Malachi 3:19-20a

Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts. But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.

Psalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9

R. (cf. 9) The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice. Sing praise to the LORD with the harp, with the harp and melodious song. With trumpets and the sound of the horn sing joyfully before the King, the LORD. R. The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice. Let the sea and what fills it resound, the world and those who dwell in it; let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains shout with them for joy. R. The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice. Before the LORD, for he comes, for he comes to rule the earth, He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with equity. R. The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.

2 Thessalonians 3:7-12

Brothers and sisters: You know how one must imitate us. For we did not act in a disorderly way among you, nor did we eat food received free from anyone. On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day we worked, so as not to burden any of you. Not that we do not have the right. Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you, so that you might imitate us. In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat. We hear that some are conducting themselves among you in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others. Such people we instruct and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and to eat their own food.

Luke 21:5-19

While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, "All that you see here--the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down." Then they asked him, "Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?" He answered, "See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he,’ and 'The time has come.’ Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky. "Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I Myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

Have you ever heard the word Eschatology? Eschatology is the study of end times. It focuses on the four last things: Death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

I am firmly convinced that the end is very near! It’s only a matter of days. All the signs are there. Halloween has come and gone, All Saints Day and All Souls Day have passed. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Christmas decorations are already up in the stores. No, I’m not talking about the end of the world, I’m talking about the end of the Church’s liturgical year. Next Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, is the last Sunday of the Church’s Liturgical year. The following Sunday, the First Sunday in Advent, starts the Church’s new liturgical year.

What better time to repent; go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, then at the end of the Liturgical year? Make a fresh start with a clean slate at the beginning of the new Liturgical year. Now is a great time to make resolutions for your spiritual life.

At the end of every Liturgical year the Church gives us readings that deal with the end-times. These Scripture passages are given to us to

remind us that Jesus will return, there will be a Final Judgment when He will administer true Justice and all will be sent to either Heaven or Hell.

The readings usually sound pretty frightening, as it is in today’s Gospel:

“… wars and insurrections.” “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.” “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name.” “You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name,” (Luke 9, 11-12, 16)

But, this is not the only time we are reminded of those last things. We are reminded at every Mass. In our Creed we say, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” In the mystery of faith: “We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection, until you come again.” Or “When we eat this Bread and Drink this Cup, we proclaim your Death, O Lord, until you come again.”

We should be reminded every time we pray the Our Father when we come to the words, “Thy Kingdom come.”

Saint John Henry Newman once wrote about the hereafter, “Do not fear that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.” It is when our new life begins, that our understanding of our present life will be clear to us, how we carried out our role in the spread of God’s kingdom.

The purpose of these end-times Scripture Passages is not to frighten us. The purpose is to assure us that those who remain faithful to the end will participate in God’s victory, even if the present realities seem to show the powerlessness of God over His enemies. They promote hope and trust in God especially in the midst of extremely disturbing conditions. To better understand what Malachi is saying in the First Reading, let’s look a few verses before today’s passage. Malachi says this about those who remain faithful: “They shall be Mine, says the LORD of hosts, My own special possession, on the day when I take action. And I will have compassion on them, as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.” (Malachi 3:17)

That is also what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel when He says, “but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives." (Luke 21: 18 – 19)

We live in the ages between our Lord’s first coming and His last. We live in the new world begun by His life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension. But we await the day when He will come again in glory

“Lo, the day is coming,” Malachi warns in today’s First Reading. The prophets taught Israel to look for the Day of the Lord, when He would gather the nations for judgment. Today’s Psalm tells us to sing praise to the Lord and shout with joy, “Before the LORD, for He comes, for He comes to rule the earth, He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with equity.” (Psalm 98: 9) There is a saying, “Always live your life as though each day may be your last.” I like to add, “Because one day you will be right!” Once we stand before God in judgment, we don’t get any “do-over’s.” That is not to say that Our God is not the God of second chances. Our God is the God of second chances, third chances, millionth chance, but only as it pertains to our state of life right now, our life on Earth.

We have to get it right now. We are called to live as if Christ was coming in the next second. But that isn’t easy. The promise of Christ to us in today’s Gospel that it is “by our perseverance we will secure our lives.” (Luke 21: 19)

We need to persevere in living our lives as God wants us to, as we are called to live them as Catholic Christians. The verse that follows today’s Second reading says it well, “Brothers, do not grow weary of doing what is right.” (2 Thes 3: 13) How can we do that? How do we persevere until the end of time, the end of our time? Because, you know, the end of the world for us is when we die to this life on earth.

We have the power of the grace of God with us always, if we accept it. We have God present in the Church in the Sacraments to help us. We have the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help us start over when we’ve messed up. It is in the Sacrament of Reconciliation that we get our “do-over’s.” What a wonderful gift from our creator. Repent! The End is Near!

We have Our Lord and Savior present with us and in us in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. This is to nourish us for our daily journey toward God. He gives us His very self to help us follow Him. One thing is certain, God’s love for us. Jesus tells us that no matter what happens He will be with us.

Above all we need to maintain hope. Not hope, like “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” but the Christian virtue of hope. Bishop Fulton Sheen described the differences this way: “The emotion of hope” (the first kind, the “I hope it doesn’t rain” kind of hope) “centers on the body and is a kind of dreamy desire that we can be saved without much effort.” The Christian virtue of hope is “a divinely infused disposition of the will by which, with sure confidence, thanks to the powerful help of Almighty God, we expect to pursue eternal happiness, using all the means necessary for attaining it.” The Christian Virtue of Hope can be described as looking to a future reality with such total confidence that I rejoice as though I possess it today; because, in faith, I do possess it today.

In today’s Second Reading, St. Paul cautions those who are preaching that they need to continue to live their Christian lives to keep persevering in doing what is right in the eyes of God. Since some of them thought that Jesus was coming back very soon they were preaching to the people, but had stopped working and were taking advantage of others in the community, living off of their generosity. St. Paul says, “We hear that some are conducting themselves among you in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others.” (2 Thessalonians 3: 11)

How much have times changed? Take for example some of the rich tele-vangelists of the last 40 years or so. You know the type. They go on television and radio preaching a gospel of prosperity and wealth if only you will send your money to God. The problem is the address they give you to send your money to is their own, and then, they don’t practice what they preach. Don’t get me wrong there are many preachers on television, radio, and social media that are good and holy people, these men and women that I’m speaking about are the exception, not the rule.

For those who are capable of working and taking care of themselves taking advantage of others, gaining wealth from the generosity of others, was not right in Saint Paul’s time and it is not right now.

We should be living our lives so that one observing us will know that we are different from the rest of the world. Each of us should have a plan for our spiritual life that will lead us to everlasting life. Each of us should set aside a time for prayer and a time of study of the Catholic Faith. None of us knows everything about being Catholic. There is always more to learn. A study of Scripture and the Catechism will assist us in making our faith an integral part of our lives, rather than something we practice once in a while. We should take advantage of the opportunity of the Sacrament of Reconciliation frequently. It is the gift of this Sacrament in which we get our chance to “do-over” those things we didn’t get right the first time. The greatest aid we have to prepare for our end time is the Eucharist. We have Our Lord and Savior, body, blood, soul, Humanity, and divinity present with us and in us in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.And so, I leave you with the words of Saint Paul, “Brothers and sisters, do not grow weary of doing what is right.”

Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6

The LORD said to me: You are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory.

Now the LORD has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; and I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD, and my God is now my strength! It is too little, the LORD says, for you to be my servant,

to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10

R/ (8a and 9a) Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.

I have waited, waited for the LORD, and he stooped toward me and heard my cry.

And he put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God. 

R/ Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.

Sacrifice or offering you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me.

Holocausts or sin-offerings you sought not; then said I, “Behold I come.”

R/ Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.

“In the written scroll it is prescribed for me, to do your will, O my God, is my delight,

and your law is within my heart!”

R/ Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.

I announced your justice in the vast assembly; I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.

R/ Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.

1 Corinthians 1:1-3

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 1: 29-34

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.  He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’  I did not know him, but the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel.”

John testified further, saying, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him.  I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

 In today’s Gospel, John does a peculiar thing.  He calls Jesus the Lamb of God.  When John says, “Behold the Lamb of God”, he was saying a lot.  Similar to a small sheep, Jesus came humble, innocent of sin and allowed Himself to be slaughtered to take away our sins.  And, like the lamb, He became food for us.

But what exactly does John mean when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) What does he mean by describing Jesus that way?”  Describing Jesus as the Lamb of God has lots of meaning.  It recalls the Passover lamb.

Exodus Chapter 12 explains that on the last night in Egypt, the Hebrews killed a lamb and put its blood on the doorframes of their houses as protection from the angel who would pass through Egypt that night taking the firstborn of the Egyptians.

Exodus 12: 21-23 states that the Hebrews used a branch of hyssop to smear the lamb’s blood on the doorframes of their houses “They will take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.” (Exodus 12:21-23)

Exodus 12:46 states of the Passover Lamb, “You shall not break any of its bones.” (Exodus 12:46)

 What does all of this have to do with Jesus?  The gospel of John describes Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament Passover Lamb.  In the Old Testament a lamb’s blood saved the Hebrews from disaster before they left Egypt and now the blood of Jesus, the New Passover Lamb, saves us from our sins.

 Do you recall other elements of the story of the Passion of Jesus?

Do you recall what happened when Jesus was dying on the cross?  “So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to His mouth.”  (John 19: 29)   

In Exodus they used hyssop to spread the blood of the lamb on their doorframes. In the Gospel they used hyssop to give Jesus a drink of wine.

In Exodus the Hebrews were instructed not to break any of the slaughtered lamb’s bones.  From the Gospel of John: “So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.  But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.”  (John 19: 32-33)  None of the bones of the Passover Lamb were to be broken.  None of the bones of Jesus, the Paschal Lamb, were broken.

Just as it was the blood of the Passover Lamb that spared the Hebrews before they left Egypt, so now it is the blood of Jesus, the Paschal Lamb, who saves us from our sins.

 The first Reading today is called the Servant Song.  Isaiah is called to be a servant of God.  “It is too little, the LORD says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”  It is also a reference to Jesus Himself as a servant of God.  Jesus is the “Light of the World” – a light to all nations, all people, and He has offered salvation to all people.

The same servant theme is echoed in the Psalm:  “In the written scroll it is prescribed for me, to do your will, O my God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart!” and the refrain says, “Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.”  We are called to be the servants of God.

 In the Second Reading St. Paul states that he was called by God to be a servant, “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.”  It also states that all of us were called to be God’s servants, “to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.”  That is directed to us.  We have been sanctified in Christ and called to be holy.  We are the ones who call upon the name of Jesus.

 We find that the theme continues through the Gospel as well.  John tells us that he was called to make Jesus known to Israel.  John also states that he was called by God to baptize with water and that he was called to testify that Jesus is the Son of God.  

 So we know that that we have been called by God, but what are we called to?

In Romans, St. Paul says, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.  For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.  (Romans 8: 28-30)

In Matthew Jesus tells us, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 19-20)

From Ephesians:

So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart (1 Ephesians 4: 17 -18)

And:

 You should put away the old self of your former way of life, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.  (Ephesians 4: -24)

As followers of Jesus we also are called to do the will of the Father and to give glory to God.  Just the same as John, we are called to testify that Jesus is the Son of God.  We are called to evangelize.  We are called to holiness.   We are called to live in the world but not be of the world.  We are called to live our lives in such a way that the rest of the world will be able to see that we are different.  

January 22nd marks the 53rd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, in light of that, let us consider our call to do the will of the Father, our call to holiness, our call to be different from the rest of the world, our call to live in the world but not be of the world.  Let’s continue to pray for all of those babies who have been murdered by abortion.  Let’s continue to pray for the unborn and for their parents.  Let us continue to pray for those who make the laws we have to live by.  Let’s make a renewed effort to pray that abortion be eliminated from our society.  We need to be showing the rest of the world that we are different by our words and actions!