by Fr. Antonius Firmansyah, SJ
Homily: Thirty-Third Sunday In Ordinary time
Do you remember the feeling every time we have to face this thing called the “exam period”? The words can give us that feeling of worrying, of anxiety, and most probably also a feeling of wanting to get rid of the burden of preparation. Most of the time, before the exam comes, we asked our teacher: what would be asked in the examʼs questions? In other words, we want to prepare only what is needed for the exams. But is this the point of having exams? Why do we need exams in our life? Some say we do need exam to measure quantitatively the result of our study. For efficiency purpose in education, probably we do need this measurement to a certain extent. However, let’s not forget that we also need to measure ourselves qualitatively because this will tell us about the realities of our dedication, of our perseverance, and most of all, of our capacity to love selflessly the object of our study. For educational purpose we may rely mostly on quantitative score to measure these qualities. But in our daily life, our qualities as a person created by God are recognized through the realities of our ability to have faith, to build hope based on that faith and to witness the love of God we received every day.
Jesus reminds us in the Gospel today that eventually what we need to do in life is to prepare ourselves to welcome God in our lives. We cannot ask God: when will you come? What question will you ask me when you come? What shall I prepare to answer that question of yours? These are the question we ask to our teachers before the exam. But we cannot ask them to God. We cannot categorize God’s coming as if it is the final examination period of our life. Why? Precisely because God does not come to judge us. God does not come in the end to give us the quantitative score for our life in this earth. God comes to be with those who recognize God as their creator. Thus, our whole life in this world itself is the judge of our final moments. Did we prepare ourselves to recognize God who is always offering graces to us in our daily lives? In this regard, Jesus is our guide to help us recognizing God as our benevolent creator. Jesus will teach us about how to live our faith, how to build hope based on that faith, and how to become a witness of God’s love we received in our lives.
If we savor the readings of today, from the First Reading, to the Responsory Psalm, to the Second Reading until the Gospel, we can feel how our faith, hope and charity is guiding the realities our lives closer to the realities of God. The First Reading speaks about the faith testimony of Daniel about God whose promise is to save those whom God recognize as God’s people. The Responsorial Psalm reveals the promise of hope that we can build in our complicated lives towards God’s own promise of salvation. The Second Reading reveals about Jesus as the true priest who testified about God’s eternal love through his selfless act on the cross and the resurrection. And finally, the Gospel reading concluded this movement through Jesus’ teaching which reveals the direction of this dynamic movement of faith, hope, and charity in our live. Jesus revealed that all of the learnings, all of the preparation to recognize God we continue to make in our lives will lead us to the act of true surrendering to the Father in heaven. He said, “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Let’s be vigilant not because we want to be found prestigious by God. Let’s be vigilant because we want to be found worthy as God’s children in the Kingdom of God.
by Fr. Antonius Firmansyah, SJ