{"id":1950,"date":"2016-11-13T12:18:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-13T17:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1950"},"modified":"2016-11-13T12:18:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-13T17:18:45","slug":"33rd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/33rd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

33rd<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C<\/a>
\nMalachi 3:19-20a
\nPsalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9
\n2 Thessalonians 3:7-12
\nLuke 21:5-19
\nNovember 13, 2016<\/p>\n

Our readings this week continue on the theme of what the End Times will be like.\u00a0 The question presented this week is when will it happen.\u00a0 With this in mind, they ask, \u201cwhat sign will there be\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jesus answers them by saying there will first be wars and insurrections, that nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.\u00a0 That there will be earthquakes, famines, and plagues.\u00a0 Lastly there will be \u201cawesome sights and mighty signs from the sky.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, let\u2019s see.\u00a0 Wars and insurrections, nation against nation\u2026 well there is currently Syria and ISIS.\u00a0 There\u2019s Iraq and Afghanistan.\u00a0 Before that there was Vietnam and Korea, World War I & II, and that is just the last hundred years.\u00a0 I think there has been enough wars to check that off the list Jesus gave.<\/p>\n

Earthquakes, well, this year there has been the earthquakes in Italy where most of one town was wiped out.\u00a0 There was the devastating earthquake in Haiti a few years back.\u00a0 Further back, there has been significant earthquakes in our own country, particularly on the west coast.\u00a0 So, I think we are also safe to cross earthquakes off the list.<\/p>\n

Then Jesus listed famines.\u00a0 Well, there are some people who go hungry across the world but especially in some third world countries.\u00a0 So we can check off famines.<\/p>\n

Then there is plagues.\u00a0 One might think of Ebola, Zika, or the bird flu.\u00a0 If you want really big, there was the Black Plague in the 14th<\/sup> Century.\u00a0 So we can check plagues off too.<\/p>\n

That just leaves \u201cawesome sights and mighty signs from the sky<\/em>\u201d but that\u2019s not a sign the Second Coming is close.\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen at the <\/em>Second Coming.<\/p>\n

Actually, there is one more thing Jesus talks about before the Second Coming, persecution<\/em>.\u00a0 While in our country we are not executed for our faith today, we can be ridiculed for our faith.\u00a0 People try to force us to do things contrary to our faith.\u00a0 For instance there are people who want to make doctors perform abortions and make pharmacists provide contraception and abortifacients.\u00a0 There are even people today who talk about making<\/em> all<\/em>, including Catholic hospitals, provide physician-assisted suicide.<\/p>\n

There can be no doubt that it can be a challenge to live out our faith.\u00a0 It might seem like the simplest thing to do is to be quiet about our faith.\u00a0 We might say we\u2019ll do anything to keep the peace.\u00a0 Keeping quiet might seem the easiest way to keep the peace but Jesus doesn\u2019t call us to keep quiet.\u00a0 He calls us to give testimony<\/em> to our faith.<\/p>\n

What kind of testimony is silence?<\/p>\n

Sometimes we do need to pick and choose our battles.\u00a0 Yet, keeping silent isn\u2019t the best solution.\u00a0 The problem with keeping silent is that if we never say anything<\/em>, then people tend to assume we agree with them.<\/p>\n

Am I telling you should into arguments, not necessarily.\u00a0 Sometimes the best thing we can do when a group of people we are with talks about something we disagree with is to simply say, \u201cI disagree\u201d or \u201cthat\u2019s not what I think.\u201d\u00a0 If they ask what we think, then we can say more, if not, at least we have given testimony that we don\u2019t disagree.<\/p>\n

We might not want to say anything out of fear of being ridiculed for our beliefs but maybe there is another reason we don\u2019t want to speak up.\u00a0 Maybe we are afraid <\/em>that they will ask us questions about what we believe and we don\u2019t feel like we can answer them.\u00a0 Maybe that just means we need to put some\/more effort into learning why <\/em>we believe what we do.<\/p>\n

Do we want to learn more?\u00a0 There is a saying \u201cignorance is bliss.\u201d\u00a0 We are also taught that there are three criteria for something to be a mortal sin.\u00a0 It must be something grave.\u00a0 We must know it is a sin and lastly we must consent.\u00a0 The second, knowing it is a sin, might fit nicely with \u201cignorance is bliss.\u201d\u00a0 If we don\u2019t know, we aren\u2019t culpable in the same way.\u00a0 The problem with that is that if we choose<\/em> to not know, then we sin.\u00a0 Our Church says we must follow our conscience but it also says we must make the effort to have a well-formed conscience.\u00a0 Do we?<\/p>\n

One last point \u2013 to go back to when I started, I never told you when the Second Coming might happen.\u00a0 We might all like to know so we can be ready.\u00a0 The simple answer to \u201cwhen will the Second Coming happen\u201d is that it doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 The time to change our lives, to learn more about our faith is now.\u00a0 We are not called to live like Christians just before the Second Coming.\u00a0 We are called to live like Christ every day.<\/p>\n

What do you need to work in your life to be able to give testimony?<\/p>\n

What do you need to do to be ready?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Malachi 3:19-20a Psalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12 Luke 21:5-19 November 13, 2016 Our readings this week continue on the theme of what the End Times will be like.\u00a0 The question presented this week is when will it happen.\u00a0 With this in mind, they ask, \u201cwhat sign …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[206,205],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-vs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1951,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions\/1951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}