Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa: XXXIII Sunday Of Ordinary Time

This Meditation is shared from the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Below you can find the Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the XXXIII Sunday Of Ordinary Time, Sunday 17 November 2024.

Mk. 13:24-32

The evangelist Mark has his very own way of reporting Jesus’ account of the end times.

In the eschatological discourse that we find in chapter 13 of his gospel, there is no shadow of a possible final judgment to which the nations and individuals would be subjected.

The time of the end is not intended as a time of judgment by God, who sits like a judge on a throne and weighs up and evaluates our failures and good deeds. Life should not be lived in fear of judgment, and what motivates us to act cannot be the fear of doing wrong and being condemned.

But what then can motivate our existence and how can the thought of the end brighten our days?

The passage we read in today’s liturgy (Mk. 13:24-32) is taken precisely from this eschatological discourse and tells us something about the time of the end, which will indeed come.

The first message is just that there will be an end.

All three synoptics have an apocalyptic view of history, i.e. they proclaim that nothing has eternal value apart from God’s presence among us.

Jesus says this with imagery that speaks of a great upheaval: the sun, the moon, the stars, in other words the whole of creation, will somehow be overturned (“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken”) - Mark 13:24-25).

Nothing is eternal, but everything passes away (Mark 13:31): the heavens, the earth, the lives of the men and women of this world, everything passes away. To live in the knowledge that our life has a limit is a great gift: if we did not know this, we would always postpone the decision about our conversion until tomorrow and since we could always live, we would never live in the end.

In all this upheaval, however, there is also something that does not pass away: for Jesus says that although everything passes away, his word always remains: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mk. 13:31).…

This news was originally published on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Please click here to read the full text.