The Nexus

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Lectionary Readings for the 1st Sunday of Advent,
Year A

“You must be prepared in the same way.”

In the gospel for the 1st Sunday of Advent,
we find Jesus speaking to His disciples about
the coming of the Son of Man as like that with
what happened in Noah’s time. He urges them thus
to “stay awake”, for they do not know when that
day is coming - the day of the Lord.  In his
preaching, Jesus continually alerts them to be
vigilant, to keep a watchful eye, and not to
be totally unconcerned about the time when the
Lord shall come to bring upon His reign.

All of us know the story of Noah: of how he
was called by the Lord to build an ark so
that he might be able to survive the judgment
upon the earth - a judgment that had caused
the destruction of all living things with a
Great Flood.  It was a difficult calling for
Noah to do something that people do not and
will never really believe in - especially
when the people of Noah’s time were just
living for the day and concerned only with
the present - not with preparing for any kind
of judgment the Lord might give upon all
mankind.  But Noah listened well.  He heard
the word of the Lord.  He had faith in that
word of God so he prepared for the day the
Lord will come to judge mankind and punish
all living things because of their evil.  Noah
did all that the Lord asked him to do to help
his family and to preserve what would be good
for the re-propagation of all living things
on the earth after the Great Flood.  Noah’s
example of being just and good is a sign
of hope that even in the midst of evil,
goodness and righteousness can never be
destroyed.

There are times in our life when we feel
secure and live in much comfort without any
great hardship or difficulty. But then something
happens to us that shakes the ground on which
we stand on: literally destabilizing our
properties, relationships, vocation, calling,
responsibilities, commitments, businesses,
families, or all that we have relied on for
our security.  And when something like this
happens to us, we remember the Lord: of
how He wishes to be known as the Lord of our
lives. What we have experienced that have
brought distress and a sense of death to
our life may only be a tiny fraction of
what will really happen when the actual
day of the Lord comes. But so that we will
be prepared when it does come, let us be
humble and have the attitude of the five
wise virgins in the parable of the wedding
feast who prepared to buy extra oil for
their lamps! Let us remain watching, waiting,
and hopeful that when the Lord comes, He
comes with mercy because of our humility
and our faith in Him.

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Lectionary Readings for the 34th Sunday of the Year,
Year C

“Jesus remember me when you enter upon your
reign.”

In the gospel for the 34th Sunday of the Year,
we find the gospel scene when Jesus promises the
repentant thief that he will be part of His
Kingdom. Unlike the other thief who was mocking
Jesus and wanted to test Jesus of His power,
this thief was different.  He took responsibility
for his crime, was courageous to accept the
sentence meted out upon him, and on meeting
Jesus on that hill of Calvary, requested that
Jesus would remember him when He enters upon
His reign.  Since the mission of Jesus has
always been to save what was lost, without
any second thought, He “saved” the repentant
thief and promised Paradise to him.

Jesus as King is often represented in icons
and religious imagery as a person who has the
external symbols of an earthly king.  However,
for us who know Jesus personally, we see Him
as One who serves - in fact, a suffering servant
- the one hanging on the Cross. We know that
the Kingdom of Jesus is not of this world but
of the next.  In His trial, He answered Pilate
that if His kingdom were of this world, His
soldiers would come to defend Him.  But as He
always attested, His reign is not an earthly
reign.  And His victory is seen not as a
military victory, but a victory of Light over
darkness: the Resurrection - a Kingdom of
Life over death: heaven.

Christ as our King is a King who reigns over
our families and in each of our hearts.  When
in one of the scriptural passages Jesus said:
“the kingdom of God is within you”, we have
a spiritual intuition of what this means. He
reigns in us with His love.  It is traditionally
known that subjects before a king give their
total obedience and will to the king.  It
should be like that also before our Lord and
King, Christ the King.  Though we have been
brought up in systems that tend to overemphasize
the assertion of self and a strong determination
to do what we want to achieve, if we are to be
really saved by Christ our King, then we have
to march according to His will.  There is no
middle ground.  As St. Paul says in one of
His epistles, “whether we live or we die, we
are the Lord’s”.

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Lectionary Readings for the 33rd Sunday of the Year,
Year C

“By patient endurance you will save your lives.”

In the gospel for the 33rd Sunday of the Year,
we find a prophecy of Jesus about the cataclysm
that is to come: wars, disasters, fearful omens
in the sky, and persecution of His followers.
But Jesus encourages those who hear what He says.
He tells them not to worry for He will give them
words of wisdom that none of their persecutors
can contradict.  And because of His protection,
“not a hair on their head will be harmed”.  All
His followers have to do is to patiently endure
these trials and He will save their lives.

In the liturgical calendar of our Catholic faith,
when we approach the end of Ordinary Time and
celebrate soon the solemnity of Christ the King,
we are given readings that tell about the end
times - that time which speak about great trials
and persecutions. But the readings tell us always
not to worry when this will be, because the Holy
Spirit will give us the words to be able to
defend ourselves against our persecutors.  And
since the feast of Christ the King nears, we look
forward to the victory of Christ over all those
who persecute His followers.  Despite all trials
and hardships, and despite even death, Christ,
the Way, the Truth, and the Life, will save us.
What is only required of us is to patiently
endure.

We do not know when these end times will be;
only the Father knows.  If we remember the time
when the new millenium, the year 2000, was
approaching, everybody was apprehensive because
some were predicting it would already be the
end times.  Much more, since many institutions
have already computerized their systems, people
are worried that the change of the year from
1999 to 2000 will affect all the data and the
records that are stored in computer systems.
This feeling of anxiety, of worry, of fear,
of apprehension, is a reflection of what we
will really feel when the end times arrive.
But the gospel for this Sunday reassures us
of Christ and His saving power. Even though
the end times will come, Christ will be with
us; He will save all of those who have made
great efforts to patiently endure the trials.

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Lectionary Readings for the 32nd Sunday of the Year,
Year C

“…God is not the God of the dead but of
the living…”

In the gospel for the 32nd Sunday of the Year,
we find a teaching on Jesus about the resurrection.
He taught about the resurrection because the
Sadducees posed a question for him regarding it.
Jesus ties up His teaching on the resurrection
with those who are called and “worthy of a place
in the age to come” and those who are not given
to marriage in this world.  He also adds that
these people, the “sons of the resurrection”.
“become like angels and are no longer liable
to death”.

When speaking of spiritual realities, it is
often hard to understand what it really means
because our way of knowing is mainly based in
this world rather than in the next.  That is
why the Sadducees posed a question to Jesus
that concerned a widow who married seven times
but all her husbands died consecutively without
leaving her an heir; and they asked Jesus whose
wife will she be in the “next world” - at the
resurrection?  Although we cannot completely
comprehend what is a mystery to us all, the
Holy Spirit gifts us with the gifts of knowledge
and understanding so that we can have a glimpse
of what Jesus really means.

We have already an intuition of what Jesus means
by the Resurrection when He says that God is a
God of the living: God is Life and the Resurrection
is equated with Life in God.  What this means to
us is that whether we are married or not, we are
called to live life here with the aim of attaining
the life that God promises us at the resurrection
of the dead.  Jesus’ life is an example of how
we are to attain the gift of new life - the
gift of the resurrection: we are to share in His
passion, crucifixion, and death.  Maybe not as
intensely as He did but in the way that God
expects of our uniqueness as His son or daughter.
As we live our Catholic life and share in Christ’s
passion and death, we shall also share in His
resurrection and share in His glory.