Endurance

34th Week in Ordinary Time - Wednesday (28 November 2018)

Revelation 15:1-4. Psalm 98:1-3, 7-9. Luke 21:12-19.

“Not a hair of your head will be lost. Your endurance will win you your lives.”

The world scenario can discourage us deeply: the growing gap between the rich and the poor, poverty and even misery in many cases, the lack of education and health care in the greater part of the world, the increase of crimes or the growing prison population, the lack of political will in effective social interventions, the corruption among church, religious and political authorities, war, violence, strifes, the nuclear arms race, and so on. Why so much evil? Why so many conflicts? Why so much confusion in the world? We may have many similar questions on our world. We may even blame God for the suffering in the world.

God can be blamed in a way for all the evil and suffering in the world. Not for having caused them, but for having created us capable of doing evil. Of course, that's the part of the package. He created us humans as free beings, capable of the highest form of creativity and sacrifices, but also capable of the worst destruction and harm. God did not create us as machines. How boring and monotonous that would have been! God created us in love, and love is not love unless it's free.

Mind you, love protects us from nothing, we are exposed to everything. You don’t need much imagination to know that those who feel the need to work for justice—charged as they are by God’s Spirit—will get into difficulties in the world as the world is now. Jesus makes that very clear when he says, “You will be seized and persecuted; you will be handed over to governors for the sake of my name.” And he adds, “That will be your opportunity to bear witness.”

There are conflicts outside of us that we need to deal with. But (shockingly) all the conflicts and contradictions of life must find a resolution in us before we can resolve anything outside ourselves. Only the forgiven can forgive, only the healed can heal, only those who stand daily in need of mercy can offer mercy to others. At first it sounds simplistic and even individualistic, but it is precisely such transformed people who can finally effect profound and long-lasting social change. It has something to do with what we call quantum theology. The cosmos is mirrored in the microcosm. If we let the mystery happen in one small and true place, it moves from there! It is contagious, it is shareable, it reshapes the world.

In this project, Jesus promises that he won’t leave us alone: “I myself will give an eloquence and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist.” Our Lord is our guide, we need only to allow ourselves be guided. Isn't this perseverance or endurance after all? As Jesus tells us today, “Your perseverance will win you your lives,” and it can also change our world.

There's no point in saving the world if you can't be happy.