Gospel Mk 13:24-32
Jesus said to his disciples: “In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. “And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky. “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 these things happening, 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. “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Homily
I do not like thunderstorms. They scare me and always have. In my younger days I would often go to confession if I perceived that a thunderstorm was about to happen. I remember one pretty bad one when I was still a missionary inParaguay. The sky was lit up for long periods of time with the intensity and constant flashes of lightning, palm trees were split in two by lightning strikes and the noise of the thunder made the house in which we lived shake. One prayed for that storm to stop as it seemed as if the world was in fact coming to an end. When it ended people came out of their homes very cautiously as if they were afraid that the storm might begin again. When the following day it dawned bright with a blue sky, what a relief there was for everyone. Last week I could not help but pray for those who live in the path of hurricaneSandy. They must have experienced very similar emotions.
I thought of those experiences as I meditated on the Gospel reading for this weekend because the gospel given to us for this weekend meditation is part of the last discourse of Jesus’ public ministry which takes place just before Jesus’ capture, judgment and death. As such it is a warning for his disciples, in very symbolic language, that all that they had come to love, all that they had come to depend upon was going to be taken from them. Their world was going to be shattered. “In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” This is in fact a situation that all of us face from time to time; accusations that have the potential to destroy our lives, the brutal murder or sudden death of a spouse or child; the disintegration of the social order in a country, fratricidal wars like those still going on in the Middle East, the lack of integrity in Church leaders. When such things happen it appears that our world is coming to an end. Jesus however gives his disciples a ray of hope; “Learn a lesson from the fig tree.” He says to them; “When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates.” Personal and community or societal disasters are always opportunities for new beginnings, beginnings in which God’s Spirit can lead us on new and exciting paths to reach the lost dream. Christians therefore have to be eternal optimists, capable of finding signs of hope in the most deplorable situations. It is these signs of hope that give us the courage to keep on working for what seems to be the lost dream.
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It was because the saints were eternal optimists that they could undertake the seemingly foolhardy tasks which they did. St. Francis was called to renew the church. He, who was never a priest, gathered around him a group of men who brought about renewal to the church. John Bosco had a dream of converting unruly young men who were as ferocious as wolves into lambs. He founded a Congregation which is now international, dedicated to youth. Mother Teresa’s sisters work throughout the world lending help to those most in need. All of these were eternal optimists seeing signs of hope where others saw only disaster.
As we come to the end of the church’s year the gospel reminds us that in any situation of travail, when our world seems to be coming to an end, be it our own personal world or the greater world, we are called to be people of hope, eternal optimists rallying others to continue working for that dream which must become reality.
Today we thank God for the eternal optimists in our midst. We thank God here in T&T for those who keep the dream of a truly united country in which corruption and discrimination of every kind will cease to exist. We thank God for Servol, the institution which saw hope in youth that most people had written of. We thank God for those who continue working in spite of the multiple problems to make T&T, a little bit of paradise.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, we live in stressful times. All around us institutions, financial, social and religious, seem to be crumbling. People are losing hope. You call us your disciples however to be people of who learn lessons from the fig tree, people who know that when its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, that summer is near. Help us to understand that when all seems to be crumbling that you are near, at the very gates. Help us to be eternal optimists rallying others to continue to work to keep the dream alive. We ask this through the intercession of Mary our Mother and Jesus your son. Amen
