagues happen. Everything else is like building on sand (Mt 7). The proper reaction is likewise summarized by the Responsorial Psalm, in which we prayed four times, “The Lord comes to judge the earth!,” and we added, “Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice; let the sea and what fills it resound; let the plains be joyful and all that is in them! Then shall all the trees of the forest exult before the Lord, for he comes; for he comes to rule the earth. He shall rule the world with justice and the peoples with his constancy.” We’re to focus more on the Lord than we do on these events and we’re supposed to focus on him both now and in anticipation of that moment. As long as we’re not being deceived by impostors but living by the Lord’s truth, as long as we’re not following the pretenders but following the Good Shepherd, as long as we’re not focusing on terrors but recognizing that the Lord seeks to tell us, “Do not be afraid, it is I!,” then there’s absolutely no reason to fear death and judgment. In fact, we should look forward to the Lord’s coming and the signs that augur that his second coming is near. It’s only when we’re not really living as the Lord wants in the present that we begin to become afraid.
• And so the real lesson of today’s readings is for us to live today how we would want to be found by the Lord if today were the day of the Lord. It’s to live without fear, following him in truth, walking by faith, loving him and others as he taught us. In the image from the Book of Revelation, it means living in such a way that we’re becoming ripe, that our grapes are maturing with Jesus’ own juice poured out in love for God and others leaving nothing back, which happens naturally when we’re living as branches attached to Him the Vine (Jn 15). If we’re living as wild grapes producing sour wine, that will be obvious to everyone, to God and to us in the judgment of the great wine press the Book of Revelation foretells; if, on the other hand, we’re living as we ought, as branches on the vine, we know that the wine we produce will be greater than anything produced by the best vineyards at vintage time.
• Today we celebrate the feast of fellow Christians who were ready with the ripe fruit of faith when earthly sickles came for them. We mark the common feast of the Vietnamese martyrs, St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his 116 companions, just 117 of the estimated 130,000 Vietnamese Catholics who gave their lives for Christ between the 17th and 19th centuries. St. Andrew gave his supreme testimony to Christ in 1839. He was a teenage catechist who was eventually ordained and was tireless in his preaching and ministry of baptism, exhorting others to constancy and fidelity. He himself, like so many of those to whom he ministered, was captured and sentenced to death. The tortures suffered by the Vietnamese Catholics are among the worst recorded. Their limbs were hacked off joint by joint, their flesh was torn off with red hot tongs, they were drugged, caged, and exposed to many indignities. They were commonly branded on the face with the words “ta dao,” which means “sinister religion,” but none of that was able to detach them from Christ the Vine. One of the Vietnamese martyrs was St. Paul Le-Bao-Tinh who wrote a letter to the students of the Seminary of Ke-Vinh in 1843. His words have become famous because Pope Benedict XVI featured them in Spe Salvi as a description of Christian hope, the hope that comes from knowing that Christ is with us, that we are solidly built on him. St. Paul wrote, “I, Paul, in chains for the name of Christ, wish to relate to you the trials besetting me daily, in order that you may be inflamed with love for God and join with me in his praises, for his mercy is for ever. The prison here is a true image of everlasting hell: to cruel tortures of every kind—shackles, iron chains, manacles—are added hatred, vengeance, calumnies, obscene speech, quarrels, evil acts, swearing, curses, as well as anguish and grief. But the God who once freed the three children from the fiery furnace is with me always; he has delivered me from these tribulations and made them sweet, for his mercy is for ever. In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone—Christ is with me. Our master bears the whole weight of the cross, leaving me only the tiniest, last bit. He is not a mere onlooker in my struggle, but a contestant and the victor and champion in the whole battle. Therefore upon his head is placed the crown of victory, and his members also share in his glory. …  I write these things to you in order that your faith and mine may be united. In the midst of this storm I cast my anchor toward the throne of God, the anchor that is the lively home in my heart. … Come to my aid with your prayers, that I may have the strength to fight according to the law, and indeed to fight the good fight and to fight until the end and so finish the race. We may not again see each other in this life, but we will have the happiness of seeing each other again in the world to come, when, standing at the throne of the spotless Lamb, we will together join in singing his praises and exult for ever in the joy of our triumph. Amen.” That’s what it means to look constantly to the Lord who comes to judge the earth. Because of their faith under trial the heavens are glad and the whole earth rejoices.
• Each day at Mass, Jesus gives us his body and blood and attaches us ever deeply as branches to Him who is the Vine, so that his very sap, his lifeblood, flows through us, making it capable for us to spend ourselves without reserve for God and others united to Christ who gave everything he had down to the last drop of his blood. Jesus described elsewhere in the Gospels that the judgment will be like a harvest that will take place “when the grain is ripe and at once he goes in with his sickle” and how the wheat will be separated from the chaff (Mk 4:29; 13:24-30, 37-43). He wants us to be every ready for that judgment so that when the harvest comes we might bear fruit that comes from our union with him. Today at this Eucharist he reminds us, as he did his first followers during the Last Supper, “Remain in me, as I remain in you. … I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit. … Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.” It’s through the Eucharist more than any other means that we abide in Christ and he in us. It’s our union with him here that gives us the faith and constancy we need to spend ourselves fully, not to be afraid, but to follow him in a life of bearing fruit. He promises us that if we remain in him and the words he has given remain in us, then we can ask the Father anything and it will be done. Today we ask the Father through Christ the Vine to give us the grace  to remain faithful and fruitful in life and faithful and fruitful in death so that we might have the joy of sharing her eternal price in that place with the angels will lift their sickles in triumph.

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