By Deacon Richard Hay
“The Passage of Time”
The passage of time is quite unique. There are times it seems to flyby and at other times it seems to slow down significantly. However, that is just our perception. If we are paying attention to the clock, it may seem to move slowly but in reality, it is moving at the same pace as it always does. Even when we are distracted and burn a pan of food or leave the laundry in the washer or dryer well beyond the cycle – that clock is still moving at the same speed, it is just our situation and awareness of time that creates these sensations of the fast or slow movement of the clock.
If you have ever been anticipating a big trip, you know how this works. The trip to your destination always seems to take much longer than the return journey.
Back in May of this year, we started our journey through the longest continuous season of our liturgical year – 27 weeks of Ordinary Time – that started with the seventh week in Ordinary Time and will end next week with The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – the beginning of the 34th and final week in Ordinary Time for this liturgical year. That means two weeks from now will be the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year.
At times, these final days of the liturgical year seemed so far away. Since we started this period of Ordinary Time, we have been through the final days of Spring, an entire Summer, almost all of hurricane season, the start of a new school year, and these early days of fall.
There has also been a different focus in the weekday and Sunday readings and gospels over these past weeks. We have been hearing regularly about Christ’s journey to Jerusalem to ultimately suffer his passion and about his second coming.
Some of you might be wondering why the readings about the second coming of Christ at the end of times when we are preparing for the first coming of Jesus at Christmas. Well, they are both, of course, very connected because you can’t have one without the other. They are in fact bookends to our lives.
Jesus came for the first time in human form, what we call the incarnation, starting as a little helpless baby in a manger, to ultimately save us through his suffering and death on the cross which was followed by his resurrection and ascension. Since then, all of his followers over the last 2,000 plus years, have been waiting for his return. This second coming will bring us together with him for our eternal reward so that we can live forever with him as God showed Daniel in our first reading.
That first reading from Daniel is considered by scholars to be one of the clearest accounts of the resurrection of the dead and eternal life within the Old Testament.
In the days of Daniel and the Old Testament, there was no clear ideas about resurrection or life after death, so this passage in Daniel and our Responsorial Psalm – which was written by David – are very prophetic – a vision from God to be shared with all of us.
We are often told that the New Testament is present in the Old and this is an example of that. Through knowing scripture, Jesus’s preaching, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection – we can go back into the Old Testament and see the connections like we do today about his second coming.
We also hear a very hard truth in Daniel’s prophecy – one we never want to hear but we must – that there will be punishment for wickedness in this life for all of eternity and that comes out of our free will if we choose to live our lives in sinfulness. That is just the truth of that situation.
However, there is always hope. The Catechism states – “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him.”
So, how do we do that? We do so through what he told us are the two greatest commandments which we heard Jesus share in the gospel just two weeks ago – to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
If we follow those – if we allow those two commandments to impact every choice we make in life – no matter how big or small – then as Jesus told the apostles – “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
As I mentioned earlier, the gospel today is also referring to the end times and Jesus’s second coming. It includes a line towards the end, after the description of Jesus’s second coming, that states – “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” You could almost read that as if his second coming is well overdue but that is not the case according to biblical scholar, Mary Healy. She explains it like this: “Jesus is not asserting that the end of history will come immediately, but rather that his passion, and with it the transition from the old covenant to the new, is the beginning of the end, the entrance into the final stage of God’s plan that will culminate in a new heaven and a new earth. In that sense his coming in glory is “imminent” from the day of his ascension.”
The last line of our gospel today lay’s it out clearly: “But of the day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” We simply don’t know, and we should live our lives accordingly.
So rather than focusing on the generational passage of time, we should focus on our lives within our lifetimes. The one thing we can and should live with clearly in our hearts and souls is to follow those two commandments of Jesus to love him and our neighbors.
We should also seek reconciliation with God if we have offended him, or if we have offended family, friends, or neighbors. We do not want to risk our eternal souls to be punished for all eternity by not living a life of love for God and others.
The month of November in the church is an opportunity for contemplation on our humanity and yes, our upcoming death – to examine how we live our lives and be honest about where we do well but also where we fall short. There is still time to do that over these next two weeks.
The sacraments are there to help us with that process – to help sustain us as we live the life of love God calls us to live every day. Prayer is also a key – to be in regular conversation with God with not only our petitions, but also our thanks for the gifts and graces he gives us.
As we wrap up – we go back to the beginning of this homily and the passage of time.
At times it will slow down for us and lead us to believe we have all the time in the world between now and something in the future – just like how the end of this period of Ordinary Time used to be 27 weeks away back in May but is now right around the corner.
I want to leave you with these words from a popular contemporary christian song I discovered a few weeks ago by Brandon Lake called “That’s Who I Praise”. It brings together everything in this homily quite nicely:
“I want to love like Jesus, that kind of grace.
I want to live like I’ve got no more precious time to waste.
I’m going to give Him glory with all my thanks.
There is no greater, stronger, higher name.
That’s who I praise.”
