Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXIII per Annum C
13 November 2022

 In the month of November, the Catholic mind quite naturally considers the end of things.  The Church’s liturgical year is coming to an end.  The Scripture readings in this time of year speak to us of the end of things.  As we have decreasing daylight in this season, we give special attention to prayer for the souls of those who have gone before us, whose eyes have closed to the light of this world.  All this easily brings to mind the end of things, the end of the world at the Second Coming, the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell), and the destination of our own soul after death.

In the Gospel, after numerous chapters chronicling his journey, Jesus has now arrived at his destination of Jerusalem.  He is in the Holy City and has been welcomed as the king with palm branches and cries of “hosanna!” (cf. Mt. 21).  The setting of this Gospel passage is the lead up to that first Holy Week.  The Lord teaches in the Temple.  He then goes across the valley with his disciples.  From there they can look back at the holy city and its gleaming temple.  Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple.  That is the clear and primary meaning of the Lord’s words in this passage.  The temple had been previously destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.  The prophetic prediction is that it would happen again.  Jesus speaks words that back up that prediction as we heard in today’s passage.  And, in fact, that destruction did take place within some forty years after Jesus’ death.  The Lord tells his disciples that many disturbing signs will precede and accompany this destruction.  His disciples are to be alert but they are not to be afraid, even though they will not know exactly when the destruction will come.  A lesson from the words of this Gospel and the teaching of the Lord, is that we don’t follow those who claim to know the day or the hour of these events.  We certainly take note of signs of strife between nations and peoples, and the signs in the cosmos of natural disasters.  These communicate to us that we should be ready and prepared for what comes.  But we are not to get wrapped up in anxiety and frantic predictions.  Rather, we live each day alert.

The Church has always understood a rich significance of the Lord’s prediction of the destruction of the temple.  To understand this deeper significance, we must know something of the significance of the temple in the Jewish mind.  Among other things one can say, it is important to note that the Jerusalem temple was viewed as a microcosm of heaven and earth, of the whole universe.  The layout, the architecture, and the decoration of the temple symbolized heaven and earth.  The different parts of the temple called to mind the parts of the universe, the land, the sea, the skies with their constellations, and the holy of holies was the symbol of heaven itself, the dwelling place of the Most High God.  Theologian Brant Pitre notes that “for the Jews…, the universe was like a macro temple…. But the earthly Jerusalem temple was like a micro universe; it was a microcosm” (Mass Readings Explained, 33rd Sunday C).  So, another meaning of the Lord’s words in this Gospel is that when he speaks of the destruction of the temple there is the deeper significance that he is speaking of the destruction of the whole universe, and he is making a reference to the day of final judgment.

The Church wants us to take note of these important meanings so that we remain alert for the end of things and so that we live in a way that finds us prepared for our judgment.  We need to think of the end of things and we need to think of our own end.  We should do this not only when it is abundantly obvious that the end is near, as it might be when one is advanced in age or facing a terminal illness or sudden disaster.  It needs to be a regular habit we form.  A long tradition in our Catholic spirituality, one encouraged by many saints, is captured in the phrase: Memento mori, which is Latin for “Remember death.”  There will be signs of the end of the world.  We may have signs of our own impending end.  But we won’t know with precision the day or the hour.  Rather, we must live each day in an orderly way as St. Paul referenced in the second reading, we live daily with that vibrant faith and focus so that we are ready whenever the end comes.  We live each day seeking to encounter God in prayer and good moral living.  We live each day availing ourselves of the grace of sacraments that the Lord has so generously left for us.  If we aren’t building a prayer life, if we aren’t using confession regularly, if we’re cutting out of Mass early as a habit do we think we are forming good discipline in order to be ready to meet the Lord?  We have to pay attention to these common, frequent, even daily things for they reveal something about our discipline, our vigilance and preparedness.  Again, as St. Paul said, we did not act in a disorderly way.  These simple things show us something about being ordered, vigilant, and prepared.  We need to think about these and so many other things soberly and honestly.  We don’t want to be like the proud and evildoers spoken of by the Prophet Malachi for whom the day of the Lord’s judgment will come “blazing like an oven,” leaving them set on fire and utterly destroyed, “leaving them neither root nor branch.”  The same day of the Lord will come for us too.  But by lives of disciplined preparedness may we find that day to be a day filled with mercy such that we are among those who fear the Lord and who find that day like “the sun of justice with its healing rays.”