Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111112.cfm

MSF Picnic
2012

Just as it is appointed that human beings die once,
and after this the judgment, so also Christ,
offered once to take away the sins of many,
will appear a second time, not to take away sin
but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.

On September 4, 1971 I said to an older friar, "I'm kind of nervous about taking my Solemn Vows today." He replied, "What's the big deal? I took mine forty years ago!" 

Forty-one years later, I see what he meant. I might say to that young man, "So you have something better you want to do with the one life you're given?" 

When I was young life seemed full of opportunities. Today I hear about "bucket lists," things people should want to do before they die. And, yes, there are a few things I might do given a bucket of inexhaustible credit cards and world enough and time. 

But my life is so full of invitations and challenges already; I'm like a kid in a candy shop, I just can't take all the excellent opportunities that are already close at hand. 
Jesus put it to Martha, "Only one thing is necessary." 

You shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And, love your neighbor as yourself. 

That sounds like two things but it's really only one. 

Jesus has been described as "the man who was born to die." But we're all born to die to ourselves. Like Jesus we do it each day as we practice our faith and make our sacrifices. 

Jesus was thunderstruck with amazement when he saw the old widow giving her small copper coins. He knew she was giving the last of her substance to the Lord. He saw the Fat Cats ostentatiously tossing in their disposable funds as they tallied up their charitable deductions. And he knew that she saw them also. If she was not distressed by their asinine displays, he would not be either. 

The moment of his own sacrifice was approaching; he had arrived in Jerusalem. He had received only one human life; it was his to offer once to take away the sins of the many. 

He would not have another turn at it, as the Hindus like to think. Reincarnation is nonsense. 

There would not be another hour. Finishing the Last Supper he would say, "Father, the hour has come." The History of Salvation must be satisfied during that third hour, when every drop of blood and water would be drained from his body. As terrible as it seemed, it was no worse than the old woman's donation of two copper coins, "everything she had to live on." 

MSF Picnic
2012

Jesus invites each of us to make the same sacrifice, each in his and her own way. Given our longer life expectancy, we may expect different careers, more opportunities and wider travels than first century evangelists. But each has only one life. At the end of his life, Saint Francis said of his life: 

I have done what was mine to do. May Christ show you what is yours to do."