TEXT: Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 17, 2024
November 17, 2024 Father De Celles Homily
33rd Sunday Ordinary Time
November 17, 2024
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
With all the tumult in the world today,
especially in our own country and in the Church as well,
many people ask me if I think we’re in the end times.
If we will soon see the fulfillment of the prophesy Jesus makes in today’s gospel:
“And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’
with great power and glory.”
My response is simple, and at the same time I suppose, complicated.
I say simply, “Who knows?”
Yes, there are lots of strange and ominous catastrophes around us,
but there have been lots of strange and ominous catastrophes in various ages past, and people then also asked, “Is this the end times?”
Think about it.
In the first three centuries, to be a Christian
was to be under constant threat of martyrdom.
Then think about the invasions of the Huns and Barbarians
changing the western world order completely.
Then Islam invaded northern Africa, Spain, and the Eastern Roman Empire.
And then there were the awful “renaissance popes and the Protestant revolt.”
Think of the 650,000 lives lost in our own Civil War
and the millions lost in World War I and II.
Then think of all the cataclysmic natural disasters throughout history:
the plagues of the Middle Ages that wiped out one-third of Europe.
And then think about what Jesus says at the end of His prophesy today:
“But of that day or hour, no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
So, like Jesus, I don’t know.
Besides, I’ve never really understood why people really care so much
about the end times.
They could come tomorrow or in 1000 years.
But every single day, the end comes for someone.
Every day 150,000 people die in the world.
Every minute, 106 people die.
That’s about 1 every ½ a second: there’s one… and another … and another …
For each of them, the end has come,
and they stand before our Lord and receive His judgment.
As we read in today’s first reading,
“Some shall live forever…
[and] shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament…”
At the same time, “Others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.”
It’s interesting how Scripture often talks about the judgment in terms of
groups of people, not just individuals.
For example, different passages in the Gospel talk about the division between “the sheep and the goats” or “the righteous and the unrighteous.”
And in today’s gospel, Jesus says,
“[The angels will] gather His elect …from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.”
Of course, each of us will be judged individually, not as a group.
But in the end, we will either be in the group going to hell or the group going to heaven.
It’s similar with sin.
We sin individually, but so often we do so in conjunction with a group.
I think particularly of sins that come from following the crowd,
whether it’s accepting the immoral values so prevalent in our culture,
or simply being badly influenced by the group of friends we hang out with, or even our family.
In the end, you may be part of a group of sinners,
but you personally, individually, choose to sin.
And you, personally and individually, will die and face Jesus and His judgment.
And then you won’t be able to use the excuse that, “Well everyone else was doing it.”
Jesus will just say something like your daddy used to say to you:
“If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff?”
___
There’s a great scene in the play Man for all Seasons
which I think may be a very accurate account of what actually happened.
The Duke of Norfolk is trying to convince
his longtime and dear friend Sir (Saint) Thomas More
to sign the Oath of Supremacy of the King over the Church.
A frustrated Norfolk finally says to More,
“Damn it, Thomas, look at these names.
Why can’t you do as I did, and come with us, for fellowship?”
More looks him in the eye and responds,
“And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience…and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me [to hell], for fellowship?”
Following the crowd to hell is easy because you don’t have to make any hard or brave decisions.
Sometimes it even seems the wise thing to do
—two heads are greater than one and all that–
except when they’re choosing to go to hell.
Of course, we all fall into this trap of following the wrong crowd from time to time.
We see this when well-meaning people get together for a peaceful protest
and wind up following a few fools into making it a riot.
Or we see it in schools, all the time.
For example, the phenomenon of children self-identifying as transgender
because suddenly it’s a trend in their school.
We saw it in the election two weeks ago, as millions of voters voted for candidates
because the party they followed, or the podcast they listen to,
or the music star they idolize
told them too…so they followed their crowd.
And we see it in the Church, all the time.
For example, in the mid-1960s a crowd of progressive priests and theologians
started saying things like contraception and premarital sex were okay,
and pretty soon the average Catholic was thinking maybe it’s okay.
Even when Pope St. Paul VI came out over and over again
and tried to correct them, reiterating the traditional doctrine on sexuality,
a lot of Catholics kept following that crowd of dissenters.
So now, a recent Pew Research found that 83% of U.S. Catholics
say birth control is okay,
and 62% of Catholics say premarital sex is okay,
following the crowd of dissent and secularism, not Christ and his Church.
Another example can be seen with our Bishops.
Nowadays a lot of Bishops around the world privately disagree with some of the foolish initiatives coming out of the crowd of “progressive” bishops in Rome.
But how often do you see individual bishops raise objections publicly?
Instead, they go right along with the crowd and pretend like it’s a good idea, with no apparent concern if the group they’re following is the sheep or the goats.
(Now, lest I get in trouble for seeming to say that the Bishops are all going to hell,
let me point out what I said earlier:
While there are bad crowds, there are also good crowds.
And let me say there are also many good bishops,
but, as with the ten apostles in the Upper Room–
all good men– follow the crowd; all, except for St. John,
abandoned Christ on Calvary.)
You can follow the good crowd or the bad crowd.
The Catholic Church is a great and holy crowd,
and if you follow the Church, you will be in the crowd going to heaven.
But sometimes parts of the Church, individuals in the Church,
form themselves into bad crowds, and they lead others astray.
That can apply to anywhere in the Church.
For example, there are some great bible studies,
like the one we have here at St. Raymond’s,
that follow the crowd of saints and holy teachers
of the Church and help lead people to heaven.
But sometimes you come across a bible study, or a catechism class, whatever,
that leads you to question the teachings of the Church;
that crowd does not lead to heaven.
The same thing goes with the bishops and priests:
When they—we–as a group or individually,
follow the Church and the crowd of great saints and doctors
and especially the holy martyrs who died for the Faith,
we are in the crowd going to heaven.
But when we follow the crowd that is within the visible bounds of the Church
but is following the road of Judas, the road of lying and abuse of power,
they—we–join the crowd on its way to hell.
Going along for fellowship.
___
Today Jesus tells us,
“Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender
and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.”
Read the signs of the times.
See the sin around us, and worry not about the end of time on earth,
but about the end of your time on earth.
We all face death. We all face judgment. And we could face them at any time.
Are you ready for that?
Or are you too busy following the crowd?
And if so, is it the crowd that leads to heaven or the crowd that leads to hell?
As we continue to move more deeply into this Holy Mass,
take all these things to prayer.
And join your prayers to the great prayer of Christ,
His “one sacrifice” offered on the Cross,
soon to be made present to us miraculously on the altar.
Pray for the conversion of our society, for the crowd that is on its way to hell,
and for the members in the crowd.
And pray for the conversion of all the members of the Church,
the crowd that is striving for heaven,
but so often distracted by sin and sinful leaders on the way.
And as we meet Jesus face to face in His Body today, remember:
We will all meet Him face to face soon enough in eternal judgment.
So today, accept the grace He offers you in the Eucharist,
and pray for your own conversion to follow Christ.