Ordinary Time - Week 33b
Eschatological discourse
(From Conversation with God, Fernandez Carvajal)In these final Sundays of the liturgical year, the Church invites the faithful to meditate on the last things. In today's First Reading the Prophet Malachi speaks in the most graphic terms of the end of time: "For behold; the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch." Jesus warns us in today's Gospel that we must be alert for his coming again: "Take heed that you are not led astray."
There were some Christians in the early Church who believed that the Second Coming was very imminent. They became so preoccupied about the approaching end of the world that they stopped bothering about practicalities, living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Saint Paul laments this situation in his epistle to the Thessalonians which provides the Second Reading for today. The Apostle alludes to his own life of constant work. He gives the faithful a memorable precept: "If anyone will not work, let him not eat. For those with nothing to do, such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living."
Life is short, and our encounter with Jesus is near. Sometime later He will come in glory, and there will be the resurrection of our bodies. These considerations should move us to become detached from earthly goods, to make good use of our time, to be doing a lively apostolate in the middle of the world. it is through these activities that we will win a place in Heaven. The Second Vatican Council exhorts Christians, as citizens of two cities, to strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously and in response to the Gospel spirit. They are mistaken who, knowing that we have here no abiding city but seek one which is to come, think that they may therefore shirk their earthly responsibilities. For they are forgetting that by the faith itself they are more obliged than ever to measure up to these duties, each according to his proper vocation.
We must have our eyes set on Heaven, our ultimate and permanent homeland. At the same time, we need to have our feet firmly planted on the earth. We should work with intensity to give glory to God, to provide for the needs of our family, to improve our society. If we are not engaged in serious professional work, in some real job or other, how are we to sanctify ourselves in the middle of the world? It is only logical that for work to be acceptable to God it must first be acceptable to men. How well, then, am I doing my work in the factory, in business, in medicine, in the law firm? Looking at things with complete impartiality, let me ask myself - Am I really earning my salary or my wage?