Malachi 3:19-20a; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

Choose His path, not your own

Friends, as is customary, the Church considers apocalyptic scriptures as it comes to the end of the liturgical year. It is clear from the first reading through to the Gospel that our personal future is in our hands. There is to be a moment when each of us must face the Almighty and receive whatever is justly dispensed to us.

In just two verses from Malachi, the prophet, as God’s mouthpiece, bluntly confronts his listeners with a kind of either/or situation. It proposes a positive or negative outcome for lives lived either keeping God’s commands or serving one’s own purposes. The image of burning clearly captures the sort of outcome we might reel at. The image of healing encourages us to act in only one way. And so the prophet’s words teach a quick, vital lesson.

What is spoken in 2 Thessalonians serves a similar purpose. For these verses pit idleness against working fervently. A right attitude to work is acceptance of the need to do all in one’s power to contribute to the life of the Christian community and not just to act for some selfish or idle purpose.

The very last sentence of Luke’s Gospel passage is in essence the key to every Christian’s existence. Translated as, “By your endurance you will gain your souls” or “Your endurance will win you your lives”, that final piece of the text is sufficient to indicate how seriously we are to regard our God-given task in this life. Being future oriented participants in the working out of the divine plan, we are called to bear perpetual witness that there will come the day when God will reward his earthly stewards who have patiently remained faithful.

There are only a few days left of this ‘Year of Faith’, I know it is good for me and, I guess, good for all of us to evaluate this year. Just recently I participated in one of the regular ministry formation days for clergy and lay partners in the Archdiocese of Wellington and someone asked me what I would write about how I participated in the Year of Faith and what it did for me. Maybe this could be a possible and right question we could pose to ourselves as we come to the close of this liturgical year. Would we put on our own Curriculum Vitae something that shows that this year has brought us joy and peace, helped us to love and to receive love – because we have known in a new and deeper way the great gift brought by Jesus?

Pope Benedict XVI invited us to “Open the doors of Faith,” and we did. Not long after, Pope Francis challenged us to go out from those doors and take our faith with us in order to make a difference in the lives of others. Faith is a great gift brought to us by Jesus. Each of us is blessed to see, to believe, and to draw others to Christ. And so as we come to the end of this year of great blessing may we always be enlightened, fascinated, accompanied, and blessed by Christ, the Morning Star, which never sets.