A Spirituality for Sunday People

The liturgical year celebrates the story of our salvation. The liturgical cycle begins in Advent where we await the Messiah; then moves to the birth of the Messiah at Christmas, and on to Lent where we focus on the three age old traditions: prayer, fasting or doing without, and almsgiving or charitable works. Next we enter into the chief week of the liturgical year—Holy Week. Palm Sunday or the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, his Last Supper and his horrific sacrificial death and glorious resurrection—a dying and rising which re-established our relationship with God. We re-experience the outpouring of the Spirit anew at Pentecost. And the cycle then continues throughout Sundays in ot where we walk the roadways of Galilee and Judea with Jesus as He works signs and wonders proclaiming that the kingdom of God is breaking into our lives.

This liturgical cycle culminates in the final coming of Jesus Christ in glory. Next Sunday, on the feast of Christ the King, we reach the end of salvation history when (to quote the letter of Paul to the Christian community at Corinth) every human being and all that is will be subjected to Christ, “who will deliver the Kingdom to God over to his heavenly Father.”

Yes, in the annual liturgical cycle we celebrate the story that began on the first page of Scripture: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” a story that ends on the last page of Scripture: “Come, Lord Jesus.” Yes, God will transform this universe into his glorious kingdom in all its fullness, and that is why we proclaim in the Eucharistic prayer: “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.” How this universe as we know it will end (whether in fire or ice, as Robert Frost says in his remarkable poem), we don’t know. But how it will end is not the question. Rather the question is: Are we ready to meet the Living Christ when he comes to us in the mystery of death? One thing is certain: we will die.

The Book of Daniel takes us back to a crisis in 2nd century Judaism. Greek oppressors are doing everything they can to force the Jews to give up their biblical faith in God, to deny their covenantal relationship with God. Daniel in a visionary experience pleads: don't give up your faith despite the cruelties you're enduring; stand your ground; the archangel Michael will protect you; God will win out and you will shine brightly. Yes, good ultimately will triumph over evil.

The Word challenges us to persevere in our life of discipleship with Jesus despite the everyday doubts we may have about the nearness of God's presence to us, especially if things are going badly. The author of the letter to the Hebrews recalls the one sacrifice of Jesus. Through his horrific death and glorious resurrection, Jesus re-established our relationship with God.

The Word challenges us to grow in that relationship with God by living out a life of discipleship with Jesus

And in the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus speaks about an apocalypse, a cosmic upheaval: a darkened sun, an unlit moon, falling stars, all symbolic and scary images.

Yes, Jesus Christ will usher in the glorious kingdom of God in all its fullness. The Gospel author urges us always to be ready to meet the Living Christ because we don’t know when He actually will come to us in the mystery of death. The Word asks whether we are ready now to meet the Living Christ. And if not today, when?

You may have read Rabbi Harold Kushner’s best seller titled “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” It’s about the problem of evil. Why do the wicked appear to prosper and the good suffer. It’s a 21st century version of the biblical Book of Job. Kushner published another book titled “Living a Life that Matters.”

Kushner writes that in his 40 years as a rabbi, he has cared for many people in the last moments of their lives. The people who had the most trouble with death were those who felt that they had never done anything worthwhile. And if God would only give them another two or three years, maybe they would finally get it right. Death didn’t frighten them; no, what frightened them was the fear that they would die and leave no mark on the world. They judged they had made no difference for the better in the lives of other people

… Today’s Word of God fixes our eyes on Christ's final coming “with great power and glory.” But it would be a tragedy for us if that vision or horizon blinded us to the here and now, where we can be the generous hands and compassionate eyes and hopeful voices and dedicated feet of Jesus to the people who touch our lives every day.