(See the readings for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time)
The celebration of the Jubilee Year is coming to a close. The year marks 2,025 years since the birth of Christ. Over these years the Church has grown to all the continents and has shared the Good News of salvation in Christ Jesus. God’s love is proclaimed, celebrated, embraced and shared by countless people.
In different times and locations, the Church faces persecution. While no one wants to see that and we have the responsibility to protest the persecution and to assist those being persecuted, the possibility for persecution is always present.
Persecution seems to happen when there is a conflict between God’s vision for life, His kingdom, and the ways of man. Perhaps another way of putting it is when God’s kingship gets in the way of man’s power, the ground becomes fertile for persecution.
We’ve seen this vividly in authoritarian states where the dignity of the individual is subjected to either the leader or the state. In recent history many of us can recall this in the life of the communist world and particularly during the Cold War. Persecutions still take place today in various parts of the world, sometimes in dramatic fashion and at other times in more subtle ways.
Jesus, in this Sunday’s Gospel passage, speaks of trying, turbulent times in which His Church is persecuted. He speaks of this elsewhere as well. The current passage points to the “end times” and His ultimate return; but it also has a present reality. The natural phenomena that Jesus mentions may have a symbolic value here.
For a persecuted people, the world may seem like a storm, earthquake or natural disaster for so much of their normal lives and freedoms are overturned or taken away. Yet these do not have an enduring effect on the faithful, even if they kill. They do not have the power to destroy for Christ is Risen from the dead and death has now power over Him or those who share in His life through faith.
Our hope is in the Lord and He will return to free all the oppressed. The eradication of evil was longed for in Israel, a people well experienced with persecution. Malachi speaks of that desired day of vindication and deliverance as he offers hope for the oppressed: “Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts.” He then calls the people to faith: “But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.”
Jesus fulfills that hope of Israel. He is that “sun of justice” who has come. He has broken the power of evil; and will come again to eradicate it forever. While we wait in hope, he calls us to persevere.
“You will be hated by all because of my name,” He says, “but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” The perseverance of which Jesus speaks is a call to live the life of faith, even in the midst of turmoil and suffering.
Keep on loving, forgiving, showing compassion, speaking kindly the truth, caring for the poor, comforting the grieving, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, befriending the lonely, proclaiming the Gospel, and listening to the outcast — these are part of the day-to-day life of faith. Perseverance is a call to keep our focus on life and the gift we have been given in Christ Jesus.
The Jubilee Year 2025 has the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” Hope empowers our perseverance, especially through difficult times. We are pilgrims on a journey. That journey is from life in this world to eternal life in heaven. That hope is built on Jesus’ victory over death in the resurrection. And so we pray: “In you Lord is our hope, and we shall never hope in vain” (cf. Te Deum).
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Msgr. Joseph Prior is pastor of Our Lady of Grace Parish, Penndel, and a former professor of Sacred Scripture and rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Read more reflections by Msgr. Joseph Prior here.
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