33th Sunday
in Ordinary time
year B
Los Angeles,
November 17th/18th, 2012
1st
Reading: from the Book of Daniel 12,1-3
Psalm :
16:5,8,9-10,11
2º Reading: from the letter to the Hebrews 10:11-14,18
Gospel: Saint Mark 13:24-32
On this last Sunday before the celebration of the feast of Christ King of the
Universe and before the conclusion of Liturgical Year B, the liturgy proposes
readings that can be interpreted
differently.
There is a pessimistic journalistic approach and an optimistic
Christian approach that can be used to interpret the message of this
Sunday's readings.
We all know that newspapers are full of bad
news: war,
violence, trafficking of arms, of drugs,
of human beings, etc...
A pessimistic journalistic reading
of the liturgy would lead us to simply think that, in
the words of the prophet Daniel, humanity will go through a time of
trouble such as has never been seen since the beginning of the world.
We can even describe the tribulation with the words of the Gospel as a
situation where “the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling
from the shy, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken”. Many men and women of
our time accept this interpretation because they
have become used to hearing about disasters in the daily news.
However, there is also an optimistic and
Christian interpretation of these texts
that announce the end of the liturgical year and, at the same
time, the end of
the world and the coming of
Christ, victorious over death and evil, who puts his enemies under his feet, as announced in the Letter to the Hebrews.
A Christian reading of these
apocalyptic texts invites us to live
in continuous readiness because the coming
of the Son of Man is near, although,
according to the Gospel, no one knows
the day or the hour.
A Christian reading will rejoice
us because this time of disasters doesn’t announce the destruction of humanity but the coming of summer and with it the fulfillment and realization of the
prophecy where, according to the Gospel of St. Mark
“… they will see ‘the Son of Man
coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then he will send out the
angels and gather his elects from the four winds, from the end of the earth to
the end of the sky”.
Today's liturgy reminds us that the return of Christ is imminent and we must be prepared to be part of those who agreed to
have their names written in the Book of God.
Amen.
Fr.
Germán