Now mid-November may be a good time to refresh our liturgical bearings. This Sunday, 11.17.24, is the last Ordinary Sunday of the Liturgical Year. The following Sunday, 11.24.24, is that of the great Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. It opens the 34th Week in Ordinary Time. At the end of that week, starting December 1st, is the new 1st Sunday of Advent, C. Even the Liturgical Years seem to be snowballing.

This 33rd Ordinary Sunday B might well be called End of the World Sunday. Jesus in our Gospel will portray it visually. Beforehand, the prophet Daniel speaks of the world’s Final Combat with Satan. Then Hebrews pictures Jesus in divine power governing forever at the throne of His Father.

In Chapter 12 of Daniel, the prophet cites the coming of the warrior Archangel Michael at “a time of unsurpassed distress.” (In our Gospel of the End Days Jesus speaks of that too). We must surely be noted in God’s good book as faithful to Him in the fight. Even if we have died we will be raised from the dust and there will be judgement. Keep this ever in mind, for only to the faithful will God say, “Go, take your rest, you shall rise for your reward at the end of days.”
The letter to the Hebrews speaks persuasively of our faith in the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrifice. Sacrifices by the priests of the Old Law though offered daily could not take away sin, but the one divine sacrifice of Christ does, and because of it He reigns at the right hand of His Father. “For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.” In Hebrews, the earliest Christian Faith insists that in Christ’s sacrifice, all sins from the beginning of time till time’s end are forgiven.

Seek no farther than Christ. St. Mark’s Gospel, just before the events of the Passion, marked the End Days. Jesus described the collapse of creation, surely days of “unsurpassed distress,” as the sun, moon, and stars of the heavens fall from the skies. It is not quite the end, for Jesus will come in power and glory. Trust me, He says, as strongly as you read and trust the signs in nature: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” Seek strength to stand before Him when He comes.