33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time-World Day of the Poor
Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
World Day of the Poor
Morning Masses 8.30 & 10.15am Evening 6pm
St Peter's Catholic Church SS9 4BX
Eastwood Parish Leigh on Sea
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Next Weekday Ordinariate Use Mass 7.30pm
Wednesday 20th November-Transferred from Tuesday this week
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Scott Hahn Reflects on the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, Francesco Hayez, 1867
Readings:
Malachi 3:19–20
Psalm 98:5–9
2 Thessalonians 3:7–12
Luke 21:5–19
It is the age between our Lord’s first coming and His last. We live
in the new world begun by His life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension,
by the sending of His Spirit upon the Church. But we await the day when
He will come again in glory.
“Lo, the day is coming,” Malachi warns in today’s First Reading. The
prophets taught Israel to look for the Day of the Lord, when He would
gather the nations for judgment (see Zephaniah 3:8; Isaiah 3:9; 2 Peter 3:7).
Jesus anticipates this day in today’s Gospel. He cautions us not to
be deceived by those claiming “the time has come.” Such deception is the
background also for today’s Epistle (see 2 Thessalonians 2:1–3).
The signs Jesus gives His Apostles seem to already have come to pass
in the New Testament. In Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation, we read of
famines and earthquakes, the Temple’s desolation. We read of
persecutions—believers imprisoned and put to death, testifying to their
faith with wisdom in the Spirit.
These “signs,” then, show us the pattern for the Church’s life—both in the New Testament and today.
We too live in a world of nations and kingdoms at war. And we should
take the Apostles as our “models,” as today’s Epistle counsels. Like
them we must persevere in the face of unbelieving relatives and friends,
and forces and authorities hostile to God.
As we do in today’s Psalm, we should sing His praises, joyfully
proclaim His coming as Lord and King. The Day of the Lord is always a
day that has already come and a day still yet to come. It is the “today”
of our Liturgy.
The Apostles prayed marana tha—“O Lord come!” (see 1 Corinthians 16:22; Revelation 22:20).
In the Eucharist He answers, coming again as the Lord of hosts and the
Sun of Justice with its healing rays. It is a mighty sign—and a pledge
of that Day to come.
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