For Christians who endure

The first time Mt. Pinatubo spewed ashes all over the land, residents found Metro Manila enveloped in darkness at noon time. People panicked fearing the end of the world at certain specified dates. One group announced a “rapture” to the heavens simultaneous with a cataclysm on earth signaling the end. People were asked to gather at a place to watch it happening, to see Jesus Christ riding the clouds to save only those who are gathered there. Those who failed to be in the gathering field that day  would suffer from a cataclysm and would not be saved. And so crowds came and waited from night till dawn for the expected ‘rapture’. Nothing happened.

Maybe the Gospel today is to prevent such naivete. “Do not be misled,” said the Lord. “Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am he’ and ‘the time is at hand’. Do not follow them. Neither must you be perturbed when you hear of wars and insurrections. These things are bound to happen first, but the end does not follow immediately.” Our Lord wanted to say that we Christians will have to live through long periods of waiting and persecution, of enduring in suffering. In doing so, we are following the sorrowful way of the cross, the same path taken by Jesus to arrive at glory. But it is darned naïve for us to expect that our Lord will reveal the time of His second coming, to point to us the field where we should watch Him coming out of the clouds and that’s enough for our final salvation. No, our salvation is won by dint of sacrifice following Christ, taking up our cross and bearing on our bodies the very wounds of Christ. Our Lord Himself programs the kind of life which would merit salvation: “there will be . . . in the sky fearful omens and great signs. But before any of this, they will manhandle and persecute you, summoning you to synagogues and prisons bringing you to trial before kings and governors, all because of my Name. You will be brought to give witness on account of it. “We have all to traverse the way of the cross by some form of suffering whether or not we live to see the Son of Man riding the clouds to judge the living and the dead.

We can ask why the direct reference to the temple; why this reference  provides a springboard for Jesus’ discourse. Within that context, our Lord tells us nothing here on earth, no matter how rich, how famous, how steeped in splendor, will remain. Only God Who constitutes heaven will not pass away. What edifice could equal in splendor that last Temple of Jerusalem built by Herod in 20 B.C. It glinted in the sun with all its gold, silver and precious stones, the holiest shrine of the Jewish world. As the Lord predicted, “. . . the day will come when not one stone will be left on another, but it will be torn down.” To this day only the western wall which Titus, in the year 70 A.D. spared, remains to show future generations the greatness of the Roman might? Long after they have gone and are no more, the WORD of God lives. Jesus lives. Those who lived and died for Him live, awaiting the glorious resurrection. And we? We believe in the grace our Lord Jesus Christ gives us to endure to the very end. We believe in the Word which assures us: “By patient endurance you will save your lives.”

33rd S in OT, Lk. 21, 5-19

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Jesuit Vocation Seminar

December 2, 2007, Sunday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

2nd Flr. CLC Bldg., Ateneo de Manila Campus

Free registration. Contact: 4266101 loc. 3408; 0917-7520907; E-mail: sjvocations @jesuits.ph

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