NOVEMBER 23, 2011: FEAST OF SAINT COLUMBA:
LUKE 21:12-19
I MYSELF WILL
GIVE YOU words and A WISDOM that none of your foes can resist. (Luke 21:15). Jesus with this
assurance sought to encourage his disciples while warning them against heavy
trials to come upon them. We find ourselves in the final days of this
liturgical year today. In their distinctive and quite different ways, both
readings we have just heard are well chosen for this occasion, in that nothing
is better suited to the end of the Church year than reminders that there is to
be a time of troubles followed by a most solemn judgment at the end of the
world. That there will certainly be a definitive end of the world as we know it
was a wide and firmly held belief in the Jewish world of Jesus’ time. Not for
the first time, however, in our own age a number of physicists have devised the
multi-world theory that asserts that when our present cosmos arrives at its
term, it will give rise to a successor in a never ending series. Actually this
theory is an echo of the long-held Hindu belief that the end of one age of time
is followed by another long cycle in an endless cycle.
The
inspired Hebrew authors were of a very different opinion. Just as this created
world had a beginning, so will it come to a definite end in time, to be
followed by the
The
word for unveiling in the Hebrew, gala
in the Greek Septuagint is apocalypsis
that gave rise to the English term Apocalypse.
Early Christians took over this
tradition and were keenly sensitive to its central concept that maintains there
is to be a final time that will initiate a New Age. This term Apocalypse was employed as the title of
the last book of the New Testament. It culminates with a vision of the New City
of God that descends from heaven and is characterized as consisting in an
intimate union with God. John, the author, employs solemn and memorable
language as he describes the transition that is to take place at the end of
days:
And I saw
a New Heaven and a New Earth. The first heaven and the first earth departed;
the sea also is no longer. Then I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming
down from heaven from God, adorned like a bride for her husband. I then heard a
powerful voice from the throne that announced: “See, the tabernacle of God is
with men and he will dwell with them”. (Apoc. 21:1-3)
A
generation earlier, Saint Paul had already written that “if anyone is in Christ
he is new creature, the old matters have passed away” (2 Cor
5:17) In a certain way to the eyes of faith, the new world has already begun
and those who put their faith and trust in the Lord belong to that heavenly
city even now. “We have been saved in hope” (Rom 8:24). His point is that
salvation is in a manner already realized. He follows up this assertion with a
reminder meant to give us confidence, knowing as we do how vulnerable and frail
we are. “Likewise, the Spirit helps our weakness…, the Spirit prays for us with
ineffable groanings.” God is for us, who then can harm us, if only we place our
trust in Him.
Not
many days ago the Gospel reminded us that Jesus in his preaching stressed the
uncertainty of the final time when the world as we now know it will meet its
end. When his apostles asked him when to expect the final events of the
end-time, he insisted in the clearest terms that he day must remain unknown,
hidden as it is in the eternal mind of the Father. The moral lesson he inferred
from this state of affairs he summed up in a lapidary warning: “Watch, be
ready.” In today's Gospel he provides us with further assurance as he
strengthens his disciples with a firm promise that is an encouragement for our
hope as we hear him say: I MYSELF WILL
GIVE YOU words and A WISDOM that none of your foes can resist. (Luke 21:15). As we
offer this Eucharist this evening then, with confident faith in God’s loving
mercy we turn to him with alert readiness asking for the courage that
communion with Jesus will prepare us to welcome him when he comes to introduce
us into the presence of the Father. Ω