Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Fr. Adam Royal
November 13, 2021 - 5:00 PM
November 14, 2021 - 8:30 AM
Audio Recording
“Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.” We want to know the future, so we often look for signs in this world. We look at the political winds and predict elections. If you’ve ever watched an election you realize that sometimes before a single vote is counted the winner is announced. We’ve read the signs and we know with certainty who will win, the counting is a mere formality. We look at other signs to predicts the markets and increase our wealth or predict the best times to purchase a home. In our day to day lives we look at signs to determine people’s moods and predict the best time to say things to them. We are constantly trying to determine our futures and ensure all goes well for us.
But in our focus on these earthly matters, we have missed the signs that matter. This world will not last. Everything we know will disappear, it is all meant for destruction. And that is nothing to be sad about. Because just as in the death of Christ we discover new and better life, so will it be with this place. From its destruction will come a new birth. A birth to an eternal and perfect world freed forever from death and decay.
This means we must change our focus. If that is our future then our hopes must be set upon that moment, the moment the whole world is recreated in Christ. So we must look for Christ, we must await his return that will bring us definite and lasting freedom. The signs of his return are all around us. When we see the hungry, we see a sign that Christ is hungry and we must feed him. When we see the sorrowing, we see a sign that Christ is sorrowful and we must comfort him. When we see those bowed down by heavy burdens, we see Christ burdened and we must carry the cross with him. Every suffering in this world is a cry to heaven. It is the world calling out for its redeemer and begging him to return and set us free. Every suffering is a sign that we must act, and through authentic charity, through self-less love, make Christ present in this world.
Someday Christ will return and bring completion to all the works he has begun in us. Until that day, we must continue to hope and to love, and reassure this world that there are even greater things to come.