16 November 2019
Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Jesus is coming: the tyranny of Death and Sin has already been struck a mortal blow and it will, ultimately, die. Life—abundant life—will reign forever, but we will only come to enjoy that Kingdom if we allow it to rule over us now: today. We do that by seeking constantly to be faithful to the life Jesus gave up for us on the Cross, which we received at our Baptism. Consider what you have received from God, and all He has done: what has been your life’s response to all of that so far? Or, as our Gospel puts it, “…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
We may never fully comprehend the full value of the Life of Christ which He sacrificed on the Cross, which He gives to us to freely, without cost. Is the Son of God not the Father’s most precious treasure? Consider that God is Master and Lord of the entire universe: when He saw us captive in sin, enthralled by Satan, and sought to ransom us, what was it, from His vast treasury, that He chose? Of all the Father possessed, what was the one thing He deemed as being valuable enough to win us from our doom?
His Only Begotten Son. Jesus on the Cross is the price tag hanging from your soul. Oh how cheaply we often live our lives, oblivious to the reality of our own worth! How often we seek help and resolution from things in this world, forgetting all the while that we have a God—nay, a Father!—who is eager to help us in all things, who made us for Himself. In our Gospel Jesus gives us the parable of the persistent widow to encourage us to always turn to God—always—and to never despair if it seems our prayers go unheeded and unanswered. If an unjust judge will eventually relent, imagine then a God of justice who loves you! “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?”
The Enemy loves to play on our fears, to convince us that the thing we pray for will not be granted, that we best take matters into our own hands. Consider some of the sins running rampant in our world: war, drugs, theft, abortion, in vitro, contraception, divorce, and so on. Many times we resort to worldly solutions because it seems God is not working quickly enough. We must not give in to despair! Do we not, among all the religions of the world, have the daring privilege—truly, the right—to call upon God as our Father? And does not Jesus say, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him,” (Matthew 7:11)?
Jesus would not deign to be hung upon the Cross to leave us hanging; He would not forfeit His life to sit idly by as ours spirals into disaster. Turn to Him; trust in the Father He died to give you, and live the life you received by that same death. Is God not trustworthy? Does He not love you? “…God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8). Brethren if He is willing to become one of us only to die for us, is there anything He will not do for you?