November 17, 2024

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle B

Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-14, 18; Mark 13:24-32

Early on during the pandemic, when the schools were trying to figure out how to adapt their teaching methods to a format they could do at home, my son, I think in fourth grade at the time, was given an assignment. Since the kids didn’t have access to the materials in the art classroom, his art teacher made an assignment to use household items to remake a famous work of art. This I thought was a great idea since the student would have to look through some famous art, break down the components and techniques that the artist used within the artwork, and remake it creatively with things around the house. My son was struggling to come up with something when I hit on a solution.

Now, to understand how I got there, you must understand that, when it comes to art, am a Philistine. I have very little artistic talent, be it music, graphic arts, dance, whatever. Now, I appreciate good art, at least to a point. That point is modern abstract art. I just don’t get it. A work by Picasso where he puts both eyes on one side of the nose or paints a face half green half purple leaves me dumbfounded. I just don’t get it, although in my defense I have tried. I know that there is a lot of thought put into these works, but still my Philistine mind says that, well, a child could do it. Aha, there you go, my child needed to do it for an art project at home. So we picked a work by an artist active just after World War II named Jackson Pollock, who went by the nickname “Jack the Dripper.” As that nickname implies, many of his artworks were created by dripping and splattering paint all over the canvas. Now these are considered by experts to be excellent, and many hang in prestigious museums of modern art. But I don’t see greatness here. I never have and suspect never will. However, to finish my story, Ben and I were able to drip household items – chocolate syrup, Tabasco sauce, mustard, you get the idea – on a white surface in a similar manner to a work of Pollock we found, took a picture, and sent it in. Good art, I don’t know, but Ben did get an A.

Now I bring this up because I, admittedly unimaginative, have trouble with both the first reading today from Daniel as well as the Gospel where Jesus is referring to that same passage. These are a genre known as apocalyptic literature. They use very imaginative, figurative imagery to portray events and ideas that would otherwise be difficult to explain. Next week we will have another reading from Daniel and one from the Book of Revelation, and maybe Father Oscar, who is more gifted in the artistic department than I am, can explain these readings better than I can, but I’ll admit that I’m not the one to do it.

However, I have good news for all of you that, like me, don’t understand all the fanciful images. We don’t have to. We don’t need to know how God works at the end of our days. We only need to know this: Christ will win and establish the permanent Kingdom of God. And we also win, at least those people that help bring about his kingdom here on earth. Like the inner workings of a car, you don’t have to know how they work, you only need to know that they do indeed work and what direction you need to go to get there. So we end up with the two keys to faith: acceptance that what Christ told us is true, and then living in accordance with that truth, going in the right direction, as it were. This has important implications in our lives, and this is what Jesus is telling us in the Gospel. These two keys should center our faith life.

The first key, knowing that it works, is the intellectual part of one’s faith. At baptism, or if we were babies at our baptism, at confirmation, we made commitment, a vow to God, that we in fact believe in the truth that has been revealed by Christ, and we committed to learning how it applies to all aspects of our lives. Therefore we all must continue to learn and deepen our faith through Mass attendance, scripture reading, faith sharing with others, and that sort of thing. And the good news here is that if you don’t understand something, we have a great thing called magisterium, which is 2,000 years of the great and holy thinkers of the Church explaining it and applying it to changing times. So if you are like me and don’t understand the Books of Revelation or Daniel, our Church has a cheat sheet on it called the Catechism. Our Catechism sites our first reading from Daniel chapter twelve in its section on the resurrection. In the Church’s wisdom, this section does not tell us where, when, or how this will happen. It does tell us that it will happen and promises that "those who have done good [will go] to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” [CCC 992, 998].

This then gets at the second key. Once you know it works and what direction we need to go, you must actually go in that direction. If anyone here understands the word “faith” as Jesus or the apostles in the New Testament used the term to mean merely an intellectual understanding and acceptance, you don’t understand the term in its biblical meaning. Faith is both knowing and doing, both mind and body, both thinking and exercise. To revisit my example, believing that the car works won’t get you anywhere. You must then actively start the car and operate it to get somewhere. And not just anywhere: we must have a destination in mind and know how to get there. Knowledge and action are both necessary. This is therefore an important lesson as we complete our church year.

Next week, with the Feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, we will complete this church year and then start a new year fresh with the first week of Advent. Next year, our Gospels at Mass will center around Saint Luke. As the year progresses, we will methodically march through all of the important lessons from this gospel and learn afresh, from a Lukan perspective, what we must do and how we are to do it. If at any time we struggle to read this roadmap, we have the Church’s GPS, the Catechism, to help reorient us. And we have our community here at Saint James to encourage us and keep us company as we make our journey. There is no one that doesn’t experience times in their lives where they get lost, where they feel like me, looking at an abstract artwork and go, “I don’t see it.” The important thing is to not act like a typical man and refuse to ask for directions. I hope the fact that you are here now in this church indicates that you want directions. Now we just need to follow them to end up at where we all want to be, which our First Reading described like this: “the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever" [Daniel 12:3 NAB].

As we continue with our Mass, may we look upon the sacrament of the Eucharist as a renewal of our faith and as a grace to help guide us to our goal. May be always be humble about our understanding of our great faith and always seek to better understand the Word of God. Then we will truly see things as the really are, looking forward to seeing God face to face, no matter how abstract that concept might be to us mere mortals today.