Scripture Reflections for the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

“When you do authentic work of any kind, you are participating in God's ongoing creation and providence”

“Jesus also has a perennial message, a simple but important message: we can plan as much as we like – it can be good to plan – but we also need to be prepared for whatever life might throw at us in the future, including what is wholly unexpected and unplanned”

“How then to perceive the light of God’s wisdom? We must first do so in humility, in receptive listening, allowing the idols of our fears and false certainties to be purified by God’s word. But that demands of us patience, a word derived from suffering.”

“if you listen carefully to what’s being said by Jesus today, while he is telling us of dramatic times to come, he is also constantly telling us not to fear them”

“The pressure of the times proclaim the need to be faithful to the spirit of God’s Covenant with human kind. We require a heart of flesh and a law written right there. This, surely, is the Gospel of the Lord — the true Day of Judgment.”

“So don't orient your life...in terms of the natural necessities. No, no, they're not ultimate. The God of Jesus Christ is ultimate.”

“So Jesus offers us more than mere existence. He offers us life that is full, rich, abundant, and here and now.”

“It's the new world of your life lived now on the foundation of Jesus Christ, under the lordship of Jesus Christ, feed by the food of Jesus Christ. Will it cause a lot of struggles, earthquakes, famines? You bet, but that's just the birth pangs of a new world.”

“Reorient your life in such a way that the ultimate good is God, then you will relate properly to all those other matters. But when they become god and when you stand bedazzled by them then your life is disordered.”

“Just like with us teachers, in order to put these noble intentions into action, we need plenty of reminders, both in word and in action, as well as follow-through, both with diligence and with kindness, to ourselves and others”

“Lack of imminent danger causes us to think the world will go on forever, we will be in control, and maybe there isn’t even a “Last Day of Judgment.””

“Apocalyptic writings use symbols to paint pictures of future events; and these pictures often generate fear in the mind of the readers. However, they are meant to encourage persecuted Christians that God is in control of history”

“By serving those who face the greatest difficulties, we create a loving community, a New Earth, where all people are able to have dignified work to support their own sustenance, where no one is excluded. This is the important work that Jesus has called us to do, not to wait idly for Jesus to return.”

“Life is short. It can end in and instant. We need to take everything God gives us in life as a gift. Everything. And we’ve got to take everything that God lets happen to us in life as a blessing, an act of grace, regardless of what it is.”

“The heart of today’s gospel is not about doom sayings or apocalyptic sign but a call by our Master to a significant (sign making) lifestyle of transfiguring Hope, large-heartedness, courage and joy. We are to avoid Utopian dreams on the one hand and cynical world weariness on the other.”

“Community is based on something much more than just me”

“Jesus' own risen body is now the true temple. It's now the place of right worship. The mystical body of Jesus, the church, is now the point of reconciliation between divinity and humanity.”

“He's taking one by one the things that we rely upon for our security in this world and he's telling us not to rely on them”

“They saw in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, listen now, the end of the old world and the beginning of a new one.”