It was a privilege to celebrate Mass on Tuesday evening with a good number of the Good Shepherd parish Filipino parishioners. Many of them are still unsure about the situation of their friends and family back home. New Zealander’s are already responding generously with practical financial assistance. If you wish to help in this way I encourage you to directly support the Caritas appeal.
Our prayer is also essential. Prayer changes hearts and opens pathways for the Holy Spirit, especially in the midst of such apocalyptic suffering.
Don’t be frightened by that big word: “apocalypse”. You might be familiar with the word from scary movies featuring cosmic tragedies. But the word really is a much more hopeful one. The title of the last book of the Bible which we commonly refer to as the Book of Revelation, hints at this hope. “Apocalypse” actually means “revelation”, and synonyms therefore include, uncovering, unveiling, revealing, bringing to light. These words, especially in the light of the gospel, are very hope-filled words.
The scriptures for this coming Sunday, the penultimate Sunday of the Church year, focus us on the “end times” - or (to use another big but hopeful word), the eschatalogical reality. (ie death, judgement and the final reality of the human soul and body). The Tradition of our faith found in the scriptures and Church teaching is clear that cosmic signs including traumatic weather events and patterns, and the human experience of suffering caused by such storms and wars, will be signs of the eschaton, but these will not immediately herald the end.
Last year on this Sunday Pope Benedict encouraged the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s square for the Angelus with the assurance that Jesus is not trying to scare us with all this talk about the imminent end of the world. Instead Pope Benedict reminded us that Jesus:
“...wishes to prevent his disciples in every epoch from being curious about dates and predictions; he wants instead to provide them with a key to a profound, essential interpretation and, above all, to point out to them the right way on which to walk, today and in the future, to enter eternal life.
The pope continued with words that are especially timely for us this week:
“Dear friends, in our day too there is no lack of natural disasters nor, unfortunately, of war and violence. Today too we need a permanent foundation for our life and our hope, especially because of the relativism in which we are immersed.
There is another big word, “relativism.” Relativism is the idea that truth, goodness and morality are not objective realities, but are simplistically determined solely by ever-changing contexts and cultures. The relativist begins an answer to most of life’s big questions with “well, it depends...”
This fickel and moody relativist mentality is unfortunately highly contageous, and penetrates the faith of most of us much of the time. We find ourselves naively thinking that earthly happiness is our own achievement, and that as long as we attach ourselves to the right attitudes and possessions then we will find the satisfaction we so desperately seek.
Human suffering reminds us that we are not in control of nature, and we are not even the rulers of our own lives. The fearful first reading ends hinting at next Sunday’s feast of Christ the King, reminding us “there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays”
sunrise over the Sea of Galilee
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