Archbishop of Sydney

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. Joseph’s Parish Church, Enfield (75th Anniversary of St. Joseph’s Church)
Dan 12:1-3; Heb 10:11-14, 18; Mk 13:24-32

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
19/11/2006

Just recently I was glancing through a school magazine and noticed two fine speeches by the school captain and his vice-captain listing the virtues of that particular school’s tradition and exhorting their fellow students to lift their game, to rise to these standards.  This was a Catholic school with an outstanding tradition of lively Christian faith in the past, and most of the virtues were listed by the boys except the virtue of faith, the importance of believing in the one true God of love and his Son Jesus Christ. 

If challenged I am sure one of the boys at least, the one closer to the inherited tradition, would have replied that all this was presumed, was the essential if un-remarked foundation of the whole enterprise.  But the fact is that we can no longer presume this in any section of the Australian people, even Catholic Australian people.  God is not often under attack in Australia, but He is often forgotten or ignored.  If this practice catches on, then at the heart of our institutions there is a void.

Some years ago in another state I skimmed through many reports in the Catholic school annual magazines of their senior school retreats to see how many references there were to God and to prayer.  In many, and I fear most cases, God received scarcely a mentioned and prayer was not overemphasised in them either.

Many of us are reserved people who do not like to talk in public about politics and religion; a practice we inherited from the past when religious prejudices between the Christian denominations were alive and well.  Then most Catholics were not ashamed of, or embarrassed by, their religion and even non-practising Catholics had a rueful tribal loyalty (often based on their Irish inheritance).

What does our reticence mean today? That we are so confident of our faith that we do not need to be reminding ourselves publicly of its importance?  Or that morals, family and social justice are important, much more important than worship and prayer?  Is God an optional extra in the good life; a hypothesis of second order importance? Or are we embarrassed to fess up to our faith because of a few scoffers?

In particular a silence has fallen on the reality of life after death and also on the reality of judgement after death, of the separation of the sheep from the goats.

I do not know exactly what Our Lord had against goats to use them as symbols of the damned, but they are contrary animals, almost impossible to shepherd in the desired direction and they will attack the unsuspecting!

The sections in today’s readings from the Old Testament prophet Daniel and from Mark’s gospel provide colourful material for any sermon on the last things.  They belong to a type of literature known as apocalyptic, which means the unveiling or revelation of the future.  This genre flourished from about 200 BC to 100 AD and discussed the end of things and the destiny of the world in general.  There is no doubt that Our Lord himself used this type of imagery to talk about the end of the world and final judgement and some early Christians had expected Christ to return quickly to set up his heavenly kingdom.  So vivid was this expectation that some Thessalonians had stopped work and St. Paul had to tell them to take up their tools again.

An important background to the imagery was the violence and oppression the Jews were then suffering regularly from foreign invaders.  They understood the imagery.

As well as clearly spelling out the reward and punishment of the next life, these readings emphasise the reality of struggle and conflict between good and evil, with the suffering that brings.  Today even Christians can become uneasy with talk about sin, the knowing personal choice of evil.  People who have suffered violence, especially in time of war know that evil exists, that there is a spirit of evil and that we should resist it.

Both Daniel and Our Lord speak about a final violent struggle between the forces of good and evil, the final showdown at Armageddon.  We do not know what form this will take, but we do know that there have been many preliminary runs at this awful finale, even in the last century.  Two World Wars, Mao in China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, the slaughter of hundred of thousands in the strife between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda; all of these could contribute to the time of distress, the darkening of the sun and the shaking of the very powers of heaven.  Modern technology has enabled us to wreak much more destruction than when we could only kill with bows and arrows.

Daniel tells us that good people will be spared; all those whose names are found written in the Book of Life.  This is consoling as is the claim that those who have instructed many in faith will shine brightly in eternity.

Let us pray that we recognize the importance of faith in the one true God and Christ his Son, and that we acknowledge the reality of life after death preceded by judgement, the separation of the good from the evil and self centred by our merciful God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.