Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we celebrate the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Opening Prayer Grant us we pray, O Lord our God, the constant gladness of being devoted to you, for it is full and lasting happiness to serve with constancy the author of all that is good, the Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the book of Daniel, 12th chapter, first through the third verse. In those days I, Daniel, heard this word of the Lord. At that time there shall arise Michael the great Prince, guardian of your people. It shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time. At that time your people shall escape everyone who is found written in the Book.

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. Some shall live forever others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever. The Word of the Lord Responsorial Psalm you are my inheritance, O Lord, O Lord, my allotted portion of my cup. You it is, who hold fast my lot. I set the Lord before me.

With him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. You are my inheritance, O Lord. Therefore my heart is glad my soul rejoices. My body too abides in confidence, because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption. You are my inheritance, O Lord. You will show me the path to life, fullness of joy in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.

You are my inheritance, O Lord. A Reading from the New Testament from the Letter to the Hebrews 10:11 14 Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same questions that can never take away sins. But this one offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God. Now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool. By one offering he is made perfect forever. Those who are being consecrated, where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin.

The Word of the Lord Alleluia verse Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man. The gospel for this 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Mark 13:24 32. Jesus said to his disciples in those days after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is near at the gates. Amen. I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

But of the day or the hour, no one knows. Neither the angels in heaven nor the sun, but only the Father. The Gospel of the Lord We’ve come to the end of ordinary time, and next Sunday we will celebrate the feast of Christ the King. So in a sense, this is the last chance I have to summarize, if I can think I could do that, summarize the thoughts of this amazing story of what God wants us to understand and what he wants us to see. And the funny thing, or not funny so much, but the interesting thing to me is the way the end of each year comes, always a cataclysmic event. It’s like everything is going to be exposed and broken open and the sky is falling and the earth is opening up and devouring those who didn’t really produce very much to please God.

And all these end of the world kind of images. And that’s very, very dangerous. Because this is not about the end of the world. It’s about the end of a way of seeing God. The New Testament is so radical, so much a departure from the Old Testament, that when one opens one’s heart to it, when one’s open one’s imagination, what is going to happen is there’s this falling apart of a whole system that we’ve created around us. And that system is fundamentally a binary system of right and wrong, good and evil, saved and unsaved, dividing the world into two parts.

And you know, it’s interesting that the Old Testament is designed and was always designed well. All of God’s revelations are perfectly timed for where human nature is. And you have to go back 4,000 years ago to get a sense of what the people were like. When Abraham was asked by God to call a people together, it was the Bronze Age. And that Bronze Age was a time when the Alphabet, or I should say written language, was finally put together so people could write stories and not just have them as oral traditions. I think the wheel was even discovered during that time, or at least came into use very much.

So human beings 4000 years ago, when this God began to reveal to himself who he is, they were pretty simple people, much like children compared to the consciousness that we have today. So it makes total sense that the thing that he would do is create a world in which there would be a kind of simple message that fit their brains, their understanding at the time. And when we’re younger, we understand things in a very simple binary way. When you’re two years old, you understand that your parents are going to tell you yes or no about what you do, good or bad. Good little boy, you ate your food. Bad little boy.

Well, you’re not supposed to say bad little boy to children. But anyway, you might say you’re starting chewing on something that’s going to make you sick. Okay, bad, bad, bad. Don’t do that. So it’s very, very much a part of the way in which we are evolving and growing in a relationship with a God who was hidden for so many centuries. There were always gods around and they were always mean kind of characters that demanded a lot of attention.

And they were very, I would say, not very compassionate. So what I think we have to understand very vividly is that when Jesus comes into the world and describes a world that is based in not binary, black and white, right and wrong, but in some kind of incredibly mysterious world that is filled with not so much justice. And that’s one way to talk about binary world. It’s right or it’s wrong, you go to jail or you’re acquitted or whatever. No, but it’s this new world of mercy. Mercy, you know, what is that?

Mercy? Well, the interesting thing about mercy to me is that it has this quality about it that is so nurturing and so life giving. And so when I’m thinking about what it is that is so shattering to the world, When Jesus is finally fully revealing who he is, we have that image in the first reading about this work that has to be done for human beings to be freed from sin, and that sins are the great downfall of human beings. And. Well, let me go back to the opening prayer is what I really wanted to say. Because that opening prayer is so beautiful when it says, I am so, so delighted and it’s so fulfilling for me to work for someone who is so, so good.

And as a priest, you perhaps as a parent, as a person who struggles with ideas in their head that are sometimes unacceptable. We fall into the trap of the binary world that is in the way that God is imagined by us, where he is judgmental and angry and condemning when we aren’t really fulfilling what we’re supposed to do. And when you think about that, that is the way the Old Testament is written. I mean, in the book of Deuteronomy, which we looked at last week, you know, there’s that image of God being the God who said, I want you to love me with all your heart and with all your mind, with all your soul. And then I want you to go into a new land. In the next chapter, he says, and this new land is owned by another tribe, and you’re going to get rid of them and you’re going to get all the things that they built, which doesn’ really sound fair.

And you kick all those people out. And then God goes on to say, and if you don’t, if they don’t leave, then kill them, destroy them. Because if you leave them and they stay in that particular place, then they are going to infiltrate into your way of seeing me and they’re going to rob you of who I’m really trying to tell you who I am. And so if you do that, I’ll kill you. And to us, that sounds so awful, but to the people at the time, that was what gods did. And so the God of Israel, the God that is, had to reveal himself like the other gods in order to get our attention, so that he can Slowly, slowly, over 2,000 years, get them ready from the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus, to get them ready to understand who he really is.

And he’s the God of mercy. He’s the God that says, if somebody strikes you on one side of your cheek, then turn and offer him the other. If they come in and rob you and take things away, then run after them and say, you didn’t get this also. I mean, it’s such a radical change. That’s why the Images in these final times of the church. Here is always about the sky is falling and everything is falling apart.

And what it is, is that binary system is being destroyed. And you take away a binary world from people who are living in it. These are the things you have to do, these are the things you should never do. And you cloud that with, well, sometimes that’s wrong. Well, but what about the intention? What about the person engaged in this struggle?

What about human conscience? These are things that a binary world goes nuts over. In fact, you can look at an extremely conservative religious person and they have this almost this. You get the feeling sometimes when you talk to them, they’re almost happy when they can say those people are all going to be condemned, they’re all going to burn in hell and we’re not, we’re going to be saved and we’re the loved ones. God loves us because we do everything right. And you know how God feels about righteousness, how Jesus talked about it in the New Testament.

He basically said, you know, that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for somebody who has developed and grown into some kind of perfect person and doing everything. Think of the rich man when he came to Jesus and said, look, I’ve done everything. I have followed every single rule and every single law. And he must have been so confident and so full of himself. And what I love about Jesus response to that was he just said, you know, God love you, I love you.

I know that you think you’re really doing the best thing possible, but you’re so far from the kingdom because basically the issue is not in making yourself into someone who is perfect, but as being free of all those external ideals that don’t really have anything to do with a heart that is receptive and open to a presence of God that wants to live inside of you and through you. Offer life, goodness to those who are in the darkest places. Your we are here in, in this world to do this work of ministering to those who are not achieving greatness and fullness. Isn’t it funny how you look at the. The whole focus of the ministry of Jesus went to the people who were in most need of what Understanding, compassion, mercy. And you know, you look back at the time that Jesus walked the earth and you look at the way the Old Testament had formed them and it was so incredibly off center for what Jesus wants people to see.

If you were a believing Jew and you were following all the rules and laws and you saw somebody who was on the side of the Road, you know, in trouble, and you knew they were not following the rules and laws, you were obligated not to go near them. If you were a believing Jew and someone who God really, you know, was favoring, you would walk past that person because they weren’t worth anything. And it was because God was punishing them. Everyone who had negative experiences in life were being punished by a God. Well, if you take that system of a punishing God, a God that loves you, who follows every regulation, every rule, and you find comfort in that. And then comes Jesus and starts revealing this message.

And all the negative, horrible things that are described at the end times, they’re not about the end of the world. They’re about the end of the binary world of the Old Testament at the end of that kind of oversimplified division of all things. And what God is saying, when you let go of that, you have nothing. If that’s the thing that holds your life together, then it’s like the. The sky is falling, you know, and the light that you thought was so bright and so clear for you is all of a sudden dark. That is the death that Jesus talks about in the New Testament.

Unless you die to that old system, you can’t find the life that is your inheritance. Wow, that’s really, really different. And why is it that people are so drawn to that binary world? What is it about it that is so seductive? And I think it’s simply that it feeds the mind and the mind works in a binary way. And so the mind understands either or.

But you know what? The message of Jesus, this message that I long to share with you week after week, is not something that I want you to be listening with your mind. And there’s nothing wrong with the mind. It’s absolutely essential tool. If we don’t have it, we’d be mush and all that kind of stuff. But no, but think about it.

It’s the heart that I’m talking to. It’s the heart that understands this world of mercy, compassion, empathy. The mind has really a hard time with it. And so what I’m asking you to do and reflect with me at the end of this year, when we’ve been listening to Mark through his whole memory of this Jesus figure, what he’s really trying to, what he would want. If you could talk to Mark right now and say, we’re still listening to your message, I think it’s fascinating to think about Mark and the evangelists and who they are thinking of. They’re listening to my story again.

Here’s another congregation listening to the story. I hope they get it. I hope they get what I meant. But what he would want them to know is that I am talking to your heart, not your mind. And it’s so interesting when you find someone who is rigidly living in a binary world. I don’t know if you bring a problem to them or you ask them to give you some advice.

It just always seems so sharp edged and hurts because in it is always an unconscious condemnation that why haven’t you done it right? And the expectation that you and I are supposed to be doing everything right. That we’re supposed to be sinless, we’re not supposed to have sexual drives, we’re not supposed to have a desire to break a promise, we’re not supposed to want to lie, we’re not supposed to want to dishonor people, that we should honor that. We’re not supposed to have that. No, that’s human nature. That’s who we are.

And when you start with human beings with this kind of demanding, a certain kind of rigid adherence to an external law, and that’s all that we’re allowed to be in a relationship with somebody who also is following that law. Meaning that if you’re not doing it, you’re kicked out. Just like in the Old Testament, that’s the way it was considered. If you were not one of the in members, you were an outsider and outsiders were valueless without any value. That’s so amazing that we could actually get into a way of thinking that when somebody isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, they are of no value. When it’s New Testament.

When you understand the message of Jesus, you understand that his major role, the thing he came into the world to do is to finish and complete the message of the Old Testament. And the references to him in the Old Testament are so many that you cannot begin to imagine that the story of the Old Testament is not connected to the story of Jesus. It’s all there, it’s all predicted, it’s all there. So that if you’re following the story carefully, you’re seeing this slow evolution of change and growth. And it brings one into the moment where that catastrophic shift is not going to be so impossible. I know people today that when you talk about mercy in the individual conscience, the right of every human being that Vatican II so supported to make their own moral choices, when it’s not something black and white, a binary issue, it’s not something you can say, well, if I do this, it’s all going to work out.

If I don’t do that, it’s all going to fall apart. Or if I do the other thing, it’s all going to fall apart. I mean, that’s not the way the world is. It’s always. And I don’t want to just oversimplify it by saying it’s the lesser of two evils, but that’s part of it goes into it. But when we have that strict, strict binary world, then there’s something, I would say that’s.

What’s the word I want? Abusive. Abusive to the dignity and the beauty of an individual who comes into this world and is affected by everything that has happened to them. And they end up being strong in certain areas and weak in others. It’s not necessary they chose those directions of their life. But when they’re in that situation of growing in consciousness of who they really are, they flourish in an environment of mercy, mercy, not a binary world of judgment of right or wrong and condemnation.

So it’s amazing to me that we have so many struggles today, even on every issue where people are divided and separated. And it’s one thing to be divided and separated over an issue, over what we believe, but why is it along with that in the brain that we come up with this idea of condemnation? And I think you could say, well, you get it from the Old Testament, it’s all over the Old Testament. So we get it in a sort of a way that reminds us that that’s part of what human nature is like when it’s not fully developed and not evolved far enough. And if we think that the world should be all fully developed and this life that we’re called to live as believers in a God who longs to use us to help other people, if we think that it’s all supposed to been done by now, we should still be working on all these problems. No, no, it’s always going to be that tension between a binary world and the world of mercy is always going to be there because we’re generation after generation that come into this world.

And what a joy that opening prayer says to all of us when he says it’s so wonderful and so valuable and life giving to work for a God that is good, to work for a God that is good. So when somebody is working for a God that is judgmental and demeaning and demanding and threatening, you know that you’re not in the right place. So God bless this world that you and I have grown to understand. The world of mercy, the world of understanding and compassion and our challenge is just to live it in the midst of judgment and condemnation, not play their game, but live as God has called us to live. Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show.

Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations. By listening just like you, you can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey.

Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.