Near to His passion and death, Jesus gives us a teaching of hope—telling us how it will be when He returns again in glory.

Today’s Gospel is taken from the end of a long discourse in which He describes tribulations the likes of which haven’t been seen “since the beginning of God’s creation.”

First, human community—nations and kingdoms—will break down. Then the earth will stop yielding food and begin to shake apart. Next, the family will be torn apart from within and the last faithful individuals will be persecuted. Finally, the Temple will be desecrated, the earth emptied of God’s presence.

In today’s reading, God is described putting out the lights that He established in the sky in the very beginning—the sun, the moon and the stars. Into this “uncreated” darkness, the Son of Man, in whom all things were made, will come.

Jesus has already told us that the Son of Man must be humiliated and killed. Here He describes His ultimate victory, using royal-divine images drawn from the Old Testament—clouds, glory, and angels which we see in the Book of Daniel 7:13. He shows Himself to be the fulfillment of all God’s promises to save “the elect,” the faithful remnant.

As today’s First Reading tells us, this salvation will include the bodily resurrection of those who sleep in the dust. We shall pray for the departed souls of our family and friends and especially for the Souls in Purgatory, especially those who do not have anybody to remember or to pray for them. All those who have gone ahead of us may be able to see the Face of God as early as possible.

When we prepare to partake in the Eucharist, we are given a foretaste of these heavenly mysteries that we are called to announce. It is here that we draw our strength and our source. It is through the liturgy that we can live out our call to be heralds of the heavenly mysteries where we can approach everything we do as an opportunity to see Christ and be Christ to another person.

With love and Prayers,

Fr. Charley