Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time C

November 17, 2013

For today's scripture readings click here.

There was a mother mouse who was scurrying across the kitchen floor with her brood of six little mice in tow.

All of a sudden she came eyeball‑to‑ eyeball with a very large and very mean‑looking cat.

The mother mouse was terrified!

But she pulled herself up to full height, squared her shoulders, and roared at the top of her lungs, "Bow‑wow!"

The cat nearly jumped out of his skin, and in the blink of an eye was scrambling up a tree two blocks away.

Meanwhile, the mother mouse gathered her little ones around her and explained, ANow, my dears, you see what I've always told you about the importance of learning a second language!@

Sooner or later we all come face to face with our own version of that monster cat ‑ face to face with an event or circumstance that tells us that our world and life as we have known it has come to an end.

The ugly possibilities are endless; an irreversible illness, death of a spouse or child, rejection by our loved ones, abandonment by our friends, total loss of our fortune, utter failure in our life's work, the final triumph of all our enemies.

That's just the short list, but the possibilities are endless and we've all had a taste of them.

We all know what the gospel means when it talks about the sun being darkened and the stars falling out of the sky.

We know!

So it's important for us to learn how we are to survive when, inevitably, those moments do come.

The gospel gives us the key: "When all these things happen," it says, "you will see the Son of Man coming with great power and glory."

The promise of today=s scripture is that, when our personal world falls apart, and the bottom drops out of our lives, we'll be able to see past the ugliness and see through the pain to the ultimate reality of things ‑

which is: despite all appearances,

God is still in charge, still cares, still has the power to make all things right,

and still intends to do just that ‑ in good time!

Now what is it that enables us to see all that so clearly when disaster has struck so hard?

Faith! Only faith!

Not some eleventh‑hour grasping at straws, but a deeply ingrained habit of the heart that we've built a piece at a time over many years.

So what have our hearts been saying all these years?

I hope something like this, "Lord, I know from living that you love me even more than I love myself.

So, Lord, I entrust myself to you, and no matter what comes, I won't be afraid."

If that is what our hearts have been saying ‑

if that is the habit of our hearts ‑

we have nothing to fear from the future because we're ready for it on the inside.

God never promised to insulate us from pain or sadness.

But he does guarantee that, whatever comes, we will not be destroyed so long as we stay connected to him.

Whatever comes, he will see us through and we will, in the end, prevail, so long as we stay connected to him.

So now is the time to speak our word of faith deeply from the heart.

Now is the time to entrust our whole selves to him and never, ever look back.

And when at last the lights grow dim and our world fades away, we shall see him coming in power and glory!

We shall see him face to face!