Daily Gospel Reflection: Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
December 1, 2023
Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Lk 21:29-33
Jesus told his disciples a parable.
"Consider the fig tree and all the other trees.
When their buds burst open,
you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near;
in the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that the Kingdom of God is near.
Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away
until all these things have taken place.
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away."
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus alerts us to consider the signs of the passing of all things. All of the joys, goods, pleasures, and accomplishments of this world will one day be taken from us. And this futility extends to all of culture, all of nature, and even to the cosmos itself.
Physicists tell us that, one day, our earth will be enveloped by the sun. Then the sun will collapse in on itself and become a black hole, drawing matter and light into itself. After many more billions of years, the entire universe will run out of energy and either fade out in a great freeze or burn out in a great fry.
One might be rather easily tempted to despair, to say, “Why bother?” and “What’s the point?” Or one might be tempted to say with Jean-Paul Sartre and his existentialist friends, “La vie est absurde” (life is absurd).
So, we look elsewhere; we look beyond to the steadfast love of God, which brought the entire universe into existence from nothing, which sustains it even now, and which will one day draw us to a life and a joy beyond it.
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