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In the homily last weekend, I mentioned that as the liturgical year draws to an end, the readings seem to get darker and heavier.  That’s certainly the case with today’s readings. Malachi, in that first reading, is speaking about evil doers being burned up while Jesus is mentioning earthquakes, famines, plagues, arrests, persecutions and family members betraying you.  Yet in the middle of all this darkness, Jesus says this will be your opportunity to testify.  Testify to what?  To light — a light that cannot be quenched no matter how much darkness surrounds it.  Light and faith are basically synonymous with each other, so much so, that we even speak of the “light of faith.”  Darkness, regardless of how it manifests itself in your life, can be the invitation to dig deeper into your faith and to use that faith as an anchor to get you through the storm.  So many times, during my lifetime, I’ve found myself saying, “Thank God for the little faith I have, otherwise I don’t know how I would have survived what I just survived.” 

We heard Jesus speaking about things that will fall apart, firstly the Temple and then seemingly the world.  For the Jewish people in Biblical times, the Temple was everything.  It was the earthly center point of their faith; everything revolved around the Temple—spiritually, socially, and economically.  It must have been shocking to their ears when Jesus said that the day was coming, very soon, when not one stone of the Temple will be left upon another.  He was right, for in the year 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed the Temple.  It would be like Jesus strolling into our church building and say, “Don’t get too attached to this; it will all be reduced to rubble by the end of the week.” 

But apart from Temples and church buildings coming to an end, and apart from the world coming to an end, we are more concerned about what is most immediate.  When we get a bad diagnosis from our doctor, or financial disaster strikes, or a marriage comes to a crashing halt, we often find ourselves saying, “My world has just come crashing down.”  It doesn’t have to be the world that goes off the track; it just has to be my world. 

I think most of you are familiar with St. Paul’s Hymn to Love.  This hymn is part of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and you’ve heard it at many weddings and some funerals.  It’s the part where Paul speaks about everything falling apart and coming to an end.  But for Paul, the end is not the end.  When everything else comes to its natural end, three things will endure it all: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.  I don’t think Paul is just stating a fact.  I think he’s telling us to lean on faith, hope, and love to guide us through the darkest moment of your life.  These will never let you down. 

Here’s the thing, though. I think that before love can be the guiding light through any darkness, we all go through a period of endurance.  We have to master endurance before we can apprentice ourselves to love.  In other words, sometimes I have to endure people before I can love them.  Some people I can endure for about 15 minutes, and then I have to get out of the room just to preserve my sanity.  That is far from the love Jesus is asking of me and even farther from love of enemy.  Some of you I can hack for about a half an hour, now.  Hey, don’t knock it—a half an hour is a big improvement over 15 minutes. Having said that, I don’t think Jesus is naïve, nor do I think he expects us to master the game of love instantaneously, just because he asked us to. 

He told us that if we endured, we would gain our souls.  He doesn’t ask us to do the impossible, only our best.  Isn’t that what he did on the Cross?  He endured.  On the Cross, Jesus didn’t thrive.  There was no great sound and light show at any point during his crucifixion.  Nor, was there any booming voice from heaven saying, “I told you he was my son!” What was there, instead? Endurance. Perseverance. He literally hung in there when there was no good reason to do so.  Yet, through sheer endurance, I believe he gained his soul. 

I have been fortunate, in my lifetime, to have numerous people model the virtue of endurance for me. They bear witness to the light and never let the darkness get the better of them. 

I wish I could track down a story I heard about a particular elderly couple. From memory it goes something like this.  In the fall, a really old couple were planting tulip bulbs.  A young man stopped and asked them why, at this stage of their lives, they were bothering to plant flowers at all.  And then he added, “No offense, but at your age, you might not even be around to enjoy these flowers next spring when they finally bloom.”  The couple responded, without taking offense, that the young man was probably right.  Then they told him, “The seed never sees its flower.  If it’s OK for the seed not to see its flower, it’s OK for us.  If we don’t see the flower next spring–because we’re not around– others will, and that’s good enough for us.”  The young man learned a lesson about the value of endurance itself. 

You might remember a popular writer in the 1970s named Dr. Leo Buscaglia.  He taught a popular, none-credit course at U.C.L.A. simply called Love 101.  He wrote 14 books all on the topic of love.  (One of the books was a children’s book call The Fall of Freddie the Leaf dealing with love, life, and death that children could handle).  In one of his books, he wrote this; it reminds me of the virtue of endurance.

He wrote, “All of us were schooled in the tradition of learning admirable traits by studying inspiring examples of courage and persistence.  When we did this, we found that as long as there have been wars, there have also been peacemakers; as long as we have been plagued with disease, there have also been healers.  As long as there was pain and confusion, there were scientists and other researchers laboring to find solutions; and as long as there was ignorance in the world, there were always willing teachers to help and guide us toward greater enlightenment.”

Your world might be falling apart.  The world might be falling apart. “But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

Fr. Phil Mulligan