32nd Sunday in OT 2017 - Wake Up! Not all the glitters is gold!

At the end of every liturgical year, as the trees grow bare, the wind becomes colder, and daylight is seen less and less, the Sunday readings too become increasingly foreboding, darker and starker. They begin to focus on the last things: the end of the world, judgment, the afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory.  We return to these readings every year, that we might not be “caught unaware” of these ultimate realities.

Our second reading today comes from the very earliest of the Christian Scriptures. St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians was written in the early 50s of the first century, about a dozen years before the first of the Gospels.  And what we find is that from these earliest days of the Church, Christians were concerned with what happens after death. 

The fear-of-death has plagued mankind since its beginning, and man has turned to many different remedies for this fear. 17th century Catholic philosopher and theologian, Blaise Pascal , said, “most of us, spend most of our time, diverting ourselves from facing the inevitability of our mortality”. 

Seeing death as an inevitable end, some adopt the philosophy of the Ancient Epicureans: “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die!” Believing that this life is all there is, they fill their days with as much pleasure as possible. 

Others live in constant dread of death, and they develop numerous neuroses, like hypochondria, or other phobias and addictions because of their fear. The end always seems looming, and they don’t know how to deal with it.

Both of those approaches contain some truth, but they also lack the most important truth. On the one hand, yes, death is inevitable, and we do need to make the most of our life. And, on the other hand, yes, death is inevitable. But the truth that is missing from both of these approaches, the truth that St. Paul wants the Church to remember, is Jesus Christ.

It struck the first Christians, Paul especially, that the resurrection of Jesus changed everything. Death on a cross was not the end for Jesus, and so earthly death will not be the end for the baptized. Paul wants us to have a firm conviction that God’s grace will carry us through the terrible experience of death into the experience of eternal life.

Listen again to St. Paul’s teaching here: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus, died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” 

Our hope in eternal life isn’t merely wishful thinking, a story we tell ourselves to make our peace with the inevitability of death. The resurrection of Jesus is our proof that death is not the end.

The fear of death is not to keep Christians from living life to the fullest. But, for Christians, living-life-to-the-fullest does not mean giving-in to every worldly desire and impulse of the flesh, like the Epicureans. Living-life-to-the-fullest is found by ordering our passions to the truth of Christ, and finding joy in being instruments of God’s grace. We make our peace with death by acknowledging its inevitability, and then preparing rightly for it through the repentance of sin and seeking to live a life of charity and grace in imitation of Jesus.

In the Gospel we heard of the five foolish virgins and the five wise virgins. The wise virgins kept their lamps burning brightly for the return of the bridegroom, the foolish virgins fell asleep, and allowed their lamps to become extinguished. Again, here is a teaching from our Lord, of how we are to use the time we have been given in this life.

Do use your time wisely or foolishly? Well, how can you tell? Why are the wise virgins wise? They remain attentive, vigiliant. They do not allow themselves to fall asleep, but they keep watching and waiting on the Lord. The Christian life can be described as a constant struggle to remain awake, to resist the anesthetizing effects of worldly distractions.

As we know, all too well, many of our contemporaries have fallen asleep, like the foolish virgins. They are inattentive to the spiritual realities of this life and busy themselves with all the non-essentials of the world, instead of focusing on the one thing that matters most, our eternal soul.

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote how “not all that glitters is gold”. So many worldly endeavors are like enchanted gold from a fairy story. Pursuing them, they cause us to fall asleep in a potentially eternal slumber. That is certainly one of the dangers of having digital entertainment on demand, there is always something to distract us from the spiritual life. Yes, sometimes we do need to rest our tired minds and bodies, and just relax a bit, but if we are not careful, we can easily succumb to spiritual sloth, in which the flame and fervor of faith slowly diminishes one Netflix show, one iphone app, at a time.

Christian vigilance requires us to be very cautious toward the pleasures of the world. Christian Asceticism trains our bodies, minds, and spirits. We seek to always be growing in our spiritual lives, our prayer lives, our charitable service, to keep the flame of faith burning brightly.

As the Bridegroom comes to us in this holy Mass under the appearance of bread and wine, let us joyfully great Him with joyful hearts, and allow Him to rouse us from spiritual slumber, and ignite in us the fire of charity for the glory of God and salvation of souls.