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33rd Sunday – The End Times 11-18-18
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November is a strange time of year. Trees
have finally lost their leaves, but winter’s snow has not come full
force. The holiday bustle is just beginning, and it is a month where we
traditionally think about our dead. It is a good time to think about the
last things, the end of the world, and our readings are full of images
and ideas about the end times.
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So let me tell you a story. At the Sun Dance
Film Festival there was a screening of a film called, “Occurrence at
Owl Creek Bridge.” It is a story of a man about to be hanged. Soldiers
march him out to a bridge that crosses Owl Creek. They take a board, and
place it so that half of it rests on the bridge, and the other half
extends over the edge. Then one of the soldiers stands on the half that
rests on the bridge, and the condemned man is made to walk out and stand
on the half that extends over the water. The commanding officer barks
out the order, the soldier steps off the board, and the condemned man
plunges downward with the rope around his neck.
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Then something strange happens: the rope
breaks, and the condemned man goes plummeting into the river far below.
Down, down into the water he sinks, and as he does he is aware that he
is alive.
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Realizing he has a second chance at life,
the man begins to swim down the river. He knows that the soldiers will
come to look for him, so that when he is a mile or so down river, he
swims under a dense cluster of trees, and waits until the soldiers go
by. The sun streams through the branches and he is struck by the beauty
of the leaves on the branch, their colors, the pattern of veins in the
leaves. Then the man sees a spider spinning a web, and he is struck by
the beauty of the web and the tiny drops of water clinging to it like
sparkling diamonds. He feels the wetness of the water on his body, he
looks up at the blueness of the sky: never has the world looked so
wonderful and so magnificent.
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The man swims ashore, totally exhausted. He
walks through the woods until he comes to a house where the gate swings
open mysteriously. The man cannot believe his eyes: it is his house! He
is back home, safe, his wife comes running out of the house, arms
outstretched to greet him. Just as they embrace, the camera takes us
back to Owl Creek Bridge, and we cannot believe our eyes! We see the
body of the same man, swinging back and forth, back and forth. The man
is dead.
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We are left stunned. All the effects of the
second chance were pure make-believe. The man had not escaped after all.
In the split second, as he fell to his death, he merely imagined that
he had gotten a second chance at life. A life he suddenly saw in a
different way. A life he suddenly saw through new eyes. For the first
time, the man saw the world for what it is, a beautiful place. For the
first time, the man saw life for what it is; a precious gift to be
shared with those we love. How differently that man would have lived his
new life if he had really escaped and had really been given a second
chance.
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How do you feel at the end of the story?
Sad? Disappointed? The author of this story is saying to us, the man in
my story is all of us. The condemned man did not get his second chance
at life, but we do have a second chance.
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The hour will come when you will die, just
as that man did. No one knows when that hour will be. Today’s Gospel
invites us to reflect on the moment when we will meet Jesus at the end
of our lives. It invites us to ask ourselves, how satisfied will we be
at that moment with what we have done with our lives? How we have lived
them? Unlike the man in the story, we have a second chance to prepare
for that hour beginning right now. What will we do with that second
chance? Is this too much for a Sunday morning?
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We look outside and we see bare trees, and
we know that winter will soon follow. This is the time that we Catholics
traditionally think about our dead, those who have gone before us. It
is also a time to realize that one day, it will be our turn. So use your
second chance well, for as scripture tells us, we know not the day, nor
the hour.
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I would ask you to cast your mind back to
the time when Jesus raised his friend, Lazarus, from the grave. Lazarus
was a friend of Jesus, and so when he became ill, his sisters sent for
Jesus. But He does not come right away, and when He does arrive, Martha
runs to meet Him and says to Him, Lord, if You had only been here, my
brother would never have died. Jesus tells her, whoever lives and
believes in Me shall never die. In other words, eternal death is not
separation of soul from body, but rather separation of soul from God.
And her brother was not separated from his God. This is so important
that Jesus asks her, do you believe this? I wonder if she paused before
she said yes.
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This is not just pious exaggeration, or just
something to console us at funerals or during the month of November.
These are words from the very mouth of God himself: I am the
resurrection and the life! Whoever believes in me, though they should
die, will come to life. And whoever is alive and believes in Me will
never die. I leave you with a question: do you believe this?
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Yours in Christ, |
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Fr. Bob Warren, SA |
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1 comment:
As a 91 year old & in good health thanks to careful upbringing by Christian farming family, university education, careful eating & living habits over my lifetime & caring for animals as practicing Veterinarian, I often say to myself " heaven could not be better than life in Australia. So I am eternally thankful to my parents, the government of Australia for a University of Sydney Veterinary School education, & to the Australian farming community who have been a pleasure to serve & provide help for their animals Dr Owen Johnston J.P B.V.Sc Noosa Heads Qld
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