Regarding today’s gospel, many commentators have claimed that Jesus is speaking about the “end time”—the “Apocalypse”—when the Son of Man will return in glory. Yet, a more careful and critical reading of the text suggests that Jesus is more likely speaking about the “signs of the end time” for disciples in every generation. Their role is to discern and respond effectively to those signs.
Some of the signs of the end times for which his disciples should be alert include:
- people professing as God’s revealed Truth its antithetical opposite;
- people erecting elaborate temples where they worship idols;
- wars, insurrections, nations rising against other nations, and kingdoms against other kingdoms; and,
- earthquakes, famines, and plagues.
Sounds kind of like what’s been transpiring throughout Christian history as well as all around us today, doesn’t it? To wit:
- Self-identifying Catholics across the globe who promote what’s antithetical to Scripture and Church teaching.
- Elaborate houses of worship—called “concert venues”—replete with dramatic lighting, stagecraft, and fireworks all of which is designed to celebrate what’s solely of this world.
- Horrific wars being waged in the Ukraine and Myanmar as well as in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Columbia, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
- Earthquakes, famines, and plagues are so ubiquitous they generate little if any interest on the part of people unless the Weather Channel is hyping them for ratings or they’re being featured in TV commercials soliciting charitable contributions.
“Be aware of these signs,” Jesus said.
Why?
All this calamity portends the overturning of false idols—when everything that’s believed to provide stability, happiness, and meaning in life is suddenly taken away. No longer will any of it provide pleasure, hope, or the power to save people from the vicissitudes of life in this world.
Those signs are the result of people pushing God so far to the peripheries of their daily lives that when the calamities associated with the end time do arrive, what has provided salvation from those vicissitudes provides nothing at all. In addition, those signs portend not just the grief and sorrow the loss of those this-worldly things will bring. They also portend the pain, suffering, and emptiness that’s sure to ensue. People will have no choice but to persist in enduring the calamity they’ve successfully staved off to this point because there will be “No Exit” (“Huit Clos”), as Albert Camus described in his novel.
Unfortunately, people experiencing these calamities hedged their bets on transient worldly things—especially their feelings and possessions—rather than God’s revealed Truth, the source of eternal life. Not heeding what’s unchanging, people didn’t reject their false idols which are changing, depending upon what people want and fancy will bring happiness in these days.
The experience about which Jesus was teaching would be similar to someone prophetically foretelling the events of 9/11 during the early 1980s: “The symbol of American economic, political, and geographic might—the superpower’s ‘Twin Towers’—will come under assault and be obliterated within one hour,” the prophetic voice would cry out. Upon hearing this prophecy, some would ignore it. Others would be aghast, verbally assaulting the messenger “What a nut!” while in their disbelief asserting “That couldn’t possibly happen.” Others would experience fear if not terror, shocked at the horror of so many lives suddenly evaporating from the face of the Earth. Yet others would grow infuriated and demand that the prophet be imprisoned, exiled, or even executed.
“Teacher, when will this happen?”, the people asked Jesus.
The answer for people today is identical to the answer Jesus gave the people of his day: “It’s already happening.” To which Jesus added: “See that you not be deceived….”
So many people today—perhaps many if not most of us—don’t see, having allowed themselves to be deceived. The evidence is the fear they experience when everything that provides comfort, happiness, and security—all of which they take for granted—is threatened. Then, when it’s all taken unexpectedly and in the flash of an instant, they’re struck dumbfounded by sadness and unfathomable grief as they try to make sense of it all.
Logically, those are only “things” people have lost, as many opine when their homes are destroyed by hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or wildfires. But for those who practice the false religion of materialism, those are more than mere “things”...they’re idols. People worship them and willingly throw money at their vendors so they can possess their cherished objects of desire…all the while not giving one thought to what’s more important than all those things: What their hearts need.
The false religion of materialism drives some people to fanaticism. Sure, many people may want but who really needs:
- a $2 billion dollar portfolio?
- a $100 million dollar-plus annual salary?
- a $25 million dollar house?
- a $150 thousand dollar car?
- a 100 thousand-seat stadium filled with adoring fans who’ve paid $150-plus for a seat in the four-tier loge?
- an 83-inch OLED classic flat-screen television?
- a brand-spanking new $1.6 thousand dollar iPhone?
The honest answer is obvious: No human being needs any of it or even half of it. Most could get along just fine with one-quarter of it. How many people have remembered fondly the days “when life was simpler”?
Yet, many people today lust for these and so many other material things, complicating their lives. In addition, they willingly devote their God-given time to the disciplined and arduous work that’s required to acquire those objects of desire.
All of that comes at a very high cost, however.
To acquire all those things, people first have to push God to the peripheries of their lives. Then, over time, they don’t give a thought to or offer thanks to God, the Source of those things as well as the time , abilities, and aptitudes needed to acquire them. Instead, these folks congratulate themselves and others laud them for their success! Ironically, while they’d never countenance tithing the Church, they’re willing to mortgage their futures and indebt themselves far beyond their means to a bank or credit card company in order to acquire and call all those material things their own.
But, come to think of it, doesn’t all of it belong to the Creator not the creature?
Forgetting that, however, while people who worship the false idol of material things—adherents of the religion of materialism—may possess everything they could possibly want, every one of them will lose all of it in the end time called “death,” never having possessed what their hearts need. Yes, they may have experienced glimmers of it in their hearts but they never possessed it. Then, when the bills come due, the prophet Malachi reminded us in today’s first reading:
Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts.
Of those who would possess the temerity to challenge and expose this false idol for what it is so people would avoid this fate, Jesus said:
Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name.
This also sounds similar to much of what’s transpiring all around us today—the “signs of this end time.”
- If you have the temerity to profess publicly the revealed Truth of God contained in Scripture and Church tradition—the complementary nature of the two sexes, the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, the family as God created it, to name just a few—the crowd will surely berate, malign, and scorn you.
- If you happen to a be public official who upholds the revealed Truth of God, while you may be interviewed on The View, MSNBC, or the cable TV or mainstream media, it’ll be for the purpose of mocking, sneering at, and making you look foolish. The people in the audience will also applaud and jeer, just as Romans who were seated in the Amphitheater did as the lions devoured the Christians.
- If you happen to post on Facebook what the “fact-checking truth police” deem “offensive,” you will be incarcerated in Facebook jail or maybe even banned for life from making another post. It’s also likely family members and friends will reject if not disown you for posting your content concerning your foolish ideology. The more polite of them will “unfriend” you and you’ll never know what these people really think about you.
No wonder so many Catholics become “sleepy” Catholics and don’t persist, as Jesus has taught in the gospels of the past four Sundays. Living in and of this world, they have concluded it’s not worth the aggravation, pain, and rejection to uphold God’s revealed Truth. To persist in evangelizing people, in particular, only adds to the adversity, making for a far less happy if not very unhappy life in this world, just as Jesus prophesied:
You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name.
Who wants any of that?
The truth be told, none of us. Yet, who among us is preparing for this eventuality? Quite likely, the answer again is “None of us”…especially when we don’t persist in striving to be “WOKE” Catholics.
When the signs augur the end time, Jesus taught in today’s gospel that people should do the opposite. Rather than cower before the maddening crowd, all the aggravation, pain, and rejection should “lead to your giving testimony.” For Jesus, this is the precise moment for “WOKE” Catholics to persist in evangelization! Furthermore, there’s no need to prepare a defense beforehand—to rehearse one’s arguments in support of God’s revealed truth—because, Jesus said, “I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.”
How so?
“WOKE” Catholics don’t need to prepare a defense because they’ve already been given the Holy Spirit in the Sacraments of Initiation—Baptism and Confirmation. They renew this gift each time they partake of the Sacrament of Penance. They also nourish and strengthen themselves in grace and holiness by partaking of Eucharist. All this practice of their faith prepares “WOKE” Catholics to defend themselves! Then, too, persisting each day in prayer, humility, and evangelizing as well as enduring adversity, the Holy Spirit—who knows what the people in the crowd need to hear—will speak through WOKE” Catholics especially in the example of their daily conduct.
Taking Jesus as their model, “WOKE” Catholics don’t expect all will go well. With parents, brothers, relatives, and friends turning against and perhaps even hating them for defending God’s revealed truth, “WOKE” Catholics appreciate what it means to live in and of this world all the while striving to live for God’s kingdom. Yes, some may even be put to death, as they have been across the two Christian millennia and as currently is happening in so many places across the globe. But, Jesus has promised:
…not a hair on your head will be destroyed.
Jesus adds one caveat, however:
By your perseverance you will secure your lives.
God’s revealed truth is that each day is lived most authentically by persevering in living one’s faith through prayer, humility, evangelizing, and willingly enduring all sorts of adversity for the sake of God’s kingdom. For their part, this is how “WOKE” Catholics “make a difference.” They put into practice what St. Paul wrote in today’s epistle concerning the importance of presenting oneself as a model for others to imitate:
- This is how spouses persevere in fulfilling God’s revealed truth about marriage—“which no human being can destroy.” Persisting in prayer, humility, evangelizing, and enduring all sorts of adversity in living this truth, “WOKE” Catholic spouses work to build stronger marriages. Meanwhile, one sign of the end time is “sleepy” Catholics spouses who view divorce as the first, best, and only means of finding happiness in this world.
- This is how parents persevere in fulfilling God’s revealed truth about their primary responsibility as the first and best educators of their children in the faith. Persisting in prayer, humility, evangelizing, and enduring all sorts of adversity in living this truth, “WOKE” Catholic parents are committed to the struggle of raising their children to live as spiritual and moral beings. One sign of the end time is “sleepy” Catholic parents who provide their children everything they want yet fail to provide their children what they need—effective catechesis in God’s revealed truth.
- This is how young people persevere in fulfilling God’s revealed truth concerning their personal vocations. Persisting in prayer, humility, evangelizing, and enduring all sorts of adversity for striving to be the person God created each of them to become individually, uniquely, and irreplaceably, “WOKE” Catholic young people are a sign of contradiction. Meanwhile, one sign of the times is the gaggle of young people who kowtow to their peer group because they lust to “fit in” and “be accepted.”
With the 2022 Liturgical Year speedily coming to its close—the end of time for this “Year of Grace 2022”—we’ve been reflecting upon the promise of Christmas Eve, “They shall name him ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.”
Today’s readings remind us not to be tempted and then seduced to reject God’s revealed truth by those who live in, of, and for this world. Instead, we’re told to persevere, especially as the signs augur the end time is near. More than ever, this witness is needed so others will awake from their slumber and arise from their sleep so they will read the signs of the end time…and before it’s too late when they will come to the realization they’ve forsaken the life God has breathed into them for this world and the next as well.
That represents this week’s challenge from scripture: To persevere and secure our own lives.
This week, each of us can “do this, in memory of me” by conducting a simple memento mori: At the end of each day, take a few moments reflect upon sign of the end time—the rejection of God’s revealed truth—which evidenced itself during the day.
- Perhaps a family member, relative, co-worker, friend, or neighbor uttered a “sign” in a conversation.
- Perhaps the TV news presented a “sign” in a report.
- Perhaps a movie, television show, or stage production promoted a “sign.”
- Perhaps a midterm election evidenced a “sign.”
No matter where or how the “sign” evidenced itself, it promoted an idol offering what people want and promising they will experience happiness in this world. It’s all a cleverly concocted and neatly packaged lie intended to deceive people. All the while, this lie is being promoted as truth. In this regard, recall what Jesus taught in today’s gospel:
All that you see here—the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.
Having augured a sign of the end time—evidencing the Holy Spirit at work within—it’s now time to discern and enact each day this upcoming week what’s required to persevere and save your life.
Actively bringing God back into the center of daily life its peripheries, allow your heart to be moved by pity for those who are incapable of reading the signs of the end time. Then steel yourself to do what prophets do in every generation: Knowing what they see, they fearlessly proclaim the signs of the end time because they love God and neighbor as they love themselves.
This is how “WOKE” Catholics “do this, in memory of me.” They bring the gospel to the ends of the earth so others will experience the fulfillment of the promise of Christmas Eve: “They shall name him ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.”
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