Homily at Sion Community’s FaithLift Day, for the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time.
What is going to happen to us?
People through the ages have worried about this question, in different ways.
What is going to happen to the human race?
What sort of future will be there for our nieces and nephews, our grandsons and granddaughters?
What about me? Will I live to a ripe old age?
In seeking answers, human beings have turned to sourcerers and scientists, soothsayers and sages.
Our Church wisely warns us against trusting any kind of fortune telling or giving it power over our lives. If it works at all, it works because an ungodly spirit comes behind it, and Scripture makes clear that the Devil is a liar, mixing just enough truth to seduce us.
Science can make some predictions about what is inevitable, and others which depend on our behaviour. In a few billion years, our Sun will run out of nuclear fuel, swell up and engulf planet Earth. Politicians have just spent two weeks considering the scientists’ best estimates of how human pollution will change our homeworld over the next fifty years; we have made some progress but many promises have not yet been kept, and others may be too little, too late, for the most vulnerable nations on earth. And perhaps science has given us a false sense of security in the richer nations of our world, that we are in control of our personal fate; we’ve just lived through two extraordinary years which have reminded us that even with science, we are still vulnerable to Mother Nature.
God has also chosen to reveal something to us about what is to come. In the Creed we will say shortly in this Mass, we will declare “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” The prophet Daniel received a vision of the last judgment – and note it is not just the good who are raised to new life. Every person who has ever lived is raised into a restored body, and then the good will shine while the wicked live with eternal shame. Jesus chose to tell his followers of a dramatic Second Coming when the skies would be transformed and the Son of Man would return.
Many have speculated about what this could mean. Is it a prophecy of a nuclear war, a climate catastrophe or a rogue asteroid smiting the earth from space? Or is it a divine intervention which need not be explained by science, because the things of God are beyond the mind of man? Speculating about how, or when, is pointless. Jesus gives this as a warning to be ready at any time.
There’s a story about a saint, perhaps it was Saint Francis, who was busy sweeping the floor of his churchyard, when a rumour spread around the town that Jesus was going to come back in one hour. Some of the villagers rushed to confession. Others went to make peace with their enemies. Still others sank to their knees to spend the last hour of their lives in deep prayer. But Saint Francis? He just carried on sweeping the floor, comfortable in the knowledge that he was already living his life in the way the Lord expected.
We must beware of the temptation to follow mystics and visionaries who claim to know more. Some of them may truly have received prophecies about what is yet to come, but everything must be tested against Scripture and the teaching of the Church. There is a book you should read if you want to know what is yet to come – and that book is the Catechism of the Catholic Church! Paragraphs 668–679 deal with the Second Coming of Jesus. Paragraphs 1038–1050 are about the last judgment of humanity. There is more than you might expect in there, about what God has revealed about the future. So if you are minded to pay attention to other visions or prophecies, start by taking time to understand what the Church teaches, and test everything against that.
Jesus revealed something about the End – which is, of course, a new Beginning – not so that we should worry, but that we should hope. Hope is, in fact, the spiritual gift of believing in the goodness which is yet to come. In the end, all shall be well – and if all is not well, then it’s not yet the end.
On this weekend of Remembrance, we recall that just over 100 years ago, Britain was at war with Germany and her allies. That war was won, but more conflict followed. Eighty years ago, during the Second World War, British civil servants had to prepare for the worst. What if Britain suffered a heavy Nazi bombardment? A series of advisory posters was prepared, but never used. Today, we find ourselves faced with the uncertainty of climate change and coronavirus. A few years ago those posters were rediscovered, and have been reproduced on everything from T-shirts to mugs. The words of wisdom? “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
In fiction, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy offered similar advice in an even more pithy form: the words “Don’t Panic!” – written in big friendly letters on the front cover.
But in truth, the only advice we need is found hundreds of times in the pages of the Bible. “Do not be afraid.” Why did Jesus reveal to us something about the End Times? For the same reason that he revealed all other things on God’s heart. I will leave you with his own words from John 16:33:
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
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