Homily 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - November 17, 2024

 Today's readings can be found here:

            Our readings today speak of two things: judgement and preparedness.  Our first reading from Daniel and the Gospel tells us that during the end times angels will go out to gather the righteous.  However, there will be horror and disgrace for the non-righteous.  That sounds a little frightening!  None of us want to be judged poorly, right?  As human beings, we worry about being judged, what others may think of us.  Who hasn’t been told by their parents “You can’t go out looking like that, what will people think!”  If we’re concerned about the judgement of others, how much more might we fear God’s judgement?  Especially if we don’t know when that will be?

            This is why Jesus tells us to be prepared.  Only God the Father knows when the end and the final judgement will be.  How can we prepare ourselves and be ready?  Daniel gives guidance.  He tells us to be wise so we may shine brightly.  That we should lead others to justice.  How do we become wise as Daniel writes?  I was with a group of Catholics recently and one of them said something that really stuck with me.  He said that it’s our job to love and it’s God’s job to judge.  I found that to be very profound.  And it sounds pretty easy, right?

            I spoke to a priest recently and he told me a story of a First Communion Mass he presided over.  One of the boys receiving First Communion asked ahead of time if he could wear a hat during Mass.  Father said it was OK.  After Mass, Father overheard a couple of parishioners saying how terrible it was that this boy wore a hat in church.  It was disrespectful, his parents didn’t raise him right.  Things like that.  Father addressed these comments the next week in his homily.  As it turns out, the boy was battling cancer.  The treatment resulted in the loss of all his hair.  He wanted to wear the hat so he wouldn’t be the center of attention.  He wanted to make sure the other children receiving their first Communion would shine, not him.

            When we love others and put their needs first, we can no longer judge.  We can never know what someone else may be going through at any given time.  And we don’t need to know.  Jesus calls us to love each other without condition, just as He does.  It doesn’t matter if we’re conservative or liberal, a natural born citizen or an immigrant, a Christian or not.  As children of God, we’re all part of the same family.  As family, we may not always agree.  We are different from each other, have different backgrounds, different opinions.  We may not always understand each other.  But we’re called to love the members of our family, even if they don’t love us.

            Who do we know that may need our love, to have someone look at them as an individual instead of part of some faceless group?  Lumping people together into a category makes it easier to judge that group and that person.  When we look at someone as an individual, we can consider just them and their needs.  We can love them by putting those needs before ours and serving them.  We can shine brightly like the wise.

            It’s been said many ways, but there is no “them”, there is only “us”.  Putting labels on people and grouping them together into an “other” allows us to judge them.  Jesus calls us to love everyone as our family members, no conditions, no judgements.  In this way we can shine brightly and lead others to justice.  Let’s leave the judging to God.  Our job is simply to love.