“So That You Might Imitate Us”
by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)
Piety
Lo, the day is coming,
blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and
the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor
branch, says the LORD of hosts. But for you who fear my name, there will arise
the sun of justice with its healing rays. (Malachi 3:19-20)
The Lord comes to rule the
earth with justice. (Psalm 98:9)
Brothers and sisters: You
know how one must imitate us. For we did not act in a disorderly way among you,
nor did we eat food received free from anyone. On the contrary, in toil and
drudgery, night and day we worked, so as not to burden any of you. Not that we
do not have the right. Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for
you, so that you might imitate us. (2 Thessalonians 3:7-9)
Then they asked him,
“Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these
things are about to happen?”He answered, “See that you not be deceived, for
many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not
follow them!” (Luke 21:7-8)
Study
Let’s take a look at “Apocalyptic
Piety.” In 70 A.D. The Roman army
destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple by the use of the catapult: The Jewish
watchmen cried out in their language, “THE STONE IS COMING! “THE STONE IS
COMING!”
The Romans declared their
innocence for the death and destruction, saying that God had deserted the
Temple.
Failure to heed the prophets,
including Jesus, destroyed the city and the temple. Was it a loss?
Or consider the crow who once
flew through the sky with a piece of meat in its beak. Twenty other crows set
out in pursuit of it and attacked it viciously.
The crow finally let the piece
of meat drop. Its pursuers then left it alone and flew shrieking after the
morsel.
Said the crow, “I’ve lost the
meat and gained this peaceful sky.”
Or consider the viewpoint of
the monk, who said: “When my house burned down, I got an unobstructed view of
the moon at night!”
Calamities can bring growth and
Enlightenment," said a Spiritual Master.
And he explained it this way: “Each
day, a bird would shelter in the withered branches of a tree that stood in the
middle of a vast deserted plain. One day a whirlwind uprooted the tree, forcing
the poor bird to fly a hundred miles in search of shelter -- till it finally
came to a forest of fruit-laden trees."
And he concluded: "If the
withered tree had survived, nothing would have induced the bird to give up its
security and fly.”
In the apocalyptic mind, the
Temple's destruction is not what it appears to be. Consider Rev. 21:22: “And
I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the
Lamb."
Rather than be a cause for
despair, it is a sign of the divine plan: The time of the Temple was over and a
new day had dawned in redemptive history.
Without a temple, it was
impossible to offer sacrifices.
Therefore, the Christian
Sacrifice of the Mass and an individual’s sacrifice of a contrite soul, of a
humble spirit and an obedient life would be acceptable to God.
Our Gospel today began with the
words that “some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with
costly stones and votive offerings.”
Each baptized believer is like
one of the beautiful costly temple stones, so expensive that the price paid was
the precious shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Action
The Destruction of your Inner
Temple happens by mortal sin, so protect your temple by holiness and vigilance.
In 1 Cor. 6:19, God, through
His Spirit indwells in the soul of the individual baptized believer so that his
body becomes the "temple of the Holy Spirit."
The spiritual sin of acedia is
when you don’t care about protecting your temple. Acedia isn’t laziness. It means
“a lack of care,” or, more specifically, a lack of concern for one’s salvation
and growth as a Christian.
Some teenagers would express
acedia as “YEAH, WHATEVER!”
—“I am sexually active.
Whatever.”
—“I am on drugs. Whatever”
An early Christian thinker
named Evagrius of Pontus observed that acedia “instills in [a believer] a
dislike for the place [where he lives] and for his state of life itself.
The appropriate crisis
intervention is to ask Jesus to restore one’s shriveled, acedia-damaged heart,
followed by the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Apocalyptic piety also means to
engage in evangelization and mission in the face of opposition.
Jesus tells us that in these
tough times: “It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to
prepare your defense beforehand, for I shall give you a wisdom in speaking that
all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.
Abba Ammoun of Rhaithou asked
Abba Sisoes, 'When I read the Scriptures, my mind is wholly concentrated on the
words so that I may have something to say if I am asked.' The old man said to
him, 'That is not necessary; it is better to enrich yourself through purity of
spirit and to be without anxiety and then to speak.' That is the Cursillo way.
Finally, the third aspect of
Apocalyptic piety is your confidence and security that not a hair on your head
will be destroyed.
Humorously, during a lesson
about adjectives, my friend, an elementary school teacher, asked her class to
describe their mothers. One boy described his mother’s hair as auburn.
Impressed by his sophisticated
word choice, my friend asked, “How do you know her hair color is auburn?”
Her student replied, “Because
that’s what it says on the box.” [Reader’s Digest].
“To deliver” a person from
apocalyptic upheaval does not mean that God would make it all better right then
and there. Many of them will still die as martyrs. Even with the unique gift of
fortitude that God will give them, over and above that, even in martyrdom, God
will hold them in his love. Their perseverance will secure their lives in the
world to come, which means that if one dies as a martyr, patience is the bridge
that carries you from the will of God to the realized promises of God.
Apocalyptic piety follows
Ecclesiasticus 11:28: “Call no man happy before his death, for by how he ends,
a man is known."
For reflection: To what extent
am I able to read or watch the news with a calm confidence that God is
ultimately in charge? That he will bring me safely to himself?
CONCLUSION—The fall of
Jerusalem didn’t mean that God abandoned the world. True, the focus of religion
would no longer be the Temple; rather, it would be a new focus: Christ, truly
present in the Eucharist. The tabernacle would be the new center of attention.
Christ will make sense of
everything at the end of our lives. All our struggles to live the Gospel will
be worth it. On the last day, we might regret many things, but we will never
regret the things we did for Christ. Does that truth guide our lives each day?
De colores and Amen!
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