Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord today. We welcome guest reader Deacon Eric Bissette.
Deacon Eric is a beloved spiritual leader in his home parishes of the Diocese of Rochester, New York.
Little Book's listeners will recognize Deacon Eric as a regular narrator for our daily reflections.
And now, here is today's Gospel and Homily.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Luke.
While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, all that you see here, the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.
Then they asked him, teacher, when will this happen and what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?
He answered, see that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, I am he and the time has come.
Do not follow them.
When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.
Then he said to them, nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be powerful earthquakes, famines and plagues from place to place, and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.
Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you.
They will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of My name.
It will lead to you giving testimony.
Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.
You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death.
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.
The Gospel of the Lord in this scripture, Jesus talks first about the end of the temple and the siege of Jerusalem.
Then he talks about the end of the world.
The people were confused and it creates a natural question.
If all of this is going to go up in smoke, why are we trying to improve it?
I'd like to address that question, and the answer lies in the virtue of hope.
But we need to talk first about God.
We can, without intending to trivialize God, and think of God as someone who is a person but much better than us.
But God's beyond all the categories.
God's a person but beyond the category of a person.
And God is living, but beyond our category of life.
God is totally, otherly, completely beyond.
As Jesuit priest and theologian Karl Rahner would say, God is a totally incomprehensible mystery. So far beyond.
The virtue of hope is one of our greatest virtues.
It's not about finite things. It's about God.
And hope is an outrageous virtue.
If God is totally outside the categories, totally beyond, totally incomprehensible, then there is no way we who are created can.
[00:04:30] Speaker C: Can connect with God or fully relate to God.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: It's like a square circle.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: But because we have hope, we can truly connect with God.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: That's why it's outrageous.
[00:04:44] Speaker C: You can never explain it.
It's not based on hearsay.
It's not based on doctrine.
It's based on experience.
God, through God's gift, relates to me.
And God became flesh.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Hope is the virtue.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: It's the movement in us in response to the experience of this God.
So it's way more than optimism. It's way more than positive thinking.
It's the surest thing we can have to say, this is true, and that we shall ultimately be fully embraced by God.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Now that leads us to our involvement in this world.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: Because the two things directly opposite of hope are presumption and despair.
Presumption is to make absolute what I think ought to be to make absolute.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Any condition in this world, whatever form of government you think is best, whatever.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: Social system you think is best, or whatever else you think is best.
To simply make that an absolute.
That's presumption.
It means there's nothing better than what I can see, what I understand, what I agree with, that could lead to tyranny. Because I know the best way, and that's the way it's gonna be.
The opposite vice is despair.
Nothing matters.
It's all doomsday.
This is all going to be sunk into the great abyss.
And there's nothing worthwhile here.
And in a way, that's how religion becomes the opium of the people.
You believe in some distant hope, but it has nothing to do with the reachableness of God by human beings or the God made flesh who is part of creation.
When we have an expansive view of who God is and don't try to trivialize or compartmentalize God or any part of creation.
The virtue of hope enables us to have lesser hopes. The great hope, of course, is the theological virtue.
But lesser hopes say we are in a constant pilgrimage towards God, and so is all creation.
And it's our task always to be part of the pilgrimage and not opt out because it's all doom.
It's the hope that drives us to what we are about and gives us the freedom even to take great risks.
Risk of being misunderstood, risk of being hated, risk of dying, risk of failing in what we truly believe is a better way but can't bring it about immediately.
We express our hope here at Eucharist when we come and when we place everything in the Lord's hands on the altar, we say we join with you.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: And we give ourselves all our hopes.
[00:07:45] Speaker C: All our energies tonight. Tomorrow we give it all to God.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Which we could never do alone, but.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: We do it by joining with the Lord on the cross.
And so what I've said about hope pales in what we should do as we give ourselves individually and collectively, entirely to the great God with whom Jesus Christ joins us.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us today.
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