33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
(in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris)
November 15, 2015

Listen to this homily (.mp3 file)

      The horrific and despicable acts of terrorism that took place in Paris on Friday could almost be read as the fulfillment of those alarming prophetic passages we just heard in the readings from the Book of Daniel and Mark’s Gospel.  It’s hard to hear those words of Jesus to his disciples about the Great Tribulation - the sun being darkened, the moon no longer giving light, the stars falling from the sky, and the very powers of heaven being shaken – it’s hard to hear those words without thinking about the apocalyptic horrors that a group of Islamic State extremists visited on innocent and unsuspecting people in that theater, that sports stadium, those restaurants in the heart of the City of Light.

            For the helpless victims, for their grieving families, for the people of Paris and of France and, indeed, for right-thinking people everywhere, those monstrous acts of violence must seem to be the Great Tribulation: the suspension of safety and security, the loss of the most fundamental safeguards of a civilized society.  They must also seem to be that “time unsurpassed in distress since nations began” that was described so vividly in the reading from the Book of Daniel.  Strange coincidence, isn’t it, that those particular readings should be the assigned ones for this Sunday when the whole world – not just Paris, not just France, not just Europe – but the whole world is reeling from yet one more senseless act of terrorism on the part of people bent on nothing more than wholesale destruction and death?  And I find myself wondering, even if the readings were only a coincidence, whether we are being told something.

           Of course, it’s good to bear in mind that Jesus’ language in that passage is highly symbolic. He was not giving a literal play-by-play preview of things that would one day come. In speaking of the frightful unraveling of creation with falling stars and a darkened sun and moon, he was almost certainly envisioning the complete reversal of what happened on the fourth day of creation when God serenely placed each of the great lights in the sky - the sun, the moon, and the stars - in order to separate day from night and to mark the times and the seasons.

            Jesus was saying that there would come a time when people – when we - would no longer have light from the heavens to guide us on our way, a time when we would lose all sense of direction and orientation, a time when we would have no clue about where to go and what to do, a time when all our certainties would seem to fall apart.  Call it the end of the world; call it the end of the world as we know it.

            For the disciples of Jesus who first heard those words, they were a preview of what was going to happen to them when Jesus was arrested, tried, and put to death - when for some awful hours and days, the world as they knew it would simply cease to exist. And, of course, his prediction did come true, for that is exactly what came to pass, and they all did lose their way.

            But that was then.  Looking at the present moment in light of recent events, while I realize that it can be easy to overstate or oversimplify, isn’t it true that when something like what happened two days ago in Paris, or fourteen years ago in New York City, or seven years ago in Mumbai, or two weeks ago on a Russian aircraft over the Sinai – isn’t it true that when those kinds of things happen, our world, the world we once thought to have had at least the hope if not the assurance of safety, somehow ceases to exist?  And like those disillusioned disciples of Jesus, don’t we lose our way, our bearings, our compass?  We may even find ourselves losing hope.

            So maybe it’s not just coincidental but providential that today’s readings confront us with language and imagery that seem to have been realized in the apocalyptic events of recent days and recent years. Maybe we are being reminded that we have here no lasting city, that the end will indeed one day come, that everything as we know it, ourselves included, will one day pass away. We know these things, of course, but we can be good at avoiding or ignoring them, and it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.

            But, my friends, this is not all we know. We also know that we are here to build the City of God and that our days here, however many we may have or however few, are given to us by God so that we can stand for something different from the prevailing and predictable orthodoxies that tend to hold society in their grip. Our days are given us so that we can do the works of justice and peace, the works of mercy, the works of love.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Which means caring more about those works than about our own safety and security, for isn’t that what Jesus did?  And please understand that I am not offering here a recipe for statecraft. That is not mine to do. I am only reminding us of our Christian calling, and that is mine to do.

            Naïve as it may seem at a moment like this, it is nonetheless our charge, our call, to do all we can to keep alive God’s great dream for the human family: the dream of swords being turned into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks. Of all God’s people – all God’s people – walking together toward God’s holy mountain.

            The climb up that mountain is a steep one, for sure, and human hatred and perversity make it all the steeper, but the One who called the meek and the mourners and the peacemakers blessed makes it clear that for us who follow him, there is no turning back.  There is no turning back…!

Father Michael G. Ryan