(Sunday homilies have not appeared here for several weeks. The reason is that I chose not to publish them during the final stages of the US national elections. Homilies should reappear here as normally scheduled. -ed.)

Today’s Gospel is something for us to understand if for no other reason, but the first sentence: See that you are not deceived.

First, let’s look at the timing. It is the thirty-third week of ordinary time. It is the last Sunday in the season of ordinary time. You will not see me wearing green on another Sunday until next year. This is the time of year when we focus on the end of the world. In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the mechanics of it. But in order to see them, we need to look closely. Further, we have the advantage of seeing events around us that will help us understand these words.

First, notice that Jesus talks about natural disasters. He does not give a reason for them, only that they will exist. Do you ever read of or hear about someone including priests who tell us that because of some form of sinfulness in the world, we will see more famines and earthquakes because that is how God will punish us. Ignore it, that is not the way God works. If you don’t believe that look in the Bible and see how many times God works through natural disasters. There are few times, and they involve virtual complete destruction. God does not send natural disasters to correct people, He sends them to eliminate evil societies out of control. These incidents are few and far between: Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah and that is about it. There are few if any other incidents that involve natural disasters sent by God and the ones there involve complete destruction of a society or generation, that has turned evil.

Why did the Jews spend forty years in the desert? God wanted to destroy the generation for they turned against him. Why didn’t God destroy the Pharoah and the Egyptians? They were not a completely evil society.

Now let us look at the mechanics that are connected directly to embracing or rejecting God. These mechanics are built into our being.

Jesus says, He is the way, the truth and the light. The key word there is that He is the truth. If you reject the truth, then what do you embrace? If I reject mathematics, then what do I embrace to do measurements and how do I communicate to you the measurements that I did?

When I was in Brazil this last time, I rented a car, my first time driving in Brazil. They use the metric system. I had no idea how fast I was driving, except that I was driving 110 Kilometers per hour whatever that means.

If you live in a world that rejects Christ and He is the truth, what does that society embrace as truth? That simple understanding is what causes wars and rumors of wars. When you reject Christ, you do not embrace an alternative truth, but you embrace what you define as truth, but your definition of truth and the next person’s definition of truth are not going to be same. You are then going to fight over what you define is the truth That is the cause of all wars.

What was at the base of the Vietnam war? A conflict on the idea of which political system will bring the most justice capitalism or communism. Each side defined their own system as truth. What was the base of World War II? How you define a nation? The NAZI’s were not nationalists, they were tribalists. They believed in creating a world without borders in which nations were defined by races not by fences. So they killed people who were not from their tribe, especially the Jews. If everyone embraced Christ as the truth, those wars would not happen. Once people reject Christ, they define truth differently and fight for their truth against others fighting for their truth.

That is why Jesus is the Prince of Peace because only by embracing the one truth can you ever find true peace in the world.

I want you to notice some of the concession speeches we heard this week. You will hear words such as we will continue to fight for what is right.

Really?  And who defines what is right? You and I do not fight for what we believe is right; we testify to the truth.

Do you see now why you living the faith is so important? That is how you testify to the truth. Others fight for their own definition of truth, they will cause wars and strife among themselves, we become their collateral damage in them seeking their goals.

What were the protests about this week? Not really about Trump as president, but people protesting for their own definition of truth, accepting the results of the election not being one of them, which is a universal truth in the United States.

You heard during the past few months of talk by one of our political parties to stage a coup of our Church again rejecting another universal truth in our nation which is freedom of religion. They already attempted that. It is right in the documents one of these fronts for that party that their mission was to stage a coup of our church and replace our current structure with a democratic structure which would change our teachings to one more in line with the platform of that political party.

One of their goals was to create a church that rooted herself in “centrist” moral teachings. It was right in their documents and reported and supported by our local media. Go home and read Revelation 3:16 and tell me that they understood their allegedly Catholic faith.

When you have people who reject the truth and then fight for their own truth, you have warring factions because they are not united by anything. So in the Middle East you have all these groups fighting each other over their definition of the truth.

So what Jesus is describing is the natural results of a world that rejects the truth and embraces its own definition of truth. That world becomes a world of wars and rumors of wars. They are united by one thing, hating Christ and His witnesses. That is why from the west to the east there is a hatred of Christians, especially Catholics because these enemies of what we believe in reject the one truth and embrace their own truth.

How do we respond? Jesus tells us that too. First, and this is very important: We do not fight for what we believe is right; we testify to the truth. Jesus does not say, organize armies and fight back. He says persevere in your faith. Our weapon is our witness to Christ and that is a witness without arms, it is a witness of perseverance. Your greatest weapon is prayer, staying close to the sacraments and living the faith. Because you are fighting false understandings of truth, not people or nations and you do that by living the teachings of the way, the truth, and the life.

Jesus does not seek to scare us with his explanation of the end of the world, He is showing us the mechanics of a world without the Gospel and calling us to choose to be the lights to the world testifying to one truth, we which do through faithfulness to Christ and persevering in the truth. Many will reject our witness and choose their own understanding of truth. There is little we can do for them in the end. We do what we can now. We do not fight for what we believe is right; we testify to the truth.

God bless you,

Fr. Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo  of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube.  You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr. Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook