Last weekend in my homily, I spoke about the importance of beautiful Church buildings as visible, external expressions of the internal beauty of the Body of Christ… how even the architectural grandeur of our basilicas and cathedrals is actually persuasive and tangible evidence for the Truth of the Catholic Faith…

And now in this Sunday’s gospel, we get sort of a reality check…

“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.’”

What a mood shift! The people were all busy saying: “Look how beautiful this Temple is! They’re oo-ing and aww-ing at the jewels and gold and furnishings — Look how glorious and strong and big this all is! Nothing can stop us! Nothing can ever beat us! We’re the Chosen People of God!

And Jesus says: “Yeah. But one day: This is all going to be destroyed.”

Now on one level, Jesus is referring to and prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD… when the Roman armies would lay siege to the Holy City for 4 months and ultimately reduce Jerusalem to rubble, including the Temple itself…  

Everything would happen exactly as Jesus predicted…

But we also know, that Scripture never operates only on one single level. There are layers of meaning stacked on top of one another… And so from that perspective, we can also say that “Jerusalem” is to be understood as a kind of microcosm of the entire world. Jesus’ words, therefore, are ALSO a prophecy about the end of the ENTIRE world… and even more shockingly… the Church on earth.

This is probably a big reality check for us.

Because when we see the massive basilicas and huge, vast structures of the Church… when we see the luxury and the beauty of the papacy, and the glory of the sacred liturgy and all the amazing artwork and institutions we have as Catholics — we might start to get the impression that the goal of Christianity is to sort of take over the whole world.

That because Jesus is in fact Lord, Christians are supposed to just keep on winning and winning and winning, until we somehow manage to stitch together a Giant Catholic Disneyland where there’s no more immorality, no more corruption, no more suffering, and no more worry. Everyone will be at peace. Nobody will cause any trouble. No more heresy or error or persecution or financial instability anywhere at all… It’ll all be PERFECT…

But Jesus gives us a very, very different picture doesn’t he?

According to the Lord, who can never be wrong about anything — the End will actually be fraught with wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, and mighty signs in the sky. There will be religious deceptions…. Persecutions… rejection even from our closest family and friends! “They will put some of you to death” Jesus says. “You will be hated by all because of my name,” He says.

Our Lord lays all of this out very bluntly and very matter-of-factly. It’s incredibly intense language. “Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven” as the prophet Malachi put it in our first reading.

Dr. Ralph Martin says it this way, “The picture Scripture gives us of the ‘end times’ is not of the world becoming progressively more ‘advanced’ in what matters, but becoming increasingly more depraved, believing lies that lead to destruction.”

And mysteriously… even the Church isn’t totally exempt from this trend.

In one famous Marian apparition in the Japanese city of Akita, approved by the local bishop in consultation with Rome, our Blessed Mother Mary gave this stark message of warning of what lies ahead:

“The work of the devil will infiltrate into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres… churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”

This may sound shocking, but it isn’t anything new! 

Sacred Scripture itself speaks of this through the writings of St. Paul and the Book of Revelation, along with countless saints, prophets and mystics throughout history — They all agree that there will be rather dramatic tribulations ahead for the Faithful, including some sort of large-scale “apostasy” even within the Church — a widespread turning away from the one true faith — before the final End comes.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it into these words:

“Before Christ’s second coming, the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.” 

“The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.”

That part about some kind of grand “religious deception” happening before the end is extremely important for us to take note of! 

In our gospel today, when everyone starts asking Jesus WHEN exactly the end will come, we hear him— in classic fashion — not answer their question at all. Instead he exhorts them:

“See that you not be deceived!”

Make sure that you aren’t caught off guard!

Stay true to the Faith you know!

Don’t be shaken!

Don’t turn off the straight and narrow!

Because apparently… it will be very tempting to do so!

Now, I don’t share any of this to scare you. And I certainly don’t share any of this to make some sort of apocalyptic prediction as to when any of this might happen. 

I share these things for this reason, and this reason only:

To strengthen you.

To give you an opportunity to prepare in hope.

So that if we do see these things begin to happen that we won’t lose our faith.

That’s my job as a priest — to give you the hard truths, as Jesus did, so you won’t be caught unawares!

‘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.’”

But don’t be afraid.

Because God wins.

Jesus said it himself: “Not a hair on your head will be destroyed.”

We are safe. God loves us. He protects us. And we can trust Him.

But… now the question becomes:

What do we do RIGHT NOW, knowing the difficult things that will happen before the end… whenever that may be? 

That’s the question St. Paul addresses in our second reading today!

The people in Thessalonica literally thought Jesus would be coming back at any second. And because of this imminent expectation of the Second Coming happening at any moment, some of the people around town had come up with the great idea… that they didn’t need to work anymore. 

…That they could just blow off all their responsibilities, quit their jobs, mooch off their neighbors, and just wait for Jesus to come and get ‘em.

I mean it was the end of the world… so why bother? Nothing mattered anymore! Show was over. …Check please!

Now this might sound crazy to us, but it literally just happened a couple of months ago.

I’m not sure where the rumor originally started, but a “prediction” gained traction on social media and YouTube that the “Rapture” was going to happen on September 23rd, 2025.

Now, first and foremost just to be absolutely clear: 

The Rapture is not real.

It is not Biblical.

It is not Catholic theology or tradition.

It is, in fact, a relatively recent, 19th Century Protestant innovation.

But even so… a ton of people got it into their heads that all the faithful and good Christians would suddenly disappear and be sucked right up into Heaven on September 23rd, leaving all the nasty sinners (not to mention those weird Roman Catholics) behind here on earth.

Some took it so seriously… that they did some rather dumb things!

Some people quit their jobs.

Some sold their houses… what for, I’m not sure. I have to assume you don’t need money post-Rapture…

Some recorded themselves smashing their laptops, iPads, and iPhones to smithereens…

All sorts of insane things…

But then, you know what happened?

…The sun rose again the morning of September 24th, 2025…

And suffice to say, nobody had gotten sucked up into Heaven.

This is exactly what St. Paul was writing against in this letter!

We heard him strongly warn the Thessalonians: “He who does not work should not eat!”

In other words, the answer to the question: “What should we be doing to prepare for the End of the World?”

It’s quite simple:

We take care of our responsibilities.

We don’t slack off and live in an imaginary future or do rash, dumb things based on our personal predictions.

No… We live in the here and now! 

We stay faithful right now!

We become excellent at our professions right now! We learn virtue, self-control, maturity and holiness… now. We serve the people around us… now… We grow closer to God right now.

We don’t know when Jesus is coming back.

…But I bet we know exactly what we need to take care of TODAY.

So that’s my challenge for you guys this week:

It’s very complex: 

Go home, and do whatever needs to be done.

Pray.

Do your chores.

Do your homework.

Study.

Exercise.

Go to work.

Cook dinner.

Take out the trash.

Be a well-rounded, virtuous human being.

And then whenever the End does in fact come… whether it’s our own personal end of life, or the End of History itself… we will be ready.