OMELIE / Omelie EN

18 nov 2018

18/11/2018  33rd Sunday in O. T. - B 

18/11/2018  33^rd Sunday in O. T. - B 

Reading 1, DN 12,1-3 * Psalm 15 * Reading 2, HEB 10,11-14.18 * Gospel, MK 13,24-32

Towards the end of the liturgical year, the Word makes us think of those final things happening in the end, that are listed at the end of the Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come”! Every Sunday we speak this certainty, but then, maybe, in the concreteness of life, we do not let it bear fruit. It asks of us that we live with our minds concentrated on the afterlife, on what is awaiting us after our days spent on earth!

The Lord Himself tells us about the end of all the things, those more stable and visible, like the sun and the moon, and those more invisible and mysterious, like “the powers in the heavens”. He wants us to be ready, ready like the person that is already standing on the threshold of his house to greet the guest that is arriving. When everything ends, in fact, everything is not finished: it is then that we meet the One who loves us, the One who came to give up His life for us! When everything ends we will be able to see, with amazement, the Son of God, the One who has been rejected by great men and slandered at and persecuted by powerful men, covered in the greatest glory that could be given to a man, nay, in God’s very glory!

He’s waiting for the end of everything in order to reveal Himself: then nothing will be an obstacle for us, nothing will prevent us from recognizing Him.

We, who have loved Him, will be overjoyed. Those who have been ignoring Him, that have pretended not to see Him, or whoever have opposed Him, will be filled with fear and panic because they will feel like they do not fit in, empty, far from life. In fact, they rejected the only One that can make us agreeable to God, notwithstanding the sins and spiritual weaknesses that make us feel ashamed of ourselves.

That day is described by the prophet Daniel: with particularly meaningful expressions He lets us see something of the judgment that is going to take place. The great number of those who sleep will wake, some to live forever, some for an everlasting horror and disgrace. Great joy for the former, horror for the latter. In our way to talk we say: paradise and hell. These words are disappearing, because with great shallowness we are forgetting the origin and the destination of our pilgrimage on this earth. We came from the Father, that is the creator of everything, of our life as well, that is going to end the in His hands!

When we think of our future we cannot forget that we are walking towards our meeting with Him!

We are walking: this does not mean that we are going to reach eternal joy for sure and in any case, because there are obstacles, our sins. These are paths or detours that are wasting our time, sending us far away, making us lose orientation, bringing us to hell, that is to say to the eternal anguish of separation and rejection. God, in His wisdom and mercy, thought about this possibility and, in order to help us avoiding it, sent the Son that offered one sacrifice for sins! While erasing the sins of whoever trusts Him, He has blessed us, made perfect, so much so that with Him we are not afraid anymore to get lost or to be forgotten by the Father!

How can we enter the vortex of love with the Father and the Son? How can we get peace and security to get to our destination, to the meeting with the open arms of the Father that is awaiting us? He has sent Jesus towards us! Through the many signs that He has shown, we have recognized Him, without the need for anybody to convince us. Now we have His words, words that will not pass away, that do not lose their value with the passing of the years, that do not lose value like fashion items or ideologies. Heaven and earth will pass away: everything that we can see and everything that man is able to think or to do has an expiration date. Jesus’ word keeps its value in eternity: we can trust it, it guides us on the path bringing us to meet the Father and to enter forever His hug! The paradise is really this, the eternal hug of the Father, the perfect joy that can be enjoyed when the love that we receive and give is full!

With Jesus we are walking towards the paradise: with Jesus we enjoy already an advance of the joy we will feel: we have security, trust, serenity, peace, even in the middle of sufferings, that we cannot avoid until we are on the earth that is passing away. Our listening to His word, our effort to keep it and follow it, are giving us already now a sample of that peace and joy heart that we call paradise!

With these thoughts, today’s liturgy prepares us to that time for waiting that is Advent!