Scripture Reflection for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Malachi 3:19-20
Psalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9
2 Thessalonians 3:7-12
Luke 21:5-19
To know the end is near, to watch for the end, St. Augustine taught that the fruit of such knowledge and vigilance is patience. Instead of anxiety, instead of chaos and overactivity, rather calm should rest the soul of the believer.
The readings this Sunday are indeed about the end. “Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven,” the passage from Malachi begins (Malachi 3:19). Like Jeremiah before him, Jesus talks about the destruction of the temple; after this, he’ll talk about the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet what he fully means by “the end” is bigger than that (Luke 21:5-24). Jesus here is talking apocalyptically.
That is, reading all this we can’t help but think of the ultimate end. Of that inevitable future these passages are meant to remind us. We are being spiritually prepared in these readings for the season of Advent, prepared even for that reality beyond all Advents, for the final advent of Christ the Lord.
Which is a reality that will indeed have something of the fire of judgment to it, the destruction and reconstruction of things. It will indeed be an awesome advent, a fearful thing, in many ways. But again, as St. Augustine repeatedly preached, this should not cause believers any sort of anxiety or stir up any sort of foolishness.
Rather, the fruits of such knowledge should be the virtues. “Those who realize they are living as strangers in this world,” St. Augustine said, “who know they have an eternal home country in heaven…they know how to live here patiently” (Sermon 359A, 2).
St. Augustine here was preaching on the last line from this Sunday’s Gospel: “By your perseverance you will secure your lives” (Luke 21:19). The Greek word hypomone can just as easily be translated as patience. That, St. Augustine said, should be what we take from the Lord’s words here, the spiritual capacity to endure.
This is the virtue found among the martyrs. When St. Augustine talks about the martyrs, he talks about things like patience and endurance. “Endure for time, rejoice forever,” he preached elsewhere. When Christians suffer persecution patiently, he said, they produce a “grand crop.” “It is from these sheaves that crowns are made,” Saint Augustine said (Sermon 335A, 3).
This is exactly what St. Paul taught. It’s why we Christians strangely “rejoice in our sufferings.” Because we know that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”
The idea is that given the knowledge of God’s ultimately victory, born of the love that has been “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us,” we believers should be strong enough to withstand the temptations, the harassments, and all the weight of the world’s evil (Romans 5:3-5). Because we know who wins.
But knowledge of the ultimate end of all things and the virtues of patience and endurance should also bear upon ordinary life. Yes, each of us should be willing to be a martyr for Christ; however, most of us are called to apply our faith and our virtues more humbly, in smaller ways.
That, I take it, is what St. Paul was on about writing to the Thessalonians. It seems a few of the faithful had gotten themselves so worked up about the final advent of Christ that they not only misunderstood it, but they also ended up making themselves fools needing reproof.
Which is why, to those living “in a disorderly way,” St. Paul said, in substance, get back to work. He even suggested, proverbially if not literally, that such idle busybodies should not eat. He exhorted them, authoritatively “in the Lord Jesus Christ,” to work quietly and earn their own living (2 Thessalonians 3:6-13).
Clearly then, to know that the Lord will return is not to give up on the world. Rather, it’s to take up everyday life, the ordinary life we’ve always known, but with a new sort of spirit and with faith, hope and love.
And that’s a beautiful lesson. To see how all the apocalyptic talk in the Bible relates to our ordinary lives, it’s meant to renew us, to give us perspective and grace and strength. It’s meant to give us the grit to keep going in the way of Christ’s truth and to love no matter how weird the world gets. Because we know the mystery. Because we know the Lord. We know who wins.
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books.
