 |
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati Main Page || The Catholic Telegraph || Live Letters index |
Live
Letters Thirty-Third
Sunday in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
November 15, 2002Having dealt with the Thessalonians’ worries about how those who had died would participate in Christ’s second coming, Paul turns his attention to their other question: when would it happen and how could they tell it was coming? (The Thessalonians seem to have been much preoccupied with the parousia. In Second Thessalonians we learn that some of them had given up working because they thought that the parousia had already occurred. It could be that the seeds of errors like this were already present when Paul addressed this first letter to them.)
At the beginning of this Sunday’s passage Paul tells them that they don’t need to have access to God’s timetable because they have already been taught everything they need to know about the second coming. He then reminds them of the teaching they had received.
First of all, the people who live without any awareness of what lies ahead of them, who think that everything will forever stay exactly as it is now are in for some shocks. The parousia will come upon them as an unpleasant surprise, like the surprise the householder experiences when he finds a thief in the house in the middle of the night. It will be inescapably painful, like the pains that a women experiences in childbirth.
But it doesn’t have to be that way for believers. They are not vulnerable to thieves in the night because they live in the daylight, the daylight that is constituted by their faith. This means that they have to live in consistency with that faith life, attentive and self-controlled, not complacent and careless like the sleepy people of the night.
In effect, Paul sidesteps the Thessalonians’ question about the timing of the parousia. Its scheduling is not important, he tells them. What’s important is the way the prospect of the parousia impacts our life now. That’s the message for us, too.
One might say that the apostolic teaching about Jesus’ return in glory to judge the living and the dead is a call for planning, for long range planning and for short range planning.
Our faith tells us that God’s loving justice will triumph in the end. At some point, a point that is known only to God, all the uncertainty and equivocation and ambiguity that go into our human existence, corporate and individual, will be wiped away. All the evil that seemed to flourish without check will be punished. All the good that never seems to receive adequate recognition will be manifested and rewarded. Everything will at last be what our deepest and purest aspirations have always wished. God will be fully and finally in charge of everything. All creation will share in God’s own life.
This is what we have to look forward to. But our place in the final kingdom, our position in God’s final ordering of things will depend on what we have made of ourselves here and now. Every choice, every moral decision we make now helps form and prepare us for what we will be then. The values that shape our life here will also shape our life there. Our present priorities will determine our eternal aptitudes. God will not judge us capriciously. He will rather verify and validate what we have made of ourselves throughout the course of our lifetime, how we have collaborated with or frustrated His gifts and plans.
This means that our day to day existence has an eternal and final dimension to it. We will not be permitted to make our fundamental decisions in the final seconds of creation, just before Christ returns. We make our fundamental decisions each and every day, and those decisions determine what we will be for all eternity. It all contributes to our long range planning for our future.
But Christ is not absent from us as we work and plan for our participation in the kingdom. Christ is not waiting offstage for His cue to return to the world in glory. Christ is in our midst now, in the heart and soul of each believer, in the worth and dignity of each human being. In fact, He teaches us that the relationship that we can expect to have with Him in the future is determined by the way we treat Him now in His brothers and sisters who are also our brothers and sisters (cf. Matthew 25.31-46). Every human encounter that we experience is an opportunity to encounter Christ.
In addition to Christ’s presence in other human beings, Christ also offers Himself to us in His Sacred Scripture, in His sacraments, in the teachings of His Church. He is with us in our prayer. Christ is all over the place and wants us to recognize Him and respond to Him everywhere. Our day to day existence has to be attentive and watchful. While we are planning for our ultimate future, we also have to be making and carrying out plans about our relationship with Christ now.
It really doesn’t matter when God has scheduled the parousia. It may come tomorrow afternoon or in a million years. What does matter is whether I am awake and ready for it today.
###
Conversation Questions.
How am I attentive to the final coming of the Lord?
How do I stay attentive to the Lord’s presence in my life now?
###
Main Page
|| The Catholic Telegraph || Live Letters index
Copyright © 2002 Archdiocese of Cincinnati.