The gospel today assures us that the end time will come.

Although no one knows the time or the hour, still it will come.

If we have merely been going with the flow of the world,

We could end up destroyed instead of being saved. 

  

St. Albert the Great, bishop and doctor

 ＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊    

2 John 4-9

I rejoiced greatly

On meeting some of your children who live in accordance with the truth, according to the command we have received from the Father. And now, I ask you, Lady – I write to you, not a new commandment, but that which we had, from the beginning – l ask you: let us love one another.

 

This is love: to walk according to his commandments. And this is the commandment: that you walk in love, as you have learned from the beginning.

 

Many deceivers have gone out into the world, people who do not acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, who came in the flesh. They are impostors and antichrists. Take care of yourselves, that you do not lose the fruit of your labors, but receive a perfect reward. Everyone who goes beyond, and does not remain within the teaching of Christ, does not have God. The one who remains in the teaching, has both the Father and the Son.

 

Ps 119:1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18  Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!

 

＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊     

Luke 17:26-37

As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be on the day the Son of Man comes. In those days people ate and drank and got married; but on the day Noah entered the ark, the flood came and destroyed them all. So it was in the days of Lot: people ate and drank, and bought and sold, and planted and built; but on the day Lot left Sodom, God made fire and sulfur rain down from heaven, which destroyed them all.

 

So will it be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, if you are on the rooftop, don't go down into the house to get your belongings; and if you happen to be in the fields, do not turn back. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever gives his life will be born again. I tell you, though two men are sharing the same bed, it might happen that one will be taken, and the other left; though two women are grinding meal together, one might be taken and the other left."

 

Then they asked Jesus, "Where will this take place, Lord?" And he answered, "Where the body is, there too will the vultures gather."

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"The Son of Man."

The early Christians, prior to the time when the Gospels were written, thought of an imminent Parousia, believing that the Lord Jesus would come soon. This understanding of the return of the Son of Man is reflected, for example, in the earlier letters of St. Paul. But by the time the Gospels came, there was already a common perception of the delayed Parousia.

 

This means that the Son of Man will surely return but as to when it will happen – no one knows. Today's Gospel teaches us this particular aspect of our faith. It compared the day of the Son of Man with the reality in the time of Noah. People were not prepared when the great flood came.

 

Furthermore, today's pericope accentuates the manner and the locus of the day of the Son of Man. The manner of the day of the Son of Man is characterized by urgency with the challenge to always be ready. The locus is described through the relationship of vultures with a dying body. Hence, the Son of Man will come at an hour we do not know so that we must be ready to respond when he comes, like the hungry vultures gathering around a dying body.