XXXIII Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): “The Christian's Horoscope”

The Christian's Horoscope

“Learn from the Fig Tree.”
Mark 13:24-32

We have arrived at the penultimate Sunday of the liturgical year, which will conclude next Sunday with the feast of Christ the King of the Universe. Every year, on this penultimate Sunday, the Word of God invites us to lift our gaze toward the horizons of history to renew our hope in the Lord’s return. At the same time, however, with the celebration of the World Day of the Poor on this same Sunday, we are prompted to recognize Christ’s presence in the poorest and most needy.

Today’s Gospel passage is part of Chapter 13 of Saint Mark, entirely dedicated to the so-called discourse on the end of the world. The beginning of the chapter introduces the circumstances of this discourse. As they were leaving the Temple, one of the disciples pointed out to Jesus the grandeur of its construction. The Temple, rebuilt by Herod the Great, was indeed magnificent, one of the wonders of the time. Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another that will not be thrown down.” We can imagine everyone's amazement and bewilderment. This would be fulfilled with the destruction of the city in the year 70, by the Romans.

While on the Mount of Olives, seated opposite the Temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, the first four disciples called by Jesus, questioned him privately about when and what would be the sign that this prophecy was about to be fulfilled. Jesus then pronounced the so-called “apocalyptic discourse,” the longest teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. In connection with the destruction of the Temple and the holy city, Jesus speaks of the end of the world and his return in glory. This link between the end of the Jewish nation and the Lord’s return led the first Christians to believe that the end was imminent.

To understand the message of the text, two things must be kept in mind. First, the text is written in the so-called apocalyptic genre, difficult for us to understand due to its complex, often esoteric symbolic language and cosmic scenarios. “Apocalypse” means “revelation.” However, it is not a prophecy about the future, as is often thought, but a revelation of the meaning of historical events. Secondly, this literary genre, which flourished between the second century BC and the second century AC, was not meant to frighten but to offer comfort and hope to God’s people in times of tribulation and persecution, announcing God’s intervention to free his people. We could say that apocalyptic literature does not speak of the “end” of the world, but where history is headed.

Points of Reflection

1. The end of this world has already begun! 

“In those days, after the time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” The shaking of the sun, moon, and stars seems to allude to creation in Genesis 1, as if a de-creation were about to occur. A reference to a cosmic scenario also appears in the account of Jesus’ death in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke). Indeed, with the crucifixion of the Son of God, the “firmament” of the heavens—meaning man's certainties and reference points—falls, along with all the images mankind had of God. With Christ's resurrection, the process of the new creation, of new heavens and a new earth, begins (2 Peter 3:13).

2. The end of this world is the object of our hope 

“And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.” We await this coming of the Lord. We profess this in the heart of the Eucharist: “We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.” This does not mean wishing for the “end of the world” or an “apocalyptic catastrophe,” much less attempting to guess the hour of his arrival through the “signs” of wars, earthquakes, famines, persecutions, tribulations, abominations... These realities have always existed. It is enough for us to know that everything is in the hands of the Father.

“Take the fig tree as a parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.” The fig tree announces the arrival of summer, the fruit season. So it is for the Christian, who joyfully awaits the ripening of time and the encounter with Jesus. The Book of Revelation concludes with this response from the Lord to the Church’s prayer: “Yes, I am coming soon! Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

3. Agents of the end of this world 

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Reflecting on this Gospel, the Christian grows in awareness of the transience of life and history. The “end of the world” is, ultimately, an everyday reality: every day a world dies and another is born. “We go from beginning to beginning, through ever-new beginnings,” says Saint Gregory of Nyssa. Everything passes. Only two things remain: the Word of the Lord and love.

However, our waiting is not passive but active and industrious. We are involved in preparing the coming of the Kingdom. How? By shaking the “firmament” of the stars and celestial bodies that govern the current world! Sun, moon, stars, and planets were gods in the ancient pagan world, ruling over human life. Every day of the week was dedicated to a celestial body. The names of stars and planets have changed, but the firmament of our world remains populated by gods that rule our lives: business, stock markets, power, prestige, beauty, pleasure… The “horoscope” of the Christian has a different firmament of stars: love, fraternity, solidarity, service, justice, compassion… To shake the foundations of the “old world,” we must shake the “firmament” that rule it. The task is anything but easy. Where to start? With ourselves: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by renewing your mind.” (Romans 12:2).

Fr. Manuel João Pereira Correia, mccj

ON THE END OF THE WORLD

Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-14, 18; Mark 13:24-32

The Gospel of the second to last Sunday of the liturgical year is the classic text on the end of the world. There has always been someone who has taken it upon themselves to wave this page of the Gospel in the face of their contemporaries and provoke psychosis and fear. My advice is to be calm and to not let yourself be in the least bit troubled by these visions of catastrophe.

Just read the last line of the same Gospel passage: “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” If neither the angels nor the Son (insofar as he is man and not insofar as he is God) know the day or hour of the end, is it possible that a member of some sect or some religious fanatic would know and be authorized to announce it? In the Gospel Jesus assures us of the fact of his return and the gathering his chosen ones from the “four winds”; the when and the how of his return (on the clouds between the darkening of the sun and the falling of the stars) is part of the figurative language of the literary genre of these discourses.

Another observation might help explain certain pages of the Gospel. When we talk about the end of the world on the basis of the understanding of time that we have today, we immediately think of the absolute end of the world, after which there can be nothing but eternity. But the Bible goes about its reasoning with relative and historical categories more than with absolute and metaphysical ones. Thus, when the Bible speaks of the end of the world, it intends quite often the concrete world, that which in fact exists for and is known by a certain group of people, their world. It is, in sum, the end of a world that is being treated not the end of the world, even if the two perspectives at times intertwine.

Jesus says: “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” Is he mistaken? No, it was the world that was known to his hearers that passed away, the Jewish world. It tragically passed away with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. When, in 410, the Vandals sacked Rome, many great figures of the time thought that it was the end of the world. They were not all that wrong; one world did end, the one created by Rome with its empire. In this sense, those who, with the destruction of the twin towers on September 11, 2001, thought of the end of the world, were not mistaken …

None of this diminishes the seriousness of the Christian charge but only deepens it. It would be the greatest foolishness to console oneself by saying that no one knows when the end of the world will be and forgetting that, for any of us, it could be this very night. For this reason Jesus concludes today’s Gospel with the recommendation that we “be vigilant because no one knows when the exact moment will be.”

We must, I think, completely change the attitude with which we listen to these Gospels that speak of the end of the world and the return of Christ. We must no longer regard as a punishment and a veiled threat that which the Scriptures call “the blessed hope” of Christians, that is, the return of our Lord Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13). The mistaken idea we have of God must be corrected. The recurrent talk about the end of the world which is often engaged in by those with a distorted religious sentiment, has a devastating effect on many people. It reinforces the idea of a God who is always angry, ready to vent his wrath on the world. But this is not the God of the Bible which a psalm describes as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, who will not always accuse or keep his anger forever … because he knows that we are made of dust” (Psalm 103:8-14).
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa
[Zenit]