Readings: Malachi 3:19-20; 2 Thessalonians 3: 7-12; Luke 21:5-19
Theme: ‘Your perseverance will win you your lives’ (Lk 21:19)
By Michael McCabe, SMA
As we near the end of the Church’s liturgical year, our Scripture readings take a grim turn. They speak of the end times, of persecution, of plagues, famines, wars and revolutions, of destruction and betrayal, and of God’s judgement on evil-doers. Confronting us with images of future disaster; these readings leave us with an uncomfortable feeling that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, if indeed they are ever going to get better!
Living in the 21st century we might be inclined to dismiss the challenge of today’s readings by categorising them as apocalyptic – a genre of literature that flourished during times of great crisis and persecution in the Church, and perhaps is no longer relevant. However, we should ask ourselves the question: “Are we not living now through a time of major crisis in human history?”, indeed a time of many crises. I will mention just three contemporary global crises we cannot afford to ignore.
Topping the list is surely the climate crisis? Ten years after the famous Paris Agreement on climate change (COP 21), when almost 200 countries agreed to put to take decisive action to limit global warming, the world continues to heat up at an alarming rate, with catastrophic consequences for human life on earth. A second, no less serious, crisis is the re-emergence of the threat of nuclear war. A recent study of this threat from Princeton University concluded that ‘the risk of nuclear war has increased dramatically as the United States and Russia have abandoned nuclear arms control treaties and begun to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons’. We have good reason to fear that we might all be nuked into oblivion by a deranged leader’s obsession with power.
A third global threat arises from the recent phenomenal developments in the area of communications technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI). Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called ‘Godfather of AI’, who resigned from Google two years ago, has warned us that the unchecked development of AI could lead to the extinction of humanity in a few decades. In more measured terms, Pope Leo XIV, while acknowledging the huge potential of AI for good, has stated that it ‘also raises troubling questions regarding its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, and our distinctive ability to grasp and process reality’.
Apart from these global crises, Christianity, at least in some countries, is under threat. Marginalised, if not banished from the public sphere in much of the Western world, Christians are persecuted and suppressed in the other parts of the world. World Watch List 2025 stated that 380 million Christians worldwide face persecution and discrimination for their faith. This bears out the truth of Jesus’ prophetic words to his disciples: ‘you will be hated universally on account of my name’’ (Lk 21:17).
Our readings today, then, are not only relevant to our current situation; they offer us a Christian reading of that situation. Unlike many prophets of doom, they do not plunge us into despair but offer us a positive response to the threats we face. The context in which the readings should be read is that of God’s coming reign of justice, truth and love, as expressed in today’s Responsorial psalm: ‘For the Lord comes; he comes to rule the earth. He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with fairness’.
The first reading, written by the last of the prophets, Malachi (the name means ‘my messenger’), sometime in the 5th century BC, speaks of a day of Judgement when ‘all the arrogant and the evil-doers’ will be burned up ‘like stubble’ (Mal 3:19). On that same day, however, ‘the sun of righteousness will shine out with healing in its rays’ (Mal 3:20) for the Lord’s faithful ones. This reading exhorts us, even when things seem to be collapsing around us, not to be overcome by fear, but to trust in the Lord’s promises and to persevere in faithful service of him.
In the gospel reading from Luke, Jesus predicts the terrible catastrophe which would befall Jerusalem almost 40 years later. In the year 70 AD, Jerusalem was besieged by the mighty Roman army. Over a million people were killed or died of starvation during the long siege. The city was destroyed and the Temple burned to the ground. Yet Jesus assures his disciples that, even though they will be persecuted, they will not be overwhelmed or paralysed by fear. They will be protected from harm. ‘Not a hair of your head will be lost’ (Lk 21:18). Through the power of his Spirit they must continue to trust him and bear witness to him. They are assured of ultimate victory: ‘Your perseverance will win you your lives’ (Lk 21:19). Such words of reassurance and hope for the future are always needed, just as much in our day as they were for the first followers of Jesus.
The response to today’s psalm (psalm 97) expresses a profound yearning for God’s coming among us to govern the peoples with justice and fairness. We can surely identify with this yearning. Times of suffering can offer the possibility of renewal, of new directions, that may give birth to the hope that, as the prophet Malachi assures us, ‘there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays’ (Mal 3:20). So we pray: ‘May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you’ (Ps 32).
Listen to an alternative audio Homily by Tom Casey, SMA: