33rd Week in Ordinary Time 2022 - Friday - Sweet and Sour

 Our first readings at Mass this week have been taken from the Book of Revelation. On Wednesday, we read of John’s Vision of the Heavenly throne room—a glorious and mysterious vision. A thousand years earlier, the prophet Ezekiel had been given a glimpse of the same heavenly throne room at the beginning of his life as a prophet. 

In today’s reading, there is another parallel to Ezekiel. Like Ezekiel, John is given a scroll to eat—a scroll sweet as honey, but sour to the stomach. 

What’s going on here? 

First of all, these parallels with Ezekiel indicate the importance of John’s visions. When a prophet is sent by God you have choice—heed his words, or ignore them. God doesn’t send a prophet just for fun. It’s a message that is to be taken seriously. To heed the prophet’s message will bring blessing, to ignore them will bring a curse. So the message of the Book of Revelation is to be taken very seriously. 

And like Ezekiel’s prophecy, John’s Revelation is both Sweet and Sour. Sweet in that it contains consolations, sour in that it communicates challenge. 

The Book of Revelation announces the completion and consummation of God’s plan for Creation.

The King of the Universe, who sits upon the heavenly throne, has witnessed the suffering of his people, the injustices they have endured at the hands of the wicked. There will be justice. This is a consolation to the righteous, and a warning to wicked, to repent before it is too late. 

But the Gospel itself is sweet and sour, isn’t it? God so loved the world that he sent his Son to redeem us, yet that redemption came at a price. So too the mission of the Church is sweet and sour. The Christian life involves the sweet consolations of the spirit, the experience of heavenly gifts, the knowledge and experience of Jesus’ presence with us in the Sacraments--the grace-filled ability to participate in the works of charity—a sweet foretaste of heaven.

And yet, the experience of the Church is also sour at the same time, bitter in her sufferings, her experience of persecutions, her penances, the carrying of our individual crosses—sweet and sour at the same time. 

In our modern age, many want the sweet part of the Gospel, but not the sour. They want the promises without the challenge, they want the resurrection without the cross, they want peace without having to suffer for it. And that’s somewhat understandable, who likes to suffer? But the Gospel must be taken in and preached in its entirety if we are to attain true freedom, and true beatitude.

Like Ezekiel, like John, we are given the sweet and sour Gospel to eat and internalize and digest, so that it becomes part of us. For, we too, are sent to peoples and nations and kings with the Word of God, and we must share the Gospel in its entirety, its sweet parts and also its sour parts—the parts which console us in our sufferings and challenge us in our complacencies, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

That Christians may undertake the meditation and prayer necessary to live holy and righteous lives. 

For a healing of all family divisions, reunion for the estranged and welcoming of the alienated. 

That those who have fallen away from the Church or fallen into serious sin may repent and return to the grace of the Sacraments. 

For the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the sick, the aged, the lonely, the grieving, the unemployed, those who are facing financial difficulties, those with addictions, and the imprisoned: that God will draw close to them, and bless them with grace and peace.

We pray in a special way for all of the faithful departed during this Month of November, for the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, and all the souls in purgatory, and for N. for whom this mass is offered. 

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.