His Parousia and MDM

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author.

“Concerning times and seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you, yourself know very well, that the day of the Lord will come like a thief.” When people are saying, Peace and Security, then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief. For you’re all children of the light, and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness.” Our Lord is speaking here of night and darkness, and the awareness sometimes the awareness of God’s word can make us even sense more intensely, the darkness in our society and our world right now. But Jesus, through His Word has given us an extreme hope, a supernatural light, in that darkness. And this passage today, like so many in the New Testament, is insisting on the day of the coming, of the day of the Lord. And it’s kind of shocking for us because we’re not as used to being so insistent that the emphasis on this day of His coming, which will transform everything, which will bring justice and salvation. And I think it’s providential that as we celebrate this little anniversary of our mission, to have this reading, because I think the Lord wants the mission to be living in a sense, the spirit which the early Christians were living, of awaiting the coming of the day of the Lord. Think how crazy it would have sounded to non-Christians, to hear this talk of the coming of the Lord. Because talking about suddenly, you know, the world is going along, and suddenly, He comes and everything is transformed and justice comes to the world. That would sound just like a fairy tale. But the early Christians, when they spoke of this, and believed and hoped for this coming of the Lord, knew that this Lord had already come. They were waiting for His coming again. And if He’s coming again, that means He’s already come. He has already come the first time, in the silence and hiddenness at Bethlehem, living quietly among us. And for those who then when he began to speak for those whose hearts were open, and attentive, their lives already began to experience His transformation. So that was those who are hearing Jesus during His public ministry. But for the Christians that St. Paul is talking to, they didn’t know him at that time. And yet they experienced the Lord already with them. They experience his interior presence with them, through grace, their experience in many Marvels miracles and healings, many signs of His presence in this young Church, which is in spite of persecution, growing and developing their sensing His presence, and especially in certain saints. They feel very powerfully life transformed by Jesus. In His word, they sense Him continuing to speak to them. A word that is a living word, though, the word of God is living and active. And in particular, in the Blessed Sacrament, they experienced the Lord coming to them. So the Lord that they’re waiting to come, is also the Lord who is already present with them. And does that make sense? How can he be coming in and present? And St. Thomas Aquinas says that whenever God comes in a new way, rather, whenever God makes His presence, experienced in a new way to us, it’s like a new coming. And so there can be different ways of coming of the Lord. And so a word that’s very important in the New Testament for this is the word Parousia, Parousia, and Parousia is often translated coming, the coming of the Lord. But it actually has wider sense than there’s sometimes it’s often could also be translated, the presence or the appearance, the visitation or an intervention. And so the Christians would speak of his final Parousia  in glory. And then there’s the personal Parousia that each faithful Christian experiences at the end of this life. Just, there’s so many examples by just the example that we experienced with our own mother here, the end of her life was very difficult, there was a lot of suffering and, and when we sensed she was very near, she was her eyes are closed, and she was moaning, and, and just keeping her eyes closed. And then, then kind of all of a sudden, she became quiet, and her eyes opened wide, which they hadn’t been like that in a long time, open wide, and she looked around at us and around the room. And then she looked up, and a little smile began to form on her face. And it was such a transformation, as if someone was coming for her, she was experiencing someone coming. So there’s the personal Parousia, at the end of this life. So therefore Christians that for those who love our Lord, the Parousia, is not something to be feared. It’s something to be expected and waited for. There’s that final Parousia. But then there’s His, His, all the different ways in which He comes to us now, in this time, the different spiritual interventions that the New Testament gives us. The great one, after His ascension of the Pentecost of this new talking, has at the beginning has letters to seven churches says the seven churches which would be like the Christian community and seven cities, and it talks about His coming to them. Sometimes it’s coming to chastise them if they don’t, if they don’t change, and sometimes it’s coming to, to console them. And so in those cases, it’s not talking about his final coming. But it’s talking about different ways that the Lord intervenes, in these communities. And one of the most powerful ways that the Church has experienced this, throughout its history, is the great apparitions, like the great Marian apparitions, like the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And how, what a powerful Parousia that was for these lands, that these lands that we’re in, and the transforming the people, in what is now Mexico. And also for instance, in Lourdes with that, that that little miserable little grotto, which has become now such a glorious place of healing, or Fatima, and all the graces which have flowed through Fatima. And in our own days, one that’s going on right now in Medjugorje and of course, Medjugorje there is still some controversy and still some discernment going on about that. But what’s extraordinary is how this little village even already, while it was under communist control, kind of exploded, and graces and conversions. Like, like, almost became like, kind of like an epicenter, like where the intensity, the spiritual intensity in this little village, and when can light from Well, from just kind of a normal little village there to an amazing place, like when the brightest places in the world for conversion, for renewal of our union with the Lord. And so those are examples of how different ways that the Lord can intervene, can act to make Himself present. And I think that that’s very important for our little Mission of Divine Mercy. I think it’s really providential because our little mission, the Mission of Divine Mercy began to, because sensing that the situation in the world and in the Church, and this was almost 30 years ago when kinda, the origins, not the official founding, but the kind of spiritual origins, sensing that things were so bad, that only God could change. We needed a divine intervention. And it’s striking to me how many people now sense in the crisis in the Church and the situation or world sense that I hear from a lot of people, a lot of learned people saying that they sense that there’s no human solution. Now, there will have to be a divine intervention. And that’s the sense I was having 30 years ago. And so for that, what that needed for divine intervention, say like the greater intervention of Our Lady of Guadalupe because I was in Monterey, at that time at the sanctuary of Guadalupe. And sensing what that needed was from us was to be open to His action. Because so often God wants to act, but people kind of shut the door to Him by incredulity and lack of faith. In fact, St. Catherine Laboure, who, in the early 19th century received the apparitions of our Blessed Mother and, and what is, and now it’s called the Chapel of the miraculous metal in Paris. Years later, when the apparitions at Lourdes began, she told her, she told some people that those miracles would have happened at their chapel in the middle of Paris, if her superiors had accepted and believed, but their lack of belief kind of shut the door to those miracles. And so that’s kind of at the Mission of Divine Mercy, the origin, the Mission of Divine Mercy sensing that we need to be open to the Lord. So that and that’s why we have such a focus on prophetic, on being open to God continuing to speak today, because He wants to act in our world, but we have to be open. And so I think a little Mission of Divine Mercy is in a special way one of the little ways, and there’s a lot of them throughout the world in which the Lord is like preparing for His Parousia. And I don’t think, I’m not talking now about His final Parousia. But I’m talking about other ways that he can intervene in our time. And so what is these interventions, it’s like, like the Pope’s have said, like a new and many mystics, also a new Pentecost, a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a new outpouring, as He said to St. Faustina, of Divine Mercy. And yet, we already experienced that in a small way, already. And even for instance, just last week, we had another Encounter with Jesus. And it’s always striking to us to sense how many graces the people making these encounters experienced. And even, we hear all the time. And we’re very grateful to God. So many times we hear people saying to us, that they experienced God’s peace and God’s mercy just coming onto the property here. And so that’s kind of the signs of already, these graces beginning to be poured out like even this little, loose little fog or rain or mist, this kind of a sign of these graces. But these graces, which involves an illumination of consciences and a world in which there’s so much confusion and so many lies, a world in which the Holy Spirit will illuminate so people can see clearly what is right and what is wrong, and understand their lives in the light of God.So this is leading to as our Blessed Mother is spoken of Fatima to a triumph of the Immaculate Heart, a great renewal of consecration and living, living with our Blessed Mother as our mother. And so a great spiritual renewal and transformation in which our Lord will reign in His holy Eucharist, and which the presence of our Lord Jesus in the Holy Eucharist will be, will be worshipped and adored. And, and by that worship and adoration and faith can spread, it’s transforming power throughout the world. Because the Jesus that we see in this image of Divine Mercy is present in the sacrament and especially in the Blessed Sacrament, wanting to pour out His mercy. But what does He always say that what He needs to do that is trust, faith, faith and trust. And so that’s why this mission of Divine Mercy is faith that that’s our specialty with graduate discovery. That was our special call faith so that God can act. God wants to act. God wants to intervene, but He needs our faith our trust in Him. And so when will that happen? How will that happen? That’s a big question. And we don’t know. We don’t know those, as He says here and He says a number of times, and He says, it’ll be like a thief in the night. We don’t know. As Saint Paul says, as the times and seasons brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. Because he said we Don’t know. But he also gives some signs that were there signs that the Lord gives that are like signs that it’s approaching. And I think we Jesus wonders, one of the things that Jesus speaks of is the birth pains, the birth pains. And so I think the suffering, there’s many types of suffering that we’re going through these days. And so many of God’s people are going through our life, these birth pains, which are signs of the approach of these graces. And the very that because we, it’s always the Pascall mystery of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, which is the path for His church, the Church is called to follow its head. And so right now, I think we’re living in a special way, a great crisis in the Church. So which involves a lot of suffering, a lot of darkness. very discouraging for many people. But that if we if we believe and see that in the light of the Pascall mystery of Jesus, we realize that that very suffering, and tribulation that we’re experiencing today is a preparation for the great outpouring of His graces. And so, as the early Christians were, were saying, The Lord is coming. What consequences does that have for our life, to believe that the Lord is coming? What consequences does that what differences that make in our life and I want to mention two things. One is it gives us hope. And I think that’s what’s so needed in our world today hope, because if we realize that everything is in His hands. And this painful trial, and which often it seems that evil is triumphant, is only temporary. Everything is in His hands, His designs are almighty, no one can start His plans. And so it called it invites us to look to the Lord with hope. So the belief in the power of the Lord is not to make us fearful. It’s to liberate us from fear, to give us peace, that all is in His hands, even when it seems, even we don’t see any sign of Him. So that’s the first thing to, to have hope. And the second consequence, is to inspire us to use the time we have here on earth, well, to use this time well, we don’t know the details of when and how the Lord is coming. But if we seek His will, we will always be ready. If we’re doing the will of the Lord, we will always be where we need to be when He comes. And so if we’re seeking His will, he’s going to be able to guide us for what we need to do in these times. And that’s, I think, kind has been our whole challenge here at the Mission of Divine Mercy is trying to be open to the Lord, and attentive to the different ways, sometimes mysterious ways that He’s guiding us. The Gospel today speaks of using the talents of the Lord, and the talents. When I think when Jesus that, given his talents, that’s what our word for talents comes from this this parable. But the talents are not in this, that I think the Lord means this gospel are not just what we call talents. But it’s also some other things that we wouldn’t think of, like, our sacrifices and our sufferings, the very things that seem useless to us, the pains, the very humiliations, the disappointments, the heartbreaks, and our life. Because what is it that above all that Jesus uses to save the world? It didn’t, it wasn’t so much his talents, being a great organizer, and a great orator, or even as you could say, in the sense His talent of healing and casting out demons, all those who are great. But that’s not what saved the world. It was his suffering. And so that’s a lesson for us. We may feel sometimes we don’t have that many talents. We see a lot of other people have talents that we don’t have. But I imagine you do have some sufferings, right? You probably have some suffering, some disappointment, some humiliations in your life. If you don’t, we can share some with you. But those we can offer those to the Lord, not waste them. In the eyes of the Lord those become these precious jewels, which that He can take and multiply in power. or to bring about the renewal of the world. So the Lord is coming. We don’t know when we don’t know how. But that gives us hope. It inspires us to use this time well. So today, we’re celebrating our little mission of Divine Mercy are poor, I always want to say poor little mission of Divine Mercy’s anniversary. But it’s important that one of the things we see often in Scripture is Jesus wants His people to be remembering the deeds of the Lord. Now that he’s always asking to go back and remember what he has done. And that’s the reason for feast, for instance, has recently had the, the Passover was for them to remember the deeds of the Lord. That’s the reason we celebrate our Mass also, it’s to bring also to our minds to what the Lord has done. And so that’s why it’s for me, for us, it’s important for us to remember, because the path, the path of the mission, like the work, I’m in the life of a lot of you is difficult. It’s very difficult sometimes. And so and sometimes we don’t sense the Lord’s presence. Lord, where are you? Why don’t you do something you’re wanting to fix these situations? But why don’t why don’t you come? Where are you. And so sometimes we don’t sense the Lord’s presence in the day to day. So it’s helpful to look back. Sometimes it’s easier to look back because a lot of times, I was talking about this yesterday in the mission, a lot of times will be where, like the decision to start a new mission and then not knowing where to go. And then then having this contact with some of you from St. Peter and Paul and then coming up to New Braunfels, when we’re going through that, it wasn’t at all clear. We were trying to sense what the Lord wanted so many times like Mother Magdalene mentioned signing that contract. And so, so many times, it’s not clear why is this what the Lord wants or not, we’re taking a big risk. And it’s not really real, that clear we’re trying to do His will, but it’s not always clear, and we say, be open to prophetic messages. But sometimes there weren’t any clear prophetic messages. And the Lord speaks often through circumstances. But sometimes the circumstances are kind of foggy. Like this day, there was a very foggy this morning. That’s a mission day fog. That’s what that’s a sign. That’s what the mission is. It’s always fog. It’s so much it’s, it’s living in faith where you don’t see very clearly just a little bit. And so it’s often helpful for us to look back. And when we look back, we can see, oh, yeah, that was the Lord guiding us. And I’ll just give you one example, that. So with the idea for the mission, the kind of final decision to start, it came in January of 2001. And and I remember, it was a foggy day like this, I was walking through the ranch where we were, and finally sensed, you know, this wasn’t working out, I think I’m gonna have to take this step. And I was very resistant to do that. But it wasn’t till I didn’t realize till later that I was right about at that same time, I think within days, that the Pope John Paul wrote his encyclical about entering into the new millennium. And then, you know, I, I’ve joked that you have to plan very carefully to start a community during a new millennium, because you only get one chance every 1000 years. And so, I didn’t realize that, but we were because January of 2001, that was actually the beginning of the new millennium. We think it was 2000. But it was actually 2001. And, and, and I won’t go into all the significance, because that will take a lot of time to talk about that. But there’s a lot of significance in the millennium, as Saint John Paul was pointed out, there’s a lot of in scriptural significance in the millennium. And St. John Paul was very aware, if you read his encyclicals that he wrote, very aware of the spiritual significance of this new millennium. And I realized that I realized later on, it was years later that I realized that that the Mission of Divine Mercy start right at the beginning of the new millennium, right as the Pope was announcing it. And so it’s like a sign that Mission Divine Mercy had was especially for a new millennium. And there’s a lot of spiritual significance in that because a sign of what this millennium means so, but our little mission often feels to me like a little boat, riding very low in the water in a stormy sea where it wouldn’t take much to capsize this poor little boat and sometimes we have to toss things off this boat, but we haven’t tossed anyone. We have to toss things off this boat, that not quite, but it’s very, you know, it’s been a very challenging, challenging time. And so that’s why it’s helpful to look back and see the it’s amazing To me that we’re still here 22 years later for me that knowing what we’ve gone through, it’s it’s just a sign of the Lord. I mean, I, I say that the proof that this is of the Lord is that with me here, that it still survived all these 22 years, there was some someone as incompetent as I am. But it’s it’s survived all these years. And so it’s very helpful to look back and see that He has guided us and protected us all these years. And also, so He’s asked us to be patient, be patient, and waiting for Him that’s been very difficult to hold on. To, to hold on to all this all this time. Last week, we had the parable of the wise virgins, who were ready for this long, extended waiting. And today, at this time, I’m thinking of our sisters who are celebrating very significant anniversary of Sister Amapola. They didn’t want us to make a big deal of this. In fact, they didn’t even tell us when these anniversaries came, so we’re a little bit late. But Sister Amapola celebrate her 25 years since since she arrived at the ranch,   she was we were we were so I was in Monterey with the brothers of St. John, and her family was involved with the activities we had down there. And so we got to know Sister Amapola wasn’t yet sister. And, and it was that when she was just just turning 20 When she came up to the ranch, this crazy ranch and I will show you a few photos from that at the, at the at the little fellowship at the little gathering we’ll have afterwards, but 20 years old, and she came up to this little ranch and poor little Hermitage and filled with spiders and scorpions and stuff like that. And has been faithful through all the trials of these 25 years, 25 plus years. And Mother Magdalene, who it was 50 years ago, when she joined also very young join the Dominican Sisters trying to follow the Lord’s call and her community like a lot of other communities was going through all sorts of turmoil, and all sorts of struggles in those years, and which she suffered a lot during that time. And, and then the Lord called her to this crazy little thing that we were talking about this openness to prophetic messages. And that’s what drew her and then finally, you know, sensing the Lord was talking in a special way. And then then led her to also from Monterey to the ranch to do this, and so very, so this day, as we look back and give thanks to Lord, for this mission, it’s giving thanks also in particular, for Sister Amapola, and Mother Magdalene, and all these years of fidelity throughout many storms. And so we’re about to celebrate Thanksgiving, in our country, in this day is a special day of thanksgiving for us for all the graces the Lord has poured out. And for all the graces of through all of you and all the others who have been apart. I think there’s some folks here today that we are that we’re very grateful that we’d see you’d come in coming today, it’s been a while they’ve said there’s some people who haven’t been here since we still had mulch on the floor here. So that’s been a while. So very, very helpful to see, so very grateful for your presence. Because this little mission, it’s been by the grace of God. But it’s been that grace, also acting through all the prayers and sacrifices of so many you all and so many others, and of your friendship and encouragement, because sometimes we need that encouragement, of your work, your all sorts of work and also financial support. So all of those are ways that God has sustained this little mission. And so it’s giving thanks for all of that. But it’s also giving thanks for something more mysterious for giving thanks for the Parousia, the intervention, the special action the Lord, that is still to come. When will that be? Where will that be? I don’t know. But I think that’s kind of like a secret of this little mission. secret that we share with you that it’s been a long, difficult, painful, like desert of preparation. But that’s often the way the Lord acts in Scripture preparing things through a lot of sacrifices and a lot of waiting, and a lot of trials. And but I think preparing for great mercies that are to come. And we pray that our little mission can be an all the sacrifices and that all have contributed can be kinda like a preparation for this the what the Lord will do. So the Lord is coming his Parousia is coming, and that gives us hope and inspires us to use this time well, and our little mission is, wants to be one of the little preparations of that Parousia of that visitation of that intervention of His manifestation, a new Pentecost an outpouring of His mercy. And so this Mass that we’re celebrating today is part of our Thanksgiving and also preparation called Come, Lord Jesus. And so with our Blessed Mother, today we pray, come, Lord Jesus, Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Thessalonians 5:1-6
Matthew 25:14-30