Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

33rd Sunday During the Year – Year B

1st reading: Daniel 12,1-3

Psalm: 15 (16),5.8,9-10, 11

2rd reading: Hebrews 10,11-14.18

Gospel: Mark 13,24-32

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Every year, on this penultimate Sunday of the liturgical year, we read a passage from the apocalyptic chapter of the synoptic gospels. Today's passage is introduced by the added words: "Jesus spoke to his disciples about his coming." But I invite you to read this chapter 13 of Saint Mark in its entirety: we see that Jesus does not only speak of his coming at the end of time. The Lord has already come in the Incarnation. We await his return in glory, and in the meantime, he never ceases to come to us.

I risk an interpretation: when a person meets the Lord, when in his life he experiences the entry of the Son of man with great power and glory — I mean his conversion — then, indeed, the sun is darkened, the moon no longer gives its light; the stars fall from the sky, and the heavenly powers are shaken ! That is, the stars find their place again and are no longer idolized. To speak plainly, a Christian never again lets his eyes wander over a horoscope. He expects and receives his life and his future not from the stars but from God and from God's merciful Providence.

We live in this world, in this painful world, in this world full of distress, as we heard in the first reading and in the Gospel, we live in this world that witnesses that God has won the victory for man, this victory over sin, over death. We know that we are walking towards a fullness of life of love, of joy, but we must take the means to advance towards this fullness. Saint Therese greatly appreciates life on this earth, I mean that she greatly appreciates what she sees and on several occasions, she notes how happy she is to contemplate nature, to contemplate what she has before her eyes when she walks outside, to contemplate Heaven, to contemplate this “beautiful Heaven” that evokes the Kingdom for her. But she also understands that in this world, there is suffering. She will learn it very early, with a precarious state of health when she is very young, but especially, she will learn it with the death of her mother when she is four and a half years old, with the departure of her second mother, Pauline, of whom she learns by surprise the imminent entry into Carmel. And then many other sufferings, in particular the scruples that she will know after her illness. And she understands that life on this earth is a test, an exile and that it is not for us to attach ourselves to the things of this world, but that it is about attaching ourselves to Christ.

Shortly before entering Carmel, she wrote to her godmother, Sister Marie du Sacré-Cœur, who was already at Carmel:

Oh yes! on earth we must not attach ourselves to anything, not even to the most innocent things because they are lacking when we least think about them. Only what is eternal can satisfy us. LT 42 to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, February 21, 1888

In our consumer society, it is difficult for us to escape the desire and sometimes the need to reassure ourselves with what we possess. And since things are changing very quickly today, we are easily dissatisfied because there is better than what I bought yesterday, starting today.

On earth, one must not be attached to anything...

A few months later, she wrote to Céline:

Oh! yes, let us be one with Jesus, let us despise everything that passes, our thoughts must be directed to Heaven since that is the dwelling place of Jesus. I thought the other day that we should not attach ourselves to what surrounds us since we could be in another place than the one where we are, our affections and our desires would not be the same. (LT 65 to Celine October 20, 1888)

Thérèse is marked by what is called the contingency of our condition: I am here, but I could have been elsewhere. And so that is not what is primarily important. What is primarily important is what does not pass. At one point she will name Jesus: the immutable (LT 104 to Sr Agnes). And Thérèse becomes strongly attached to Jesus. Jesus invites us to do so: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mt 24,35:XNUMX).

I was saying that Thérèse loves to contemplate nature. She wrote one day to Céline while she, Thérèse, was at Carmel and Céline was in the world and traveling: Céline, you must be very happy to contemplate beautiful nature, the mountains… the silvery rivers, all that is so grandiose, so well made to elevate our souls… Ah! little sister, let us detach ourselves from the earth, let us fly to the mountain of love where the beautiful Lily of our souls is found… Let us detach ourselves from the consolations of Jesus, to attach ourselves to Him!… (LT 105 to Céline May 10, 1890) In this world whose figure passes, in this world full of distress, in this world where so many people do not have what they need to live in this world, where there is so much violence through wars, but also through what we could recall of the violence of proximity, in our consumer societies where poverty seems to increase for a certain number, in this world, we are witnesses that there is a salvation. And this salvation does not consist in being rich in this world, but this salvation consists in welcoming the Kingdom and living it. We often speak of material poverty, but what do we do with spiritual poverty? It is not just about having a roof over our heads, a job and food to live a full and complete life… We are beings of flesh and blood, but we are also spiritual beings and we need spiritual food as much as bodily food. How do we accompany, how do we reach out, not only to material poverty, but also to spiritual poverty? How do we seek, sent by Jesus, starting from Jesus, to respond to the spiritual quest of our contemporaries? And let us not imagine that among the poorest, the most destitute, this question is a secondary question? One day, during a street tour that I was doing in Paris with the association “Aux captifs, la libération”, one of the men we met almost every week said to me: “Are you a priest?” I said: “Yes”. He said to me: “Why do we suffer?” And I replied: “You, what makes you suffer?”

Let me pass on his answer as it was. He answered me: "My stupidity." Interesting spiritual concept... He didn't say to me: "I don't see my daughter anymore, I don't see the woman I used to live with anymore." He didn't say to me: "I don't know where to go to wash myself" or whatever... — What is it that makes you suffer? — My stupidity. And it's a word that I've heard several times from different people. What was this man suffering from first? From a kind of meaninglessness in his life, in his actions. How do we also join this poverty?

The Letter to the Hebrews has made us understand that the Lord now expects his enemies to be put under his feet. But who can put his enemies under the feet of Jesus? We, brothers and sisters. We receive God's grace through Jesus, with Him and in Him; we worship God through Jesus, with Him and in Him, so that God, through Jesus, can act in this world through us, with us and in us. We are those through whom the Lord can put all his enemies under his feet. When we wage spiritual warfare in our own lives, seeking to love Jesus more, to let ourselves be transformed by God's mercy, and seeking to respond to it with the gratitude of our charity, we contribute to putting all his enemies under the feet of Jesus. When we work to alleviate various miseries in our world, when we work for greater social justice, already in our own lives, but also perhaps by contributing to it in the life of our company in our country, we contribute to putting all his enemies under the feet of Jesus. When we allow a brother or sister to turn to Jesus, to welcome him into their life and to walk with him, we contribute to putting all his enemies under the feet of Jesus.

Yes, we are not helpless to live our life, quite the contrary, the Lord is there. Thérèse does not hesitate, in a letter to Mother Marie de Gonzague, to make Jesus speak: "Blessed is he who places his support in me, he has in his heart the steps to rise up to Heaven. Note well, little lamb... I am not saying to separate oneself completely from creatures, to despise their love, their thoughtfulness, but on the contrary to accept them to please me, to use them as so many steps, because, to distance oneself from creatures would only serve one thing, to walk and get lost in the paths of the earth... To rise, one must place one's foot on the steps of creatures and attach oneself only to me... Do you understand well, little Lamb?" (LT 190 to Sr Marie de Gonzague - June 29, 1896)

Amen

Father Emmanuel Schwab, Rector of the Shrine