Suy Niệm Tin mừng Chúa Nhật 33 Thường Niên C

Suy Niệm Tin mừng Chúa Nhật 33 Thường Niên C- (Luke 21:5-19)

Danh là giáo dân sống trong Giáo xứ nọ hằng chục năm, nhưng lâu nay anh ta không đi nhà thờ dự lễ nữa. Anh ta còn đi tới hàng xóm nói với bạn bè rằng Thiên Chúa ở trong tâm hồn mỗi người, Vì thế chúng ta không cần phải  đi nhà thờ để tìm Thiên Chúa nữa. Linh mục chính xứ nghe được nhiều người báo cáo lại cho ngài như thế,  và ngài quyết định tới thăm Danh một lần cho biết. Vị linh mục xuất hiện trưóc cửa nhà Danh vào một buổi tối mùa đông lạnh và thấy Danh một mình bên lò sưởi. Danh mời vị linh mục vào nhà và ngồi bên lò sưởi với mình. Vị Linh mục không hề nói gì về việc đi lễ nhà thờ, đi lễ của anh ta, mặc dù Danh nghi ngờ đó là lý do mà vị linh mục tới thăm anh. Vị Linh mục chỉ nói chuyện tán ngẫu ngoài lề, như hỏi thăm gia đình, thời tiết . Trong khi đó, vị linh mục dùng kìm kẹp lửa để lấy những thanh củi đang cháy trong lò sưởi ra và đặt từng thanh củi cách xa nhau bên cạch lò  sưởi. Cả hai người xem những ngọn lửa nhấp nháy và rồi từ từ thắt ngủm trong một thời gian ngắn chỉ còn tro trắng bao quanh mảnh trên đầu cây củi  gỗ. Danh như đã nhận ra được cái ý nghĩa việc làm của vị Linh Mục. Anh quay lại vị linh mục và nói: "Thưa Cha, con sẽ đi nhà thờ vào chủ nhật tới này."

            Cũng giống như những thanh củi, chúng ta cần có sự hiệp thông với anh chị em của chúng ta trong đức tin để duy trì ngọn lửa đức tin của chúng ta. Chúng ta cần tới nhà thờ, tới với Chúa. Danh là một ví dụ về những người đã sống một cuộc sống cực đoan. Cũng có những người có những thái độ cực đoan khác, những người chỉ thấy sự hiện diện của Thiên Chúa trong nhà thờ hay Thánh lễ mà thôi. Chúa Giêsu đã cho chúng ta thấy được có những người trong chúng ta như thế trong bài Tin Mừng hôm nay. Qua bài Tin Mừng chúng ta thấy những người theo Chúa  trong đó có môn đệ của Chúa Giêsu đã cuốn hút bởi sự ngu nga và huy hoàng của Đền thờ Jerusalem. Đền thờ được xây hơn 46 năm mới hoàn thành và rất tốn phí vì được trang trí bằng vàng,  bạc của dân chúng dâng cúng và đóng góp. Đối với Dân Do Thái đền thờ là nơi Thiên Chúa ngự trên trái đất và những đồ trang điểm của ngôi đền này đã đem lại ý nghĩa niềm tin của họ vào Thiên Chúa rất mạnh mẽ. Chúng ta có thể hình dung những cú sốc trên khuôn mặt của họ khi Chúa Giêsu nói với họ rằng đền thờ này sẽ bị phá hủy hoàn toàn và không một hòn đá chồng trên hòn đá nào! Như một lời tiên tri, quân đội La Mã dưới sự chỉ huy của Titus đã phá huỷ đền thờ này vào năm 70.

            Chúa Giêsu nói về đền thờ rất có ý nghĩa và quan trọng không những chỉ cho dân Do Thái thời gian của Chúa Giêsu, nhưng còn quan trọng cho các Kitô hữu của mọi thời đại. Chúng ta phải nhớ rằng người dân Jerusalem là những người đã xây dựng và trang trí đềnThiên Chúa, những cũng là những người đồng thời có kế hoạch để hạm hại và giết con của Thiên Chúa. Nếu họ nhìn thấy Thiên Chúa trong các trang sức bằng đá và vàng, tại sao không có thể họ nhận ra Ngài bằng xương bằng thịt? Khi một ngôi đền trở nên thật hoành tráng, hùng vĩ mà mọi người không có thể nhìn thấy được Thiên Chúa, ngoại trừ trong đó, thời gian bị phá hủy  nó đã đến.' Làm thế nào để giải thích một thực tế là sự phát triển Kitô giáo trong thời Trung Cổ được kết hợp với một nền văn hóa mà trong đó cuộc sống con người và quyền con người bị coi là quá rẻ? Hãy suy nghĩ về các cuộc chiến tranh tôn giáo, tra tấn và giết hại tự do tư tưởng, việc đốt những người bị tình nghi là phù thủy và Buôn bán người nô lệ một cách vô nhân đạo . Có Phải chăng càng nhiều người tôn vinh đền thờ là nhà của Thiên Chúa, thì họ càng ít ngưỡng mộ con người nhân bản nên theo hình ảnh của Thiên Chúa?   Tuy nhiên, đó không phải phải là trường hợp. Đức tin của chúng ta đòi hỏi chúng ta phải nhận ra sự hiện diện của Thiên Chúa trong  nhân bản con người cũng như trong đền thờ. Thánh Phaolô nhắc nhở các tín hữu Côrintô rằng họ cũng thiêng liêng như đền thờ, mà các cơ quan của họ là đền thờ của Chúa Thánh Thần. "Anh em không biết sao: anh em là Ðền thờ của Thiên Chúa, và Thần khí Thiên Chúa ngự trong anh em? (1Cor 3:16).

            Tin Mừng hôm nay, do đó, thách thức chúng ta phải có nỗ lực để xem xét và phục vụ Thiên Chúa ngay cả trong đền thờ khi chúng ta có mặt để thờ phượng và trong một số khác sau khi thờ phượng. Hãy nhớ rằng, chúng ta cần phải đối xử và tôn trọng nhân phẩm những người khác không phải vì họ xứng đáng bởi hành vi hay lối cư xử của họ,  nhưng bởi vì Thiên Chúa ở trong họ. Thực thi cách này trong cuộc sống của chúng ta trong nhà thờ hay ở ngoài xã hội,  những hành động liên tục của chúng ta sẽ trở thành một việc làm cho cùng một Thiên Chúa, Đấng luôn ở trong tâm hồn con người chúng ta và cũng như trong đền thờ nữa.

 

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Where Does God Live?

Josh is the resident humanist in the neighborhood. He does not go to church anymore. He goes about telling his friends that since God lives in everyone’s soul, it is not necessary for anyone to go to church to find God. His parish priest learns of this and decides to pay Josh a visit. The priest shows up in Josh’s house one cold winter evening and finds Josh warning himself by the fireside. Josh invites the priest to join him at the fireside, which he does. The priest does not talk about church attendance, although Josh suspects that is why he came. They talk about the weather. Meanwhile, the priest uses the fire-tongs to remove a burning piece of wood from the fire and places it all by itself beside the fireplace. Both men watch as the flames flicker and go out and in a short time white ash covers the once blazing piece of wood. Josh gets the message. He turns to the priest and says, “Father, I will be in church next Sunday.”

            Like that piece of wood we need fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the faith in order to maintain the fire of our own faith. We need the church.  Josh is an example of people who go to one extreme. There are people also who go the other extreme, people who see the presence of God only in churches and church services. We read about people like that in today’s gospel.     

            We are not told exactly who they but some of them were probably disciples of Jesus. They were fascinated with the splendour of the Jerusalem Temple built by Herod the Great in over 46 years and lavishly adorned with gold and silver offerings of the people. For these people the Temple is God’s dwelling place on earth and the adornment of the Temple means that the people’s faith in God is strong. Can you imagine the shock on their faces when Jesus tells them that this Temple standing in all its glory and majesty is destined to be utterly destroyed leaving not one stone upon another? As a prophetic statement the destruction of the Temple was accomplished in AD 70 by the Roman army under the command of Titus.

            Jesus’ saying on the Temple is significant not only for the people of his time but for Christians of all times. We must remember that the people of Jerusalem who were building up and decorating the House of God were the same people who were at the same time planning to destroy the son of God. If they saw God in the adornments of stone and gold, why couldn’t they recognize Him in flesh and blood? When a temple becomes so superimposing that people are no longer able to see God except in it, the time for its destruction has come. How does one explain the fact that the flourishing of Christendom in the Middle Ages was associating with a culture in which human life and human rights were cheap? Think of the religious wars, the torturing and killing of freethinkers, the burning of suspected witches and the inhuman traffic in slaves. Could it be that the more people exalted the temple as the house of God the less they esteemed the human person made in the image of God?

            And yet, that should not be the case. Our faith demands that we recognise the presence of God in the human person as well as in the temple. St Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are as sacred as the temple; that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?” (1Cor 3:16). “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” 1Cor 6:19). The Christian who, like the disciples in today’s gospel, sees God in the grandeur of the temple but not in other people is only telling half of the story. The Christian who, like Josh in our story, sees God in the human person but not in the temple also tells only half of the story. Today’s gospel, therefore, challenges us to endeavour to see and serve God both in the temple when we gather for worship and in one another after the worship. Remember, we treat the other person with respect and dignity not because they deserve it by their own conduct but because God in them deserves it. This way, our lives both in church and out of church, become one continuous act of service to the same God who dwells in the human soul as well as in the temple.

 

Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

“Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.” Luke 21:12–15

It could be said that these are among the least consoling words that Jesus ever spoke. Imagine what His disciples would have thought upon hearing this. Some of them might have changed their minds about following Jesus and walked away. Why would anyone want to be seized and persecuted, or thrown into prison? Jesus even went on to say that “they will put some of you to death.”

Though these words might not, at first, seem all that consoling, they were inspired words and, therefore, must be inspiring. By analogy, imagine an army general in charge of troops defending their families and homeland from hostile invaders. If that general were to say similar words to the troops, acknowledging that some of them would be captured and even killed, it would be a reality check for sure. But it would also inspire a certain courage and drive. In that moment, the soldiers would need courage to face the challenge that awaited them. Therefore, by being honest with them, the general would stir up their courage and strengthen their resolve to enter the battle.

We must hear Jesus’ words today as His battle cry, spoken to encourage us. He is warning us that the secular and unchristian world will be hostile. The leader of the kingdom of darkness, the devil, is very active and, with his legion of demons and followers, is seeking to destroy us. For our part, we must decide whether we will retreat and hide, or enter the battle for the salvation of souls.

Though most of us will not endure physical martyrdom for our faith, it will happen to some. But for most of us, the persecution we will endure will be on a different level. We may be mocked or even hated for our refusal to accept immorality within the culture. We may be called hateful when we stand up for the dignity of the unborn child in danger of abortion. We may be deemed superstitious or old fashioned by remaining faithful to Sunday worship and daily prayer. And we may be thought of as out-of-touch or behind the times for refusing to embrace the latest popular fads and secular values. Sometimes this happens even within the family.

Instead of shying away from the various forms of persecution we may experience, we need to allow our Lord to stir up a courage within us that is fueled by love. We must deeply desire the salvation of every soul and remain certain that the only way to salvation is through fidelity to Christ.

When you are challenged by others or by the world, you must trust in Jesus’ words. “I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.” When we resist and refute the errors of our age, some people will become hostile. But if we remain faithful to our Lord and speak by His inspiration, then those who are hostile will be affected for the good. Because Jesus said that people will not be able to “resist or refute” the words He inspires us to say, we must know that our words can make a difference in the battle for souls. We must engage the battle with courage and love and rely upon our Lord to lead.

Reflect, today, upon the fact that we are all in a battle for the salvation of souls, beginning with our own. We cannot be passive bystanders. We must move forward with much courage and strength. We must trust in the guidance given to us by our Lord. We must be open to the words He will inspire us to speak when needed. Resolve to follow our Lord into this holy battle, and He will equip you with all you need to be victorious.

My courageous Lord, You endured much suffering in life and embraced it with pure love. Please give me the grace I need to follow You wherever You lead and to be an instrument of Your voice to a world in need. Jesus, I trust in You.

 

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Opening Prayer: Lord God, you have come to rule the earth with justice. I sing your praises joyfully. I hear all creation proclaim your glory. The sea, the world, the rivers, the mountains all give witness to your reign. You truly rule the world with justice and all peoples with equity.

Encountering the Word of God

1. The Great Tribulation: We are nearing the end of our semi-sequential reading of the Gospel of Luke on Sundays. Like the gospels of Mark and Matthew, Luke includes the teachings of Jesus about the end of Jerusalem and how this prefigures the end of the world. After a long journey (Luke 9:1-19:27), Jesus has finally made it to Jerusalem for the Passover. He has cleansed the Temple and taught in it (Luke 19:28-20:47). When the people began to wax eloquently about the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus prophesied that the day would come when not one stone from the Temple would be left upon another stone. This came to pass in A.D. 70 when the Romans, led by Titus, laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. There were earthquakes, famines, plagues, and wars that all preceded this event. Jesus urges his followers not to be deceived by those who claim to be Jesus or by those who claim that “the time has come.” Rather, Jesus’ disciples are to be attentive to the signs of the times and, based on this discernment, know that the end is near. In fact, the Christians heeded Jesus’ words and fled the city of Jerusalem to Pella before the Roman legions arrived and were saved from the great tribulation and the destruction of Jerusalem.

2. The Sun of Righteousness: The First Reading, from the prophet Malachi, announces the coming Day of the Lord. It will be a day of judgment, a day when the wicked are destroyed, but also a day of consolation, a day when those who fear God’s name will be saved. Malachi proclaims that for the latter group, the faithful remnant, “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.” The winged sun was a symbol of life in the ancient Near East, and Jesus brings this symbol to fulfillment: “Jesus Christ, in stretching out his hands on the holy tree, unfolded two wings, the right and the left, and called all who believed in him to come to him” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 1633). “Jesus is the Sun of Righteousness who will rise with healing in his wings, and he longs to gather Jerusalem under those wings of healing. However, Jerusalem will refuse, and that is the point of our Gospel Reading …, which concerns the judgment that will fall on unrepentant Jerusalem in AD 70. However, since Jerusalem is the center of the earth, the destruction of that city portends the destruction of the world” (Bergsma, The Word of the Lord: Year C, 489).

3. Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians: One of the main topics in Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians is the Parousia (coming or advent) of Jesus Christ. Paul had to correct their misunderstanding of his First Letter, as well as a forged letter in Paul’s name (2 Thessalonians 2:2). The Thessalonians thought that the Second Coming of Jesus was near, and some in the Christian community stopped working. They reasoned that if Jesus was coming soon, then it was useless to toil away at work. In his Second Letter, Paul teaches that a whole series of events needs to take place before Jesus returns in glory. Only after a period of tribulation will Christ come again as the divine Warrior to slay the “man of lawlessness,” an agent of Satan who would be allowed to spread confusion throughout the world and impress the wicked with signs and wonders of his power (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 9-10). The freeloaders who have stopped working need to get back to work, earn their living, and mind their own business (2 Thessalonians 3:12). The best way to prepare oneself for Christ’s glorious return is by working and not sitting around waiting (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 2119).

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, Sun of Righteousness, come to my aid today. Do not let me succumb to temptation. Be my strength and my shield. Defend me in battle and heal me with your wings.

 

Judgment Day Is Coming

Every Sunday when we pray the Creed, right after the homily, we solemnly profess our belief that Jesus "will come again to judge the living and the dead." The Church has never claimed to know when Judgment Day will come.

It could be today, it could be 1000 years from now. Jesus himself told us that we can know "neither the day nor the hour."

So if anyone ever comes knocking on your door to tell you the exact date, you can be sure that they are off track. But the fact remains, Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead.

That's when the battle between good and evil will come to an end.

On that day, as the First Reading tells us, "the proud and the evil doers" will have "neither root nor branch."  Evil will finally be made powerless. But those who have spent their lives battling against sin and injustice, living in friendship with Christ, will be completely freed from their last vestige of selfishness. They will finally experience the fullness of life that they always hoped for but could only experience in part while the battle still raged.  "...For you who fear my name," the First Reading continues, "there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays."

Judgment Day is coming. Jesus is coming again. There will be an end to the battle between good and evil, and good will win. We know this. God has revealed it. The vast majority of humankind, throughout history and even today, do not know this. For those who do not know or believe in Christ, the future is a dark and threatening mystery. But for us, it is a coming victory.

Charles V was one of the last truly great European Emperors. In the 1500s, he protected Europe from the vicious and tireless attacks of the Turkish Muslim Empire. And at the same time he brought together the leaders of Europe to reestablish political and religious unity moong Christians after the revolt of Martin Luther. He almost succeeded, until his most powerful ally betrayed him.

In the prime of his life, one of his closest and most well-loved advisers, who had served the emperor since his youth, fell ill. Charles was at his bedside as the man was dying. The Emperor was deeply moved at the man's suffering, and wanted to comfort him.  He said, "My friend, you have been a faithful servant all these years. Please, let me now do something for you. Ask anything of me, and I will do it." The dying man turned his weak eyes to his King, and whispered, "Sire, there is one great favor I desire." The Emperor was glad at this, and leaned forward, "Tell me," he said, "What is it?" "Give me one more day of life - just one day more!" Charles' face fell. He answered simply, "You know that I have not the power." The man smiled weakly, and said: "Yes, I know. Even the greatest earthly king cannot give life. And now you see how foolish I have been. I served you well all these years, but I gave no thought to my Heavenly King, and now I must go to him with empty hands. Pray for me."

Those were his last words.

Knowing that Christ's Kingdom will be victorious and last forever has a very practical consequence: it enables us to be more energetic and confident in building up that Kingdom. Jesus tells his Apostles that they will be persecuted, but they are not to worry, since "it will lead to your giving testimony." This is what we are called to do - to tell others about Christ, to bring them into the Church, so that they too can reestablish an intimate friendship with God and set out on the path to eternal life. So that they can have the same peace of mind that we have from knowing what the future holds. Jesus tells his Apostles that they will even be betrayed by family members, but it doesn't matter, because he will still be protecting them: "not a hair on your head will be destroyed."  And so, he goes on to tell them, they should never give up in their efforts to follow Christ and help others follow him: "By your perseverance you will secure your lives." As Christians, we are soldiers of Christ.  We have been given a share in his mission. People around us are starving to know the future, the real truth about the future. That's why they are buying books about tea leaves and Tarot Cards and celestial prophecies, about witchcraft and magic and neo-paganism. Jesus wants to save them from their anxiety and from the dangers of looking for answers in the wrong places. He wants to tell them the real truth about death, judgment, and forgiveness. And he has invited us to be his messengers.  We all know someone who needs to hear this message.  This week, let's tell them.

 Today, when we once again profess our faith in the everlasting future of his Kingdom, let's also renew our commitment to building it.