It is always important to look at things with a bit of humor. Last week a renowned Mexican Journalist, Carlos Villa Roiz put out a statement not to buy into the 2012 stuff regarding the alleged Mayan prophesies. This week we have, worldwide, this gospel which looks like a summary of the Movie 2012.

Well, what is going on and how to do we look at this?

First let’s look at what time it is.

It is now the First Sunday of Advent Year C. This means that we have changed gospels. The past 52 weeks, we focused on the Gospels of Mark and John. This year, especially in Advent and Ordinary Time, we will focus on Luke. He, scholars tell us, a second generation Christian, wrote around 80-90 AD which is after the fall of Jerusalem. That was when the Roman Soldiers came in and wiped out Israel off the map. The territory did not return to Jewish hands for almost 1900 years. This is significant, we see the event described before this gospel passage.

Now, we see Jesus speaking to his disciples talking about the end of the world. The Mayans predict the end of the world to be the fruit of planets aligning up a certain way. This should be another way that should lead us to reject the Mayan prophesies. This is because, Jesus really predicts the end of the world as the fruit of a combination of things, Cosmological destruction in the midst of humanly created political disaster. I was thinking of this recently in light of events in our own country and in other parts of the world.

Throughout the bible, we see several themes, one is that the person who is in touch with God learns that God gives him or her the wisdom to see things in ways inspired by the Divine. Those who reject God live by their own human wisdom, which is void of any divine inspiration or in the worst case scenario could have demonic inspiration. Many attribute the violent genocides of the 20th century to demonic influence for example. That may sound silly to some, but know that the NAZI’s for example were deeply involved in the occult. This is even described by Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning his account of life in the NAZI Concentration Camps.

This means that a world led by those who reject God will be led by those who will lead their people into an inevitable disaster. This is something we have seen so many times. Grave injustice brings with it civil unrest and war. War, of course, is the complete breakdown of the civil order. The civil order breaks down when humanity becomes incapable of governing in justice.

Let us add another dimension because of our locale here in New England. We are surrounded by institutions filled with people who reject God. People who will tell you that God is dead, that we are now God and that all people should listen to the new gods, which are the members of the extremely educated class. Indeed, many people will say that the US is driven from Washington, DC. Politically that is true, but philosophically, our nation is driven more from educational centers of the world, one of which surrounds us. Indeed, there is a mural in Harvard Square that essentially envisions exactly this “we are now gods” vision. When the philosophical centers of the US reject God; Washington enacts godless policies. That is the way it works.

Here is the problem, if the educational class are philosophically wrong, what is the future of our country and our world? That is the question that Jesus brings up in a manner. Understand that the educational class of his day were the pharisees and scribes.

It is unpopular to even mention God in an non-abusive manner in many places in our nation and in Europe today. If people reject God, they open themselves up to be led by godless policies. Godless policies lead us to the scenario we see in today’s gospel as they did in the 20th Century.

What does Jesus say about this? It is inevitable. Stand firm, be patient and know that these policies cannot bring forth a lasting humanity.

But be careful. Just because people say they believe in God and reject godless policies does not mean that the person is living the Gospel. Jesus in his slighting of those who reject God includes the Pharisees in his message. It is not just the person who believes in God, but whose life in transformed by his relationship with Him.

We as Estado Unidenses (US citizens) have our work cut out for us. Our problem is not just that we live in a nation growingly led by those who reject God; we live a faith that we express in this country as nothing but laws. This is exactly what Jesus rejected. When law becomes the basis of the faith, then when living the faith becomes too hard, the law changes. This is precisely the pattern we are living right now. Notice how people are working to change the law to fit their concept of humanity. The basis of this is in the religion that defined itself exclusively by the law. Jesus calls us to define our faith by relationships centered on love of God and charity to neighbor. However, the human person is incapable of understanding that level of love and charity on its own. This is where divine revelation comes in.

It is in our relationship with God that we experience the renewal of our minds, the deepening of our understanding, the new way of looking at the world that enables us to see truth from falsehood. Those outside of God and those who see God strictly in legalistic terms just cannot see this.

That is what leads to the separation at the end, in which the world is falling apart and the followers of Jesus must only stand in confidence awaiting his redemption.

I am sure that this scene has been repeated many times throughout the centuries and we may even see it ourselves. However, the questions we need to ask ourselves are

• How are we living our faith?
• Are we ready to live it in a way that although this may make us more unpopular with the philosophical powers that may be running our society?
• How strong are we in the commitment to love God and neighbor?
• Where are the weak points in our practical application of faith that we need to bring through prayer and the sacraments to Christ.

Once we can look at all that, we can see this scene in a context that takes it out of the first century and the hands of the Mayans and leads us to ask ourselves where we will go as we begin this liturgical year.

Fr. Robert J. Carr

Fr. Carr edits this blog. He is a Diocesan priest, Pastor at St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA and is an alliance member of the New Song Community.

Photo Credits:

Top: Public Domain

BigstockPhoto.com:

Middle Top: illreality

Middle: Bottom: REPORTER

Bottom: Petra Roeder