The Nazareth Page - A gospel meditation for your home

November 17, 2024 – Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Mark 13:24-32

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Everyday marks us one day closer to the end of our lives here on Earth. I am now at an age when many family relatives and friends are now with God in heaven. At least, that is my hope. I will eventually experience my own death. I am a lifelong Catholic and believe that after I die, I will face my own final judgment and hopefully I will be united with those countless good people who have preceded me.

I learned this truth in the early grades of my Catholic education, but it did not scare me. Although I do remember a moment while walking home one day from grammar school. I heard the sound of a trumpet blast, seemingly coming from the sky. This happened during the middle of the Cold War. Immediately my thoughts jumped to the possibility that “the end” might be near. I tried to hear if any Russian planes were overhead. There were none.

When I was a seminarian years later, I belonged to a religious community that recommended that all its members engage in a meditation of death once a month. This was meant to put is in contact with one of the essentials of life: it had a beginning and an end. This mediation on death was also intended to remind us to remain faithful to our religious vows each and every day.

In this same vein, as we come to the end of this liturgical year, the Church reminds us of the Big End of all, along with the end of our personal lives. As was common when the gospels were written, images and symbols of that time were used to describe that finality. This can serve multiple purposes: To remind us of our finitude, to awaken us to the reality that our lives have a purpose and to alert us to the timeless meaning of each moment.

So, ironically, today’s gospel is not about the end of our lives, or the end of the world, but existence right now.Our lives are composed of many “nows” that taken together constitute our lives. We are created by God to participate fully in the great liturgy of creation. Some of our existence takes place on this wondrous planet. Consider this life on Earth our “act one.” Act two is yet to be experienced.

Contrast that with the often-quoted dying words of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Life’s but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” That view of life is one of hopelessness. Ours is quite the opposite.  

David M. Thomas, PhD