Recently, I have been thinking a lot about my late grandmother. She even came to me in several vivid dreams. She and I were very close. Our family lived next door to her until I was 7. And when we moved it was just a few blocks away. This allowed for frequent visits, including Sunday dinners. Interestingly, my recent thoughts and dreams about her have mostly been related to the end times.
With everything that is going on in our world, I am sure that had my grandmother been alive she would declare with some degree of certainty that the end of the world was at hand. That is what she did in response to disasters during her lifetime. My grandmother had an apocalyptic outlook on life, undoubtedly shaped by her experience as a child during World War I and then having lived through World War II as an adult, mother of three young daughters and with a husband locked away in a workcamp in Germany.
Whenever I read about another natural disaster, a mass shooting or a new war erupting somewhere in the world I think of my grandmother, and I am tempted to lean into her apocalyptic worldview. And indeed, it can all seem a bit overwhelming: raging forest fires; disastrous droughts; destructive hurricanes, typhoons, floods and landslides are devastating our planet. While gun violence, mass shootings, religious and racial violence threaten society. In the face of all of this it may seem like the prophecies of the Book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse are being realized. This may cause us to despair or to throw our hands up in the air as we feel completely helpless in the face of so much evil and such great suffering.
And yet, to us Christians, the woes of our world should not be interpreted as a sign of the impending apocalypse but rather they are an increasingly urgent invitation to make a difference and work toward a better world, a world as God imagined for us.
The celebration of the liturgy, especially the Eucharist, is a strong antidote to all the evils in the world. In the liturgy we are rehearsed in what it means to be prophets of peace, messengers of mercy and heralds of hope. These may not be virtues in the eyes of this world, but they surely are in the eyes of God and in the eyes of true followers of Jesus Christ.
I often think of the liturgy as the hands of God who molds us into being more like Christ, Sunday after Sunday, Year after year.
The second reading from the letter of James for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time offers us an insight into what causes all the woes in our world: jealousy, selfish ambitions, passions, and coveting what one does not possess. While in the first reading from the Book of Wisdom gentleness and patience are said to be virtues of those who are just, and who are constantly tested by the wicked one.
In the Gospel, St. Mark recounts how the apostles fell prey to one of the most human temptations of all as they bicker over who is the greatest among them. This desire or need to be the greatest is the root cause of so many woes in our world. Jesus offers the perfect antidote to this urge by giving us a definition of what it means to be the greatest or the first: “if anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” One of the most powerful manifestations of this was at the Last Supper when Jesus, the master and teacher washed the feet of his disciples commanding them and us to wash one another’s feet, a powerful symbol of how we are to serve one another.
As we give in to despair, we may wonder why, after more than 2000 years of Christianity the world still suffers from the same woes as we did in the time of Jesus. Is it because we are unwilling to embrace the fact that the greatest among us are the ones who are the servants of all? Is it because we do not value the virtues of patience and gentleness and give in to the temptations of jealousy, selfish ambitions, and passions? Is it because we have not embraced Jesus’ command to wash one another’s feet?
My dear grandmother is probably smiling as she remembers her apocalyptic thoughts and now knows better. I am grateful for her presence in my thoughts and dreams as she is quietly nudging me not to give into the temptation of despair, but rather to follow Jesus’ command and to start washing the feet of others. No matter how counter-cultural this may be, the only path to a better world is the path of humility and service. As Christians, that is the path we are to follow. It is the path the liturgy, especially the Eucharist or Holy Sacrifice invites us to follow. And it is the perfect antidote to the ills in our world.