«Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Words shall not pass away»

(Dan 12:1-3; Ps 15; Heb 10:11-14.18; Mk 13:24-32)

"The expression 'heaven and earth' is frequent in the Bible to indicate the whole universe, the entire cosmos. Jesus declares that all this is destined to "pass away". Not only the earth, but also heaven, which is understood here in a cosmic sense, not as a synonym for God. Sacred Scripture knows no ambiguity: all creation is marked by finitude, including the elements deified by ancient mythologies: there is no confusion between creation and the Creator, but a clear distinction. With such a clear distinction, Jesus affirms that his words 'shall not pass away', that is, they are on God's side and therefore eternal. Although pronounced in the concreteness of his earthly existence, they are prophetic words par excellence, as Jesus states in another place addressing his heavenly Father: 'The words that you gave to me I have given to them. They have received them and truly know that I came forth from you and have believed that you sent me" (Jn 17:8). In a famous parable, Christ compares himself to the sower and explains that the seed is the Word (cf. Mk 4:14): those who hear it, accept it and bear fruit (cf. Mk 4:20) are part of the Kingdom of God, that is, they live under his lordship; they remain in the world, but they are no longer of the world; they carry within them a seed of eternity, a principle of transformation that is already manifested now". (Pope Benedict, Angelus 15 November 2009)

Even in the age of telematic progress, the fading away of economic levels and many ancient certainties gives rise to confusion and apprehension.

If everything seems to be called into question, we ask ourselves: how do we relate to the facts that alarm us, and how do we involve ourselves in the chronicle of a world shattered by upheaval?

The ancient man protests the danger of moral and doctrinal degradation, or lowers his head, humiliated.

The man of Faith takes note; he does not lower himself. Rather, he strives to discern the genius of the age in the folds of history.

Thus he sharpens his inner eye - and recognising the new flashes of life, he raises his gaze.

He wants the All, he is not content with monochromatic nothingness.

At the time of Jesus, the 'apocalyptics' held the view that the world's affairs were turning to the worst.

A land in which the lambs are destined to succumb before the beasts can only regress towards increasing disunity and social collapse.

But out of such corruption - and having ascertained man's incapacity - God would bring forth new heavens and a new earth; for everyone a propitious, flourishing reality, governed directly by the Lord (the only one who can be trusted).

The encouragement in the First Reading is set in this framework: no tear, no sacrifice will fade away; our involvement - even in fatigue or mockery - is not destined to fall on deaf ears.

This will also be the result of a renewed awareness: only God humanises the earth.

The biblical author conveys this message through the icon of Michael, whose name in Hebrew מִיכָאֵל (mì-chà-Él) means "who like God?".

A rhetorical question to say that no one is like God: no substitute can replace or equal Him.

When Michael takes over - that is, when he takes over this consciousness - men will understand in all its facets that only the Eternal One makes the world livable.

Thus they will reject the ancient fixations, as well as the more recent and sophisticated idols, which degrade and dehumanise the earth.

Such is the authenticity of the Face of God.

He will lift us up from the sense of contamination or qualunquism that accompanies the believer's itinerary.

And not only will we not allow ourselves to be seized by the panic of external upheavals, but neither by an impression of unworthiness linked to the religious perception of sin (cf. Second Reading).

Calamities, upheavals, insecurities, in Christ will be perceived not as alarming and distressing facts - because of the drama of an agonising world that would drag us down to corruption - but as times and places even favourable to the solution of real problems.

A people dragged along by chaotic impulses errs, but the man of Faith perceives external upheavals as great opportunities for growth, which cannot even be shaken by the anguish of imperfection.

Both the generically pious man and the person animated by Faith can be considered mothers and fathers of the Future...

But with one substantial difference:

Reality's upheavals are an opportunity to discover new inner strengths.

The bigoted man, on the other hand, matches the hedonist: both are but the paradoxical product of an external civilisation.

This can be seen from how they manifest themselves: obsessively attached to role, to place, to visible models to chase (conditioned by the search for shining circumstances).Despite appearances, the respectable devotion that deprives itself of the living and actual authenticity of Christ does not extract people from the banality of chasing offices and titles.

In archaic religions, in fact, or in the world of disembodied and incompetent utopianism, woe betide the already emblazoned!

They are not moved from situations (even of ecclesial ministry) to which they are accustomed and which count.

(It would be a crime of lese majesty to move them, even after decades in office and whatever they have done).

Today, all it would take is the slightest periscope to grasp that overwhelming impulses are coming into play to challenge situations that we imagined to be concluded and perfect.

Such prods serve to make us reflect on what we want: they reveal what we are.

Our reassuring identifications suddenly evaporate, because they are fossilised on goals that do not belong to us deeply... they were not 'ours'.

If habit has suffocated us, Providence also 'intervenes' by throwing everything away - because it sees us as barren.

The shrunken person is also incapable of achieving the true results that God dreams up on his own behalf.

Dragging his life along, the shrunken person revels in the usual barnyard peckishness, going round and round only.

But Someone within and without knows much more than we do.

As if to give us a cascade of authenticity, the Lord introduces into the events that trouble us a flow of fresh energy that tends to free us from the fetters of old ambitions and patterns.

Habit and task quietism have not allowed us to discover ourselves, let alone others and the world.

So it doesn't matter if established situations crumble and many old relationships - public and private - ruin.

To turn over a new leaf, one must stop this chasing after ancestral expectations and (paradoxically) welcome the crisis - danger and possibility.

Fundamental is to perceive in the problematic nature of events the opportunity for a coup de grâce that overrides epidermal dreams; those that compel us to act so much.

After all, it is the upheavals that solve the real problems and put "things back in place".

For this reason, the authentic believer is always one step ahead and differs from the pious one-sided, devout or sophisticated man.

He does not wait for Future, nor does he delegate it... but builds it.

The nothing and the everything

"In this Sunday's Gospel passage (cf. Mk 13:24-32), the Lord wants to instruct his disciples about future events. It is not primarily a discourse on the end of the world, rather it is an invitation to live well in the present, to be vigilant and always ready for when we will be called to account for our lives. Jesus says: "In those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will no longer give its light, the stars will fall from heaven" (vv. 24-25). These words make us think of the first page of the Book of Genesis, the account of creation: the sun, the moon, the stars, which from the beginning of time shine in their order and bring light, the sign of life, here are described in their decay, as they plunge into darkness and chaos, the sign of the end. Instead, the light that will shine on that final day will be unique and new: it will be that of the Lord Jesus who will come in glory with all the saints. In that meeting we will finally see his Face in the full light of the Trinity; a Face radiant with love, before which every human being will also appear in total truth.

Human history, like the personal history of each one of us, cannot be understood as a mere succession of words and deeds that do not make sense. Neither can it be interpreted in the light of a fatalistic vision, as if everything were already predetermined according to a destiny that subtracts any space of freedom, preventing us from making choices that are the fruit of a true decision. Rather, in today's Gospel, Jesus says that the history of peoples and that of individuals have an end and a goal to reach: the definitive encounter with the Lord. We do not know the time nor the manner in which it will take place; the Lord reiterated that "no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son" (v. 32); everything is kept in the secret of the Father's mystery. We know, however, a fundamental principle with which we must contend: "Heaven and earth will pass away," says Jesus, "but my words will not pass away" (v. 31). The real crucial point is this. On that day, each of us will have to understand whether the Word of the Son of God has illuminated our personal existence, or whether we have turned our backs on it, preferring to trust in our own words. More than ever, it will be the moment when we must definitively abandon ourselves to the Father's love and entrust ourselves to his mercy.

No one can escape this moment, none of us! The cleverness, which we often put into our behaviour to accredit the image we want to offer, will no longer serve; Similarly, the power of money and economic means with which we presumptuously claim to buy everything and everyone, will no longer be used. We shall take with us nothing but what we have accomplished in this life by believing his Word: the all and nothing of what we have lived or neglected to accomplish. We will only take with us what we have given.

Let us invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary, so that the realisation of our impermanence on earth and of our limitation does not cause us to sink into anguish, but calls us to responsibility towards ourselves, towards our neighbour, towards the whole world". (Pope Francis, Angelus 18 November 2018)