29 November 2025 — Saturday of the 34th week of Ordinary Time
Dan 7:15-27; Luke 21:34-36
Homily
The most momentous event in the history of humanity is the one we will celebrate at the end of Advent, which begins tomorrow: the moment when God took on one of his creatures by becoming man. When God manifested himself as man in Jesus of Nazareth, all of humanity was taken on. A seed of divine life was placed in the heart of humanity. The ‘Son of Man’ mentioned in the Gospel text we have just heard is not simply the Messiah, the little child born of Mary, but also every man, every human person, humanity itself.
The final message of Jesus' great eschatological discourse, the main part of which we have just read, is not a call to fear, resignation or anxiety. On the contrary, it is a call to hope and dignity.
As in many prophetic texts of the Old Testament, cosmic catastrophes are used by Jesus in this discourse as images of the violence between men, ever since Cain shed the blood of his brother Abel. Through these images, Jesus alluded to all the misery that the people of his time inflicted on each other through exploitation, slavery, wars and greed. And he announces that man – the ‘Son of Man’ – humanity is capable of breaking out of this cycle of self-destruction and will ultimately be clothed in all the greatness and glory attached to his dignity as a child of God. Today, if Jesus were to give us the same speech, he would mention not only the killings in Gaza, for example, but also the weapons of mass destruction that are the debt of poor countries to rich countries and the hunger that this debt causes, as well as the hoarding of most of the planet's resources by a small privileged minority. He would undoubtedly also mention the possibility that humanity has given itself to self-destruction.
And Jesus would not say, any more than he said to the Jews of his time, ‘hide yourselves in a corner and wait for someone to come and save you’, and even less: ‘accept a painful death in order to have eternal happiness in another world after death.’ No, he would say, today as then: ‘When all these events occur, at the very moment they occur, stand up straight and raise your heads.’ ‘ ’The powers of the heavens are shaken and wavering," he would say again, symbolically alluding to the tyrannical powers that have deified themselves. If you remain standing, awake, if you take care and do not let yourselves be weighed down by debauchery, drunkenness, the frantic pursuit of material goods, then not only will the dignity of the human being be manifested in facts, in history, but you will also be able to stand upright, in all your dignity, before God, who has become the ‘Son of Man’ par excellence.
True disciples of Jesus must be fearless, optimistic beings, because they have placed their trust in the Father of Jesus. But they are true optimists, not naive ones. They are optimists with both feet firmly planted on the ground, standing tall, with their heads held high, to see the face of God and hear his voice. These true disciples, standing tall with their heads held high, also roll up their sleeves to do their part in rebuilding, with the tools of love, the universe ravaged by the tools of hatred.
The liturgy of this last day of the liturgical year already announces what Advent will call us to do. We have a mission not only to watch and guard or to regain confidence, but also to restore to all our human brothers and sisters confidence in the extraordinary future to which humanity is invited by the Incarnation of the Son of God.
Armand Veilleux
- Memoria of Saint Francesco Antonio Fasani