Last Sunday after Pentecost
(From 24th
and Last Sunday of Pentecost)
22 November 2015
"Come, ye blessed of My Father, Possess the kingdom prepared for
you....” Mt. 35:40
In his book of meditations on the liturgy, Divine
Intimacy, Fr. Gabriel of St. Magdalen,
OCD. comments: “The Mass for today, the
last Sunday of the liturgical year is a prayer of thanksgiving for the year
that is ending and one of propriation for that which is about to begin; it is a
reminder that the present life is fleeting, and an invitation to keep ourselves
in readiness for the final step which will usher us into eternity....With the
description of the end of the world and the coming of Christ to judge the
living and the dead, the Gospel (Mt. 24:13-25) reminds us that just as the liturgical year comes to an end,
so does the life of man on earth. Everything will have an end, and at the end
of all, will come the majestic epilogue: "Then
shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven [the Cross]: and then shall
all tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the
clouds of heaven with much power and majesty." (Mt. 24:30) Fr.
Gabriel, p. 1100-1 In today’s Epistle
(Col. 1:9-14), St. Paul shows us how we can be assured of a place in the
heavenly kingdom at the end of the world if we live according to God’s will: "We
... cease not to pray for you and to beg that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will ... that you may walk
worthy of God, in all things pleasing;
being fruitful in every good work,” Col. 1:9-10
Eternal Glory
in Heaven
Fr. Gabriel tells us about the importance of
today’s Epistle for the attainment of eternal glory in heaven: “This is
a beautiful synthesis of the task which the interior soul has endeavoured to
accomplish during the whole year: to adapt and conform itself to God's holy
will, to unite itself to it completely, and,
being moved in all things by that divine will alone, to act in such a manner as
to please Our Lord in everything. God be praised if, thanks to His help, we
have succeeded in advancing some steps along the
road which most surely leads to holiness. Making our own the sentiments of the
Apostle, we should give thanks to “the
Father who hath made us worthy
to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light." (Col 1:12) The
lot, the inheritance of the saints, of those who tend toward holiness, is union of
love with God-- here below in
faith, hereafter in glory. This heritage is ours because Jesus merited it for
us by His Blood, and because in Jesus "we have redemption, the remission of
sins" (Col. 1:14); thus, cleansed from sin and clothed in grace by His
infinite merits, we also can ascend to that very lofty and blessed state of
union with God.” Fr. Gabriel, p. 1100
The Fall of Jerusalem and the End of the World
In today’s Gospel, Jesus
foretells two of the most catastrophic events to happen to mankind. By juxtaposing the Fall of Jerusalem (70 AD)
with the End of the World, Jesus warns us to be ready for what will befall our
world. When Jesus prophesied “When, therefore, you shall see the
abomination of desolation, which was spoken by Daniel the prophet, standing in
the holy place: he that readeth let him understand. Then they are in Judea, let
them flee to the mountains.” Mt. 24:15-6 Cornelius A Lapide in his Commentary
on St. Matthew’s Gospel comments on this scriptural text, especially in
relation to Fall of Jerusalem: “Some
understand by it an idol placed in the temple as God; others, the sins
committed by priests in the temple; others, more correctly, the Roman armies
which besieged Jerusalem, and which, shortly afterward, when it had been
captured, fearfully wasted it, and made it desolate. It could also mean the
profanation of the temple by the murders and other crimes which were
perpetuated in it by the seditious killers and wicked Jews, who call themselves
Zealots of the law and of liberty.” A Lapide, p. 423. No wonder Jesus
prophesied as A Lapide points out: “For there shall be then great tribulation (Jerusalem and all Judea because of the
divine vengeance as is clear from Lk. 21:33), such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now,
neither shall be.” (Mt. 24:21) A
Lapide, p. 427
Jerusalem’s Catastrophic Fate
The Fall of Jerusalem was
going to be the most catastrophic event to befall a nation in the entire
history of the world. It is a reminder
of the great price that needed to be paid for the deicide of Jesus Christ. It
is also a foreshadowing of the greater events which will happen at the end of
the world. Cornelius A Lapide says: “This most dreadful destruction of
Jerusalem was an express type and prelude of the end of the world, just as
Noe’s deluge, the burning of Sodom, and the drowning of Pharaoh and his entire
army in the Red Sea....Christ, therefore, compares the destruction of the one
nation of the Jews with that of any other nation whatsoever, but not the
destruction of all nations, or the whole world. That this was the case, is
plain from the seven books which Josephus compiled (de Bello Judaico). Thus he
says expressly (lib. 6 cap.11) ‘to speak briefly, I am of opinion that no other
city suffered calamities, nor in any other nation of which there is memory
among men was the wickedness of seditious more ferocious... (lib 7, cap. 18)
The number of those who perished surpasses that of any calamity, whether human
or of divine origin; of whom some were killed outright, and some were carried
off by the Romans.’ ....Hence Josephus
(lib. 7 Belli c. 17) asserts that
besides innumerable others slain in all
parts of Judea, there fell in the siege of Jerusalem alone 1,100,000 souls, who
died of famine, pestilence and the sword. ...The same writer says that 97,000
Jews were taken captive at that time..... ‘For
these are the days of vengeance (i.e., for the death of Christ)... There will be great distress in the land and
wrath upon this people.’ (Lk. 21:22) Josephus adds (lib. 7 Belli c. 16) that Titus (the Roman General) recognized this vengeance of God, and
attributed the capture of Jerusalem, not to his own power, but to Him. For
entering into the captured city, when he saw the height and solidity of the
bulwarks and towers, he exclaimed, ‘It is evident that God has helped us to
fight. It was God Himself who cast down the Jews from those fortifications. For
what power of man, or what machines, would have been able to do so?’ The same
Josephus (lib. 6 Belli cap. 14) adds, and Eusebius cites him (lib. 3 Hist. cap.
5) that ‘Titus went round, and saw the ditches full of corpses of the dead, he
groaned aloud, and lifting up his hands to heaven, called God to witness that
it was not his work.’” A Lapide, p. 424-8
“...the sun shall be darkened and moon shall not give her
light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and powers of heaven shall be
moved.” Mt. 24:29
Cornelius A Lapide quotes the
allegorical meaning of this passage from St. Augustine (epist. 80 at Hesychium): “The sun, that is, the Church, shall be
darkened, because in those tremendous tribulations and temptations which shall
be in the end of the world, many who had seemed as bright and as firm as the sun and the stars shall fall away from
the Faith and a state of grace.” p. 441.
Cornelius A Lapide gives a more
literal and symbolic explanation of this passage: “...the sun will be darkened because God will withhold His concurrence
and take away from it, not its light, but its power of illuminating and of
scattering its rays; thus it shall come to pass that in the sun there
will be light, but upon the earth nothing but darkness, as it happened during the passion of Christ, so as to
manifest the indignity which He suffered, since the sun, the moon, the earth
and rocks and all the elements seemed to mourn, indeed grow indignant....”
A Lapide, p.441-2
“And then shall appear the
sign of the Son of man in heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth
mourn...” Mt. 24:30
Cornelius A Lapide quoting St.
Augustine (serm. 130 de Tempore)
tells us of the power of Christ’s Cross: “Hast thou considered how great is the virtue
of the Sign of the Cross? The sun shall
be darkened, the moon shall not give her light; but the cross shall shine and
shall obscure the heavenly luminaries. When the stars shall fall, it alone
shall send forth radiance, that thou mayest
learn how the cross is more luminous
than the moon and more glorious than the sun, because illuminated by the
brilliance of divine light, it shall
surpass their splendour. For just as when a king enters into a city, his soldiers
go before him, bearing upon their shoulders the royal arms and standards, and
all the pomp of military array, to proclaim the monarch’s entry; so when the
Lord descends from heaven, the angel
hosts shall go before Him, bearing upon
their lofty shoulders that sign which is
the ensign of triumph, to announce to the inhabitants of earth the divine
entrance of the heavenly King... But why will the cross appear then? That they might understand the mystery of
iniquity (cf. II Thess. 2:7). ‘And then shall all the tribes of the earth
mourn.’ (Mt. 24:30) That is, many of every tribe, that is, all the
reprobate and the damned shall mourn, because they have neglected their
salvation, which cost Christ so dearly that he was crucified. But the elect
will rejoice and sing, because they will see that they have been saved and
blessed by the cross. The distribution
(of rewards), then, is to each according to his kind, and not to
(predetermined) categories of individuals as logicians put it. S. Augustine (serm. 130 de Tempore) gives the cause of
weeping, ... because they shall see their accuser, that is, the cross itself;
and at the sight of this reprover they shall acknowledge their sin. Too late,
and in vain shall they confess their
impious blindness. And dost thou marvel that when Christ cometh He will bring
His cross, since He will show His wounds also?” A Lapide, p. 446
“And they shall see the Son
of man coming in the clouds of heaven
with much power and majesty.” Mt. 24:30b
Cornelius A Lapide comments of
the power of Jesus at this His Second Coming: “In Greek, ‘with great strength
and glory’, Lk. 21:27 ‘with great
power’. For as Christ as His first advent came into the world in great
infirmity of the flesh, in poverty and contempt, so He hath thereby merited to
come in His second advent with great
strength, glory and majesty. His might and strength shall appear, in that at
His command all the dead shall rise in a moment; in that all men, angels, and
devils shall behold and worship Him as their God, their Lord, and their Judge;
in that He shall pass sentence upon all according to their merits, and shall
execute His sentence, so that none shall dare to contradict or resist it. His
majesty shall appear in the infinite splendour of His body, in the
multitude and brightness of all the
angels accompanying Him, and in His garments of radiant clouds, also in the
trumpets, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, etc., that shall precede Him....” A
Lapide, p. 448
Confidence in God’s Love
St. Teresa of Avila gives us a
confidence that, if we have loved God in this world we should have no fear of
death nor God’s judgment: "Deign, O
Lord, to grant me the experience of true love before You take me from this
life, for it will be a great thing at
the hour of my death to realize that I shall be judged by One whom I have loved
above all things. I shall be able to meet You with security, certain that I
shall not be going into a foreign land,
but into my own country, for it belongs to the One whom I have loved so truly
and who has loved me in return. How sweet will be the death of that soul who
has done penance for all its sins and does not have to go to purgatory! It may
be that it will begin to enjoy glory even in this world, and will know no fear, but only
peace!" St. Jose Maria Escriva, The
Way, 40
Addendum: for you spiritual
life!
“…regaining lost joy ...”
A Good Confession
If we want to regain some of the lost joy which we should
have in this world when we think of our heavenly home then we need to make a
good confession of ours sins. Pope John Paul in his Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliation
and Penance, (2 December, 1984, 31, III) tells us that every contrite
confession is “a drawing near to the
holiness of God, a rediscovery of one’s true identity, which has been upset and
disturbed by sin, a liberation in the very depths of one’s self and thus a
regaining of lost joy, the joy of being
saved, which the majority of people in our time are no longer capable of
experiencing.”
