Safety from the Fires

Homily from Sunday at Saint Therese Old Catholic Church


The Readings we have heard at Mass over the last few weeks have been less then uplifting. Next weekend the Church celebrates the Solemnity if Christ the King, the last day of the Liturgical year, and the following Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, which begins the new year in the Liturgical life of the Church. As a result these last weeks of the current year, the readings focus on the end of time, the last days. At first glance, these readings are quite unsettling, but if we look closely, they are actually full of hope.

When reading the readings of the weekend, I was reminded of a story I once heard about a man who lived with his daughter in a Canadian Prairie. Prairie fires began to spread through the region, and the man came up with a very clever idea. He started a fire of his own, burning everything in the area. When the fire was out, he took his daughter to the center of that area, and remained there, so that when the Prairie fires drew near, they would stop when they reached his location, as everything that could burn had already been burnt, making it the safest place in the region.

The Gospel today talks about “mighty signs from the sky”, earthquakes, plagues, nation rising against nation, and the list goes on. But towards the end, Jesus gives us some words of hope. “You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives”

You see God has already burned everything that can burn, so to speak. He has already secured that safe place for us to hide from the prairie fires that burn around us. He sent His only Son to Earth, who suffered and died on the Cross so that we could have salvation. If we persevere through the challenges, and attacks of this life, we will be rewarded with eternal happiness in heaven.

The reality of it is, we don’t go through life with this mindset naturally. When the pressures and stress of everyday life is bearing down on us, we don’t say to ourselves, “well, these things are only in this life, what really matters is getting to heaven”, because the cold reality of it is, such thoughts don’t pay the bills, or fix the leaky roof, or repair the car battery, or keep the heat on, or fix the broken relationships.

Tomorrow the Church commemorates Saint Albert the Great. He was a Dominican Philosopher and Theologian, who died in the year 1280. The good Dominican that he was, he wrote extensively about the Eucharist. Of this wonderful Sacrament, he said, ”Nor could he have commanded anything which is more like eternal life. Eternal life flows from this sacrament because God with all sweetness pours himself out upon the blessed.”

Albert hit’s the nail on the head. Every Sunday we gather here as a community of faith, and come forward to receive this great Sacrament, and when we do, we find ourselves in that place of safety with our father. We are like that little girl, embraced by her father in the safest place possible, where the fires cannot burn any closer because everything has already burnt that can burn. We get a taste of eternal life, as we receive the Body and Blood of the Lord hidden in the form of bread and wine.

This great Sacrament may not put out the fires, it may not pay the bills, or fix all our problems, but what it DOES do, is give us the grace that we need to face the fires of everyday life. You see when we receive the Eucharist, we become active participants in what Theologians have called, “the Christ Event”. We stand at the crib in Bethlehem, we stand at the foot of the Cross at Calvary, and we stand before His throne in Heaven.

My dear friends as these last weeks of Ordinary time pass by, I would invite you to treasure this precious moment of safety with our Father. When we receive this Eucharist today, let’s take a moment to bask in the reality of the situation. When we leave here today, we return to the real world, where the Providence Place Mall would tell us that Christmas is already upon us, and the headaches and heartaches of life taunt us regularly. This week when the real world pushes down on us, let’s all commit to return to this moment of safety with our Father, so we can rely on the grace we receive today, then we can stand proudly and really believe that these fires will not harm us, because everything that can be burnt has been burnt already

God Bless You!