Scripture Reflection, November 16, 2025, Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Malachi 3:19-20a 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12 Luke 21:5-19

Just when you try to keep your spirits up in spite of the evening news with its reports of natural disasters and violence between countries and peoples, you get today's gospel! “Nation will rise against nation.” “There will be earthquakes, famine and plagues.” Hardly anybody's idea of good news!

At first, today’s psalm seems out of step. “Let the sea and what fills it resound, the world and those who dwell in it; let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains shout with them for joy .”

What accounts for the difference? I suggest that the psalm looks to the future rather than at the present. Our psalm response echoes again and again, "The Lord comes to rule the Earth with justice.” It repeats the hopefulness we find in the first reading from the prophet Malachi, "But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.” Ultimately. Eventually. In the end.

But before then …it’s easy to be discouraged. In our private, individual lives we may be facing loss, physical pain, family discord,… any one of the many sorrows that are part of human life.

In our civic life, things look equally grim. Hunger and sickness causing pain that could have been avoided. Greed and self interest taking the place of care for the other. Persons being deprived of liberty or dignity, not accidentally, but intentionally, as part of public policy. Militarism masking as patriotism.

Our gospel reminds us to persevere through the hard times confident and hopeful that they will not last forever, that ultimately “the Lord will come to rule the earth with justice.”

Meanwhile, God trusts us to be agents of justice in the here and now. To feed the hungry. To welcome the stranger. To reach out and include the marginalized. Keep working, Paul tells the Thessalonians. The end times may be a long way off. And there is work to be done.

Pat Schnee, OPA