Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
“Teacher, when will this happen?”
The Jerusalem Bible points out that in our Gospel today, “no sharp distinction is drawn between the two levels – ‘that of the destruction of Jerusalem (in 70 AD) and that of the end of the world.’ The fusion of these two is “a theological expression of truth: though separated in time, these two are inseparable in the sense that the first is the inevitable forerunner of the second.”
We need strong authority when facing our thoughts about the end of life or the end of the world! We get it in Jesus the Teacher. He warns us of false prophets and counsels against fear. However terrible they may seem, the events He has foretold come within the divine plan.
November is the month we remember our dead. St. Benedict encourages us to keep death daily before our eyes. The Church encourages us to pray for the dead:
“the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honored with great respect the memory of the dead, and ‘because it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins’ she offers her suffrages for them.’ Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them by also of making their intercession for us effective.” (CCC #958)
We know neither the end of the world nor our end. But we listen, and we obey Jesus our teacher at the end of St. Luke’s Gospel: “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections