Homily: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
A few years back, David Meade,
who calls himself a “biblical numerologist”, claimed that the end of the world
was to begin a month or so after the total eclipse of the sun. Maybe you don’t remember this guy and his
prediction, but do you guys remember that eclipse? His prediction was based on the following
things: the biblical significance of the number 33 (namely, that Jesus lived
for 33 years here on earth), the fact that the total solar eclipse was exactly
33 days before his predicted date, and that, on that same day, a planet, named
“Planet X”, was supposed to pass by earth at close proximity and cause numerous
natural disasters to occur at the same time: volcanic eruptions, tsunamis,
earthquakes, etc. Well, two out of three
ain’t bad, but that third part was certainly a stretch. I’m not sure how Mr. Meade got around the
fact that NASA had repeatedly stated that “Planet X” didn’t exist and that,
regardless, there was no planet whose trajectory would take it anywhere near
earth anytime in the foreseeable future.
But, thanks be to God, his prediction wasn’t accurate and so, in
hindsight, we can see that it doesn’t really matter.
Or does it? I mean, maybe he wasn’t right on about the “how”
and the “when”, but he might have still been on to something. With Western Society seemingly trying to
consume itself into oblivion and with the great slew of natural disasters
currently occurring (say nothing of what now will be an absolute bloodbath of a
political fight leading up to the national election), Mr. Meade might,
actually, have been on to something. In
fact, as Catholics, I think that we have to say that he is right: doomsday
approaches… the end is nigh! Why do we
need to say this? Well, because we’ve
been saying it for nearly 2000 years.
You see, the first Christians
took seriously Jesus’ words to his disciples before he ascended into heaven
when he said, “This generation will not pass away until all these things have
taken place.” “These things…” to which
Jesus was referring were the signs of the apocalypse, namely that “the sun will
be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from
the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” And so, the first Christians made haste—and
none hastier than Saint Paul—to try to preach the Gospel to the whole world before
these “things” would take place. Saint
Paul was always ready to leave this world at a moment’s notice—as is evidenced
by his words to the Philippians in the second reading and which demonstrates
his conviction that the end was nigh—but, nonetheless, he remained content to
continue working in this world for the benefit of those to whom he preached
until the Lord returned.
Eventually, of course, that
generation began to die off, thus prompting some Christians to begin to
question whether the “end” was truly “nigh”.
That’s why, in later writings of the New Testament, we see the authors
beginning to try to explain how this makes sense. They found hope in Jesus’ words that, when he
returned, those who were in the graves would be raised up: that none of them
would be lost. This didn’t diminish,
however, the urgency with which they continued to proclaim the Gospel. They refused to believe that, what seemed to
them as a delay, meant that Jesus had given up all-together. They knew that, as Isaiah had prophesied,
“God’s ways were not their ways, and His thoughts were not their
thoughts”. Thus, they continued to
preach that “the end is nigh” so that no one would be caught off-guard.
Nearly two-thousand years
later, we’ve softened the “the end is nigh” rhetoric, a bit, but it nonetheless
is a core teaching of our message. This
is, in part, why in our liturgies we still read passages like the passage that
we read today from the prophet Isaiah.
“Seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near” the
prophet said. The prophet was implying,
of course that there may be a time—in the near future, even—in which the Lord
may not be found and in which he may not be near. We read this again today to wake us up to the
same reality: it will not always be possible to find God when we seek him nor
will God always be near to us when we call.
The end is nigh. Thus, we
are reminded of the urgency with which we must continually seek the Lord while
he may be found and call on him while he is near.
Even the parable that Jesus
gives us in the Gospel reading tells us something of the urgency that should
still motivate us. There, the landowner
shows himself going out repeatedly during the day to seek workers for his
vineyard. We see that, even up to the
last hour of the work day, if he finds workers who have not been hired for the
day, he will hire them and send them out to his vineyard to earn a day’s
wage. Although it is easy to focus on
what seems to be an injustice to the workers who worked all day long, I want to
draw your attention to something that might be easy to overlook: that, ultimately,
the day ended and, thus, that the landowner no longer went out to look for any
more workers. Seek the Lord while he
may be found…
Our
Bishop, Bishop Doherty, is keenly aware that, while it seems that the Lord
continues to delay his return, he may, at any time, return; and, as a laborer
who has been sent into the Lord’s vineyard to work for the harvest, he cannot
sit idle and expect to receive his “wage” at the end of the day: that is, the
reward of a faithful laborer when he is called to judgment. Thus, since 2014, he with the help of many
collaborators had been preparing how we, here in this diocese, are going to
respond to present challenges to proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st
century. The result is the Uniting in
Heart pastoral plan.
The
changes that you all have been experiencing are part of the plan to re-align
not only our resources, but (more importantly) our focus on the mission of
evangelization so that our diocese—and all of the parishes within our
diocese—will be best positioned not only to survive, but to thrive well into
the future. This new pastorate alignment
that you are experiencing is intended to help decrease our isolation and
increase our collaboration, thus diversifying our resources and leveraging our
talent to have the greatest impact on our mission: that is, to labor in the
Lord’s vineyard in order to prepare an abundant harvest of souls who will be
won for Christ and, thus, enjoy the rewards of eternal happiness with Him in
heaven.
As a
sign that we are realigning across the board, Bishop Doherty has launched the
“Catholic Ministries Appeal” (what was formerly known as “the Fruitful Harvest
Appeal”). This appeal leverages the
strengths of the Fruitful Harvest Appeal and realigns other parts of it so as
to increase the transparency regarding what the appeal supports as well as to better
highlight not only the ministries and services that the appeal supports but
also the benefits of those ministries and services here in your local parishes.
One
example is standing here before you.
Your support for this appeal makes it possible for me to work full-time
as the Vicar for Clergy and Director of Vocations, meaning that I can remain
exclusively focused on ministering to the priests and deacons of this diocese
(ensuring that you have healthy clergy who are striving for holiness and who
can serve you for many years) as well as ministering to our future priests, our
seminarians (ensuring that your parish and all the parishes of this diocese
will continue to have healthy clergy who strive for holiness for generations to
come).
My
hope today is that you will be inspired to give to the appeal in order to support
my ministry and the many other fruitful ministries of our diocese that this
appeal supports. But I also hope that
you will be inspired to look at yourself and your parish and ask yourself,
“have I been a diligent laborer in my Lord’s vineyard? Have I striven for
holiness so as to ‘conduct myself in a way worthy of the Gospel’? Have I sought
to spread the Good News of Jesus to those whom I encounter in my life?” Having done so, I hope that your hearts will
be enflamed with a desire to step up your efforts and to become an enthusiastic
laborer to help make Uniting in Heart a reality: both for our good and the good
of generations to come.
Today,
on behalf of Bishop Doherty and Fr. Logsdon, I am asking you to make your
pledge to “Hearts on Fire: the Catholic Ministries Appeal”. I will challenge you to be generous, more
generous perhaps than you’ve been before, because the stakes are higher than
they have ever been. With our combined
efforts, however—both yours here locally and the Bishop’s across the diocese—we
will fulfill our duty to Our Lord in his vineyard so that the harvest, whenever
our Lord comes to reap it, will be abundant.
Thank you, in advance, for your generosity.
My brothers and sisters,
Planet X did not pass close to the earth a few years ago, thus sparing us from
the horrible consequences that might have occurred, but that does not mean that
the end is not nigh. As our Lord has
told us, we know “neither the day, nor the hour” of our Lord’s return, meaning
that it could still be something that is close at hand. And so our job is not to “seek to know the
day and the hour”, but rather it is to “seek the Lord while he may be found”
and to help others to do the same. We
seek him when we seek him in our daily personal prayer, in the sacraments,
celebrated in a worshiping community, and in the poor, whom we serve with
generous hearts; and we help others to do so when we invite them to seek the
Lord with us.
And so, as we approach this
altar on which we encounter the Lord who is still near to us, let us call to
him and ask him to strengthen us on our journey: so that, whether the end of
the world comes today or another 2000 years’ worth of todays from now, we will
be ready to run to him and receive his generous reward when he comes in glory.
Given at the parishes of Randolph and
southern Jay counties in Indiana
September 19th & 20th,
2020
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