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33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time / C
14/11/2010
Luke 21, 5-19 (p. 990)

The penultimate Sunday in our liturgical year that precedes the celebration Christ the King of the universe, we send a message not easily comprehensible if we do not force us back into the Jewish mentality of the time of Jesus.
To better introduce us to this point late in the Gospel of Luke, I am going to use technical terms in explaining the course. But these terms are necessary for us to avoid receiving the text of a fundamentalist way and find ourselves together in fear and anxiety.
Here we mean a part of Jesus' eschatological discourse, discourse that is also found in parallel versions of Matthew and Mark. Speeches we réentendrons early time of Advent, the liturgical year beginning and ending in the same perspective, that of the end times and Christ's return in glory. That is the meaning of "eschatological." Our Gospel of Luke is even more difficult to understand that this vision of blending the end of time with the historic ruin of Jerusalem in 70 AD. We are therefore two levels of human history: the historical level with reference to the destruction of the Temple and the persecution of early Christians and a supra-historical precisely because it marks the end of time in human history and the entry of all creation the kingdom of God. And to add to the difficulty of understanding the eschatological discourse of Jesus uses a literary style quite particular, the apocalyptic style, already present in the Old Testament. Hence all these images of cosmic disasters and wars.
While retaining our Christian life today in this gospel-style obscure and confusing for our Cartesian minds?

There is first the starting point of this teaching of the Lord Jesus. Admiration for the beauty of the followers of the Temple, which, it noted, was no longer that of Solomon, but well renconstruit a Temple. And Jesus tells them that everything will be destroyed. It is indeed the Emperor Titus razed the temple and its treasures plundered by reducing them to Rome as we show the reliefs of the Arch of Titus at the top of the forum. It's a bit like a prophet today announces the destruction of the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica ... The man by his artistic genius and its technical progress is indeed able to perform wonders, masterpieces. But all that is fragile. What we have there the famous seven wonders of antiquity? The lesson for us is: nothing in this world is eternal, all password and passes away. This also means that our present world wounded by sin and evil is not eternal but it is going to experience an end, a transfiguration in the Kingdom of God.

The second point of interest for us the advertisement of false prophets. These liars will use throughout the history of the fear of the end of the world to join the ranks of their followers. Jehovah's Witnesses are a perfect illustration. With globalization and all the economic and human problems it entails, as a growing gap between the masses aculées to survive in poverty and a very elite richer always wanting more, with Islamic terrorism and the revival of fundamentalism in all religions, false prophets have fertile ground to flourish and grow. We undoubtedly live in a time of serious crisis. And in such a situation the Word of Jesus must remain our only hope and our inspiration to have no fear but the challenges of our time as Christians.

Finally, a third point of interest for us lies in the announcement of persecution that the disciples of Christ will have to endure throughout history. The language of Jesus is indeed within this context apocalyptic " You will be hated by all because of my name. " But it does not prompt provided to fear but to trust: "Not a hair of your head will perish." Aid to the Church in Need rightly noted that Christians have never been so persecuted that during the 20th century And hebdommadaire like Marianne, we can not suspect of clericalism, indignant in his latest issue of deafening silence around the killing of Christians in Iraq. Saying now the only category of people who can abuse with impunity in the world are many Christians who are likely to disappear completely from the Middle and Near East. For us who still live under the freedom of worship in Europe this message of Christ has a double meaning: we first show that the cross is still part of one form or another of the Christian life and persecution can take many different faces. We are well warned: it is through our perseverance in witness of faith that we will get life following the Risen One. The message of Jesus invites us to solidarity with our persecuted brethren in Islamic lands. Through prayer, of course, but also by our Donations to the works entrusted to lighten their burden as the Oeuvre d'Orient, or Aid to the Church in Need. That the outrageous cowardice of most politicians and associations defending the rights of man awakens in us the sense of belonging to the Body of Christ in which we all support each other.