MASS READINGS & SAINT QUOTE OF THE DAY : Tuesday - November 23, 2021

Tuesday - November 23, 2021

All our religion is but a false religion, and all our virtues are mere illusions and we ourselves are only hypocrites in the sight of God, if we have not that universal charity for everyone - for the good, and for the bad, for the poor and for the rich, and for all those who do us harm as much as those who do us good.

~~St. John Vianney

November 23, 2021

Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 504

 

Reading 1                                                     Dn 2:31-45

Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar:

“In your vision, O king, you saw a statue,

very large and exceedingly bright,

terrifying in appearance as it stood before you.

The head of the statue was pure gold,

its chest and arms were silver,

its belly and thighs bronze, the legs iron,

its feet partly iron and partly tile.

While you looked at the statue,

a stone which was hewn from a mountain

without a hand being put to it,

struck its iron and tile feet, breaking them in pieces.

The iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold all crumbled at once,

fine as the chaff on the threshing floor in summer,

and the wind blew them away without leaving a trace.

But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain

and filled the whole earth.

 

“This was the dream;

the interpretation we shall also give in the king’s presence.

You, O king, are the king of kings;

to you the God of heaven

has given dominion and strength, power and glory;

men, wild beasts, and birds of the air, wherever they may dwell,

he has handed over to you, making you ruler over them all;

you are the head of gold.

Another kingdom shall take your place, inferior to yours,

then a third kingdom, of bronze,

which shall rule over the whole earth.

There shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron;

it shall break in pieces and subdue all these others,

just as iron breaks in pieces and crushes everything else.

The feet and toes you saw, partly of potter’s tile and partly of iron,

mean that it shall be a divided kingdom,

but yet have some of the hardness of iron.

As you saw the iron mixed with clay tile,

and the toes partly iron and partly tile,

the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.

The iron mixed with clay tile

means that they shall seal their alliances by intermarriage,

but they shall not stay united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

In the lifetime of those kings

the God of heaven will set up a kingdom

that shall never be destroyed or delivered up to another people;

rather, it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms

and put an end to them, and it shall stand forever.

 

That is the meaning of the stone you saw hewn from the mountain

without a hand being put to it,

which broke in pieces the tile, iron, bronze, silver, and gold.

The great God has revealed to the king what shall be in the future;

this is exactly what you dreamed, and its meaning is sure.”

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              Daniel 3:57, 58, 59, 60, 61

 

R.    (59b) Give glory and eternal praise to him.

 

“Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord,

    praise and exalt him above all forever.”

R.    Give glory and eternal praise to him.

“Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord,

    praise and exalt him above all forever.”

R.    Give glory and eternal praise to him.

“You heavens, bless the Lord,

    praise and exalt him above all forever.”

R.    Give glory and eternal praise to him.

“All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord,

    praise and exalt him above all forever.”

R.    Give glory and eternal praise to him.

“All you hosts of the Lord, bless the Lord;

    praise and exalt him above all forever.”

R.    Give glory and eternal praise to him.

 

Alleluia                                                                      Rv 2:10c

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Remain faithful until death,

and I will give you the crown of life.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel                                                                       Lk 21:5-11

While some people were speaking about

how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings,

Jesus said, “All that you see here–

the days will come when there will not be left

a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.”

 

Then they asked him,

“Teacher, when will this happen?

And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?”

He answered,

“See that you not be deceived,

for many will come in my name, saying,

‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’

Do not follow them!

When you hear of wars and insurrections,

do not be terrified; for such things must happen first,

but it will not immediately be the end.”

Then he said to them,

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues

from place to place;

and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.”

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LIVING IN THE HERE AND NOW

 

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus and the disciples discuss the Final Judgment Day. To the world, this will look like the ultimate disaster. But if we refuse to belong to the world, because we belong to the kingdom of God, for us Judgment Day will mean hearing God say, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You are now totally free from evil!"

 

Belonging to God's kingdom is counter-cultural -- and it's become even more obviously so in today's world. To escape the Final Judgment, we have to believe in Jesus and what he taught, but we have to also follow him and do what he taught. This requires ridding ourselves of every worldly behavior that is not Christ-like. Moral relativism is one example. Christ taught moral absolutes, but the world wants us to accept the idea that everyone can safely make up their own minds about what is sinful and what is not.

 

The end of the world fascinates us. Hollywood movies about it are box office hits. Christian novels about it are top sellers. The predictions of Nostradamus are more popular than ever, and psychics who talk about it attract large followings. Natural disasters are declared as chastisements against sinners by Christians who are looking for signs that Jesus is coming to rescue us from these sinners.

 

Why all this fascination with the end of the world? It's because we want Jesus (if not aliens or superheroes) to rescue us from evil. However, we are called by God to be real heroes -- Jesus in the flesh right now, today. Bold and courageous Christians who are more interested in being unlike the world than in seeing the end of the world, for this is how we put an end to evil now.

 

We should be more interested in what we can do for Christ in the present than in what he can do for us in the future.

 

Rather than telling others they will be punished in the impending doom, we should be spreading Christ's love so much here and now that we lay strong foundations for a better future.

 

When the disciples asked for clues about the timing of the disaster that Jesus described, he warned them to be careful lest they fall prey to deceptions. He knew that focusing on the future can easily causes misinterpretations and mistaken predictions.

 

Jesus wasn't being a soothsayer when he warned that the holy temple would get torn down. He was talking about the here and now of his interaction with the disciples: The Messiah had come and therefore the stone temple was no longer needed.

 

His words also apply to our own here and now: Our bodies, which are temples of the Holy Spirit, will die and decay, but our Messiah has come. Living in him and through him today will secure our future in the kingdom of God, even if the Second Coming of Christ does not occur in our lifetimes.

 

In the meantime, when plagues of hardships infect our lives, or when famines make us hungry for whatever we lack, or when earthquakes like the loss of a job or the death of a loved one shakes up our world, we're comforted by remembering that this is normal for this world and we do not belong to this world. We take action to make the world a better place, but we do not live in fear nor do we wait for Jesus to do the work without us.

 

Even when it seems like our problems will bring a permanent end to what had been good for us, the fearsome omens should not dismay us. Our Messiah is with us! So keep your eyes on Jesus, here and now.

 

Today's Prayer

 

Thank You, Lord, because You gave me Your Holy Spirit. Give me through Him the grace of discerning the signs You give me along the journey. Amen.

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God Bless You.....

The Rosary Family

The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”