Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil

November 12, 2022

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.12.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday as the Church seeks to deepen our annual November meditation on the Last Things. In the Gospel, Jesus gives various details about the end times. He describes how the house of God will be attacked, how there will be imposters claiming to be speaking for God and asking us to follow them, how there will be wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues, persecutions, hatred, betrayals by family members and friends, and how even some of his followers will be put to death. When Jesus’ listeners asked, “Master, when will this happen?” — presumably so that they could be prepared — he didn’t answer their question directly, not only because the time of the second coming was known only to the Father, but also, and perhaps most importantly, because he wanted them to be prepared for it always. If he had given some date weeks, decades or centuries later, the temptation would have been just to go on with life as normal. But Jesus had come to establish a totally new normal, a norm of faith, a norm of vigilant awaiting, a norm of full-time Christian behavior. He wanted the day of the Lord to be a perpetual state, so that each day would be the Lord’s day, a day in which we exclaim, “This is the day the Lord has made!” And the signs of the day of the Lord he gives us help us to maintain this awareness, because they are in fact events we see in every age, when there’s destruction, natural disasters, wars, famines, illness, betrayals, attacks on the Church, and the persecution and killing of Christians.

* But if pay close attention to this Sunday’s Gospel, theres seem at first glance to be a contradiction. How can Jesus affirm at the end of the Gospel simultaneously that some of his followers will be put to death but that not a hair on their head will be destroyed? In short, why would God allow so many terrible things to happen to those who trust in him? How’s that protecting them down to every last strand of hair?

* Let’s get specific with events in the news: Why would he allow Hurricane Ian or Nicole to rip through Florida and destroy so many homes? Why would he allow what’s happening in the Ukraine, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Madagascar, or Myanmar? Why would he allow the ballot measures and various candidates in favor of abortion to win on election day? Why would he allow so many attacks against Christians in Nigeria, where earlier this week 11 were killed and over 80 kidnapped? Why, in fact, would he allow so many periods of persecution and martyrdom throughout the centuries or allow half of all the martyrs in the history of the Church to have shed their blood in the last century?

* The answer is something we all have to grasp in order to grow in faith. While it’s not a contradiction, it’s a hard truth all the same. God permits these evils in order to help us become better disciples and better apostles, more fervent followers of him and more passionate proclaimers of his salvation. He who permits evil solely because he intends to bring from it a greater good, does so to help us become more faithful and bring other people to faith. He tells us in the Gospel that all of these disasters and sufferings “will lead to your giving testimony” — and not just any testimony.