For the World is Passing Away

Pastor’s Column

3rd Sunday Ordinary Time

January 21, 2024

Brothers and sisters, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as if they didn’t have them, those weeping as if not weeping, those rejoicing as if not rejoicing, those buying as if not owning... for the world as we know it is passing away.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31 ~

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          Saint Paul wrote these haunting words almost 2000 years ago to people very much like you and me. Corinth was a big and very important port city on the Aegean Sea. On one of our previous pilgrimages we actually celebrated Mass right in the heart of ancient Corinth and I can tell you that the world and the people that St. Paul wrote to has indeed passed away. There is nothing left there now but magnificent ruins. 

          For the world as we know it is passing away. One wonders at times what will be left of our own civilization or the memory of our lives in 2000 years. Since the Corinthians built their grand buildings in stone, at least some of them have endured, albeit as ruins. Will anything be left to see of our electronic age? How long will our digital records last? 20 years? Will any of our grand edifices endure 2000 years of time as theirs have? Even now, our world is passing away, right before our eyes. Yesterday’s technological wonders are tomorrow’s trash. 

          For the world as we know it is passing away. Periodically the Lord will remind us of these facts: that we are not home yet, that literally everything we have is borrowed, that our very lives are in fact extremely vulnerable and fragile. God uses many and varied ways to drive this point home: through a sudden illness, a reversal of fortune, a lost job, a friend who is not there for us when we need them to be; on days when nothing seems to go our way, when our good intentions or hard work are misunderstood or unappreciated, when we are taken advantage of or when we are offended by something; when we are delayed or held up; when others are inconsiderate of our feelings or our opinion. 

          For the world as we know it is passing away. Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid trials like these, and yet it is essential that we be detached from the things of this world in order to be ready to embrace the one that is coming. The Lord just doesn’t want us to get too comfortable here, because this is not home, but only a waystation. Such contradictions are, in fact, essential to our spiritual growth.

          Seen from the Lord’s perspective in the scriptures, every illness, every loss, every denial of our own will is actually a very great grace, because through these means our Lord endeavors to prepare us for the world that is coming, the one that will not pass away, where such things do not exist -- the world that is truly our home.

Father Gary ~