33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”. As the liturgical year draws to a close, the liturgy invites us to reflect on the things that pass away and the things that remain in our lives. It is not exactly a pleasant topic: reflecting on the end of everything. On the end of the things we love, the people we love, and ultimately on our own end.

Many years ago, when I visited a hospital and witnessed the suffering of a child with a severe and rare illness, I said to myself: I want to be prepared for my end, and I want God to prepare me for the end of those I love. I then began to pray that God would prepare me for the end of my parents’ lives. They were both in good health at the time, but I began to pray daily for this grace: that God would prepare me for the end of the lives of my parents whom I loved so much.

Seven years later, my father’s health began to decline. It did not seem serious at first – he was in no pain, but we could not find out what was wrong with him. But when the diagnosis came, it was a shock: he  had gallbladder cancer, which was already metastatic, widely spread in his liver and pancreas. A few days later, he went to the ICU. At that moment, my superior allowed me to visit him. And I said to myself and then to my mother and sisters: “This is dad’s Easter. And we must prepare ourselves for it. It is the most important moment of his life. And we are going to live it as the disciples of Christ that we are.” I gave the
anointing of the sick and absolution to my unconscious father, and at home, I celebrated Mass every day on this intention. Every time I visited him in the hospital, I always told him how much we all loved him, how important he was to us, but that he should go in peace. That was his end, and our end would come later, not so long after his. Finally, I asked my mom to reconcile with my father, giving him her forgiveness, asking for his forgiveness, and expressing her love for him. He passed away twelve hours later. I celebrated the funeral Mass as if it were Easter. 

Of course, none of this was easy. But I learned a lot from my dad’s Easter. I learned that even heaven and earth will pass away, that my dad and I myself will pass away, but that the love we cherish for those we love never passes away – because this love is the very essence of Christ’s words, and of the person of God himself: God is love.

While I celebrated the my dad’s funeral Mass, I felt God saying to me: “Now you go and love every human being with the love you had for your father.” I don’t always succeed, but I never forget this lesson. Love is only love when it is incarnated. God is only a meaningful God when He becomes incarnate in our lives and saves us from our chaos. And He saves us when He loves us and He becomes incarnate in us when we love others as He loves us. It’s not easy, but that’s the meaning of life. 

Jesus compares our life to that of the fig tree, which gives signs that the end is approaching. God gives us many signs. It’s up to us to accept them or not. When Jesus speaks of the end, he is not so much speaking of the end of life and time, but he is speaking about the end, the purpose, the goal of our lives: which is to love as God loves us, even to the point of sacrificing our lives, which is what Jesus did once and for all on Calvary and which we are celebrating now, in this Mass. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” our lives will pass away, all those we love will pass away. “But my words” and the love behind them “will not pass away.” May God fill our hearts with much love, with a love that never passes away and that will never end – even after the end of times.