Reflection for Sunday – November 17, 2024

Patrick FoxSunday Readings Homilies

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

As we close out another Liturgical Year we find ourselves in a time and space that may challenge us more than normal.

Our first reading reminds us that our Hebrew sisters and brothers faced unsurpassed distress.  Our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews reminds all of us of our common priesthood which flows from our Baptism.  It calls on us by right of that Baptism to forgive instead of making offerings and to do so because there has been one sacrifice which has been made perfectly.

Our Gospel speaks first of tribulation and then of the return of the Son of Man.  That is followed by a parable of a fig tree.  The Gospel closes with an apocalyptic message that in one way sounds contradictory as it speaks of some not passing away until all that is offered happens and that is followed by the idea that no one knows the day or the hour.

All of that is very curious and yet I think very timely.  In our present moment we see division in society and within our Church.  We often find less listening and more pontificating regardless of where one stands on any issue.   As seekers of faith and understanding we know in our hearts that we are called to listen and to comfort one another but animation and passion often make listening more obscure.

We want to be one with each other but when the feeling that we are walking on eggshells is our experience, it can truncate our ability to communicate clearly and from a place of mutual respect.

So as I prepared this reflection I found myself drifting back to our Psalm.  The antiphon reminds me that my inheritance is my Lord.  I hear in the verses that the Lord is ever before me, my heart is glad, my body abides in confidence, I am not abandoned and I will be shown a path which is full of joy.

So I invite you along with me as I embrace that in any time and any place my Lord will show me that path and that I truly have an inheritance that I have been given stewardship of and for.

The path may not be clear but the presence is.  You and I do have an inheritance —we are God’s beloved.  Like the fig tree our life too has seasons and our leaves ebb and flow.  We might at times feel that the message is obscured and hope is folly.  Until we lean back into the arms of our family and see the light of Christ in one another and in Jesus and the Trinitarian God to whose family we belong.  So as the winds of another Liturgical Year ebb and we feel the breezes of Advent coming we can rest knowing that as our first reading ended, “the wise shall shine brightly… and those who lead the many to justice shall shine like the stars forever.”

My prayer is each of us can rest in our inheritance and bring whatever light we can to these moments of our lives.  We can remember that regardless of our various foci we are all sharers in one inheritance and we all are stewards of that inheritance.

Patrick Fox
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