The End is Near

Homily delivered to Saint Anselm Parish on January 22, 2011

[Note: An enormous crane was installed in the middle of the church to accommodate the renovations]

I have prepared a real hellfire and brimstone sermon for the this morning, with the intention of delivering it from that cherry picker there.  But the abbot wouldn’t let me.  So if it doesn’t have the same effect, you know who to blame.

THE END IS NEAR!

See? I told you it wouldn’t have the same effect.

There is an enormous sense of urgency in today’s readings.  “Time is running out!” says Saint Paul.  “Only forty days!” says Noah.  “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” says Our Lord.  And yet, as I was reading this passage last night…I yawned.  And that got me thinking…I just don’t feel that sense of urgency.  I could go to confession today…or I could go tomorrow…or I could wait for Lent to begin.  I mean, when push comes to shove, I just don’t feel all that bad.  And God is really, really merciful, right?  So what do I have to worry about?  I haven’t killed anybody.  I didn’t steal anyone’s pension fund or bomb a marketplace.  I feel pretty safe.  So maybe those words don’t apply to me.  Right?

Or maybe they do.  After all, those words aren’t just addressed to Nazis and hedge-fund managers and tobacco lobbyists.  They are addressed to you and me personally.  Because even for us, “time is running out.”  The kingdom of God is at hand.  The end is near.  And “you know very well,” says Saint Paul, “that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

Now, I’m not necessarily predicting the end of the world.  I’m not even suggesting that you and I are in danger of going to Hell.  (Or maybe I am.  I’ll get back to you on that.)  What I am suggesting is that this battle over good and evil has reached a crisis point; that we are being called in today’s gospel to be apostles and martyrs; that we are in the midst of what our evangelical brethren like to call “The Great Tribulation;” that, more than ever, we must be saints.

And I could point to any number of attacks on our faith, attacks on the priesthood, attacks on our moral convictions…attacks by the media, attacks by politicians, attacks from outside the Church and attacks from within.  But I’ll just go with the most recent: on Friday, our president announced that our government will begin forcing Catholic institutions to buy health insurance that includes sterilization, abortifacients and contraception.  Catholic hospitals, Catholic universities, Catholic schools will be required under force of law to act in violation of their consciences.  If I were a Catholic school administrator, I’d be starting to worry right now.

And I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but for the rest of us too, “time is running out!”  “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed!”  If we are going to be strong enough to endure persecution, if we are going to be strong enough to resist the culture of death, to be Christ’s own apostles, called to be fishers of men, then we need to repent and believe in the gospel.  That means getting to confession—and soon.  Going to mass—and often.  Praying—and praying hard.  We’re going to need to be holier, and more prayerful, and more knowledgeable and more steadfast in our beliefs than we ever have so far, because frankly, it’s starting to look like we are losing this fight.

But then…it has always kind of looked that way, hasn’t it?

After all, the Church is an anvil against which many hammers have been broken.