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Hey, friends, before we get to this week's episode of Unpacking the Mass, I just want to say thank you to those of you who have prayed for us and supported us financially. Unpacking the Mass is growing like crazy, and it's so amazing. Every week I hear from someone who's coming alive in their faith because of what we're doing here at Unpacking the Mass. And I'm grateful, beyond grateful, that we get to do this and offer it to the world for free. But that's because of you. So as we grow, our mission grows, our vision grows, we need to grow our support communities as well. There are multiple ways that you can become part of those communities. You can give through Patreon, through locals, or tax deductible donations can be made through our website. All the links are in the description below. Please take a look if you get a chance. Now, let's get to this week's episode. Welcome to Unpacking the Mass with Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Sunday for the Catholic Church so that when you go to Mass, you are ready to hear what God has to say to you through the Scriptures. So grab your Bibles and let's get digging. Hey, friends. Welcome to Unpacking the Mass. So glad to have you here with us for the readings for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Now, next week is the last week of the liturgical year, the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. And then we're into the first Sunday of Advent. Can you believe it? It's been an incredible year, hasn't it? And unpacking the Mass has grown so much this year. And I just want to thank you once again for watching, for listening, and for your support. Thank you, guys. And as we continue to move into a new liturgical year, I'm so excited at what God is going to do in our hearts and in our lives as we dig in to the week's reading. So if you're new with us, if you just discovered Unpacking the Mass, welcome and thank you. And our biggest goal is that these study times would help you pre prepared for when you go to Mass on Sunday. Remember, unpacking the Mass is never meant to take the place of your priest's homily. It's meant to prime the pump to get you ready so that you can have ears to hear what the Lord would say to you. Let's begin with a word of prayer, and then we'll jump into these readings in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We do thank you, Lord, as we prepare to close out another year of unpacking the mass, Lord. One more week and then it's the first Sunday of Advent. But we have a lot of work to do here today, so speak to our hearts, open our minds that we might receive what you have for us. We pray these things in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, my friends, let's look at our readings. Now, the first reading is a little bit interesting because depending on the translation you use, your address might not line up with this. So you're going to see in the readings Malachi 3. But if you look in certain translations, this is actually part of Malachi 4. Now, what this is, you got to remember the addresses, the verses, and the chapters that's added later to the Bible. That's not part of the original writings. And sometimes that stuff gets moved around differently in different texts, and it really hasn't have anything to do with what it says. So you may be looking, going, my Bible doesn't have like Malachi 4. It just has it ends at 3. But mine has these verses in chapter 4. So it depends on how you look at it. In the revised standard, which is what I use, you actually have Malachi 4, but in the one that the UCCB uses, it just goes to Malachi 3. Anyway, so you're either going to see Malachi 3, 19, 20, or you're going to see Malachi 41 through 2. But they are both saying the same thing. Just a little fun fact for you. All right, let's see what the first reading has to say. For behold, the day comes burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. Our second reading comes from St. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, second Thessalonians, the third chapter, verses 7 through 12. St. Paul writes these. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us. We were not idle when we were with you. We did not eat anyone's bread without paying, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you. It was not because we have not that right, but to give you in our conduct an example to imitate for Even when we were with you, we gave you this. If anyone will not work, let him not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we commend and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living. And then our gospel, from Luke 21:5 19. And as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, as for these things which you see, the days will come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. And they asked him, teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign when this is about to take place? And he said, take heed that you are not led astray, for many will come in my name, saying, I am he, and the time is at hand. Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once. Then he said to them, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences, and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons and. And you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony. Settle it, therefore, in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake, but not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance, you will gain your lives. All right, my friends, lots of stuff to talk about here. Pretty ominous readings today as we end this liturgical year. And I think it's interesting that in our gospel today, Jesus is talking about the temple. And last week we talked about the feast of St. John Lateran, the basilica, this place where God's river flows from out that vision that Ezekiel had. And of course, we're kind of relating that to the church and how God's spirit flows out and remembering that. As for us as Catholics, we have these incredible places that remind us of God's presence. Well, the Jews had that too. With the Temple, they thought it was everything. And in the Gospel, Jesus comes along and says, look, you need to understand something right now. And as great and beautiful as this whole place is, as magnificent as it is, there will come a day when all of this is going to be thrown down, when it's going to be destroyed. They couldn't believe that. They thought that was just unreal. Now, what's interesting is that it happened before. Remember, the temple he's talking about is the second one. The first one was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Jews were exiled and they were scattered. And then they were brought back and rebuilt the temple. And now they're like, yeah, okay, well, now they're under the Roman oppression, but yet they still think Messiah is coming to overthrow the Romans and they're going to be the center of everything. And Jesus shows up and says, look, this is all going down. It's all coming down. And I know that for us, we don't really grasp the power of that statement and the weight of that. We grew up just knowing, well, yeah, okay, we just see like the Western Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and there's ruins and stuff, but we don't understand what it would be like for these Jews who this was the center of everything, to even fathom that this would all come down. And that's what Jesus is warning them about. Jesus is warning them that there's a day coming. And you know, all this prophetic language. A lot of people just think about this and think, oh, he's talking about thousands of years later, you know, the end times and all these things. And it's easy for us to sometimes disconnect ourselves from this reality, and it was easy for them to do that too. But here's what happened in 70 A.D. the Romans came and destroyed the temple and slaughtered million people in Jerusalem. Something like that. It was terrible. And Jesus had warned them about it. You can read this in Matthew 24, another kind of version of this where Jesus is talking about, look, flee to the hills when you see these things happening. He's warning the Christians, get out of the city. And it came to pass, my friends, it came to pass. And yet that is the near fulfillment of this. But there is also a far fulfillment, because there is an ultimate day of judgment that is coming for this world. The second coming of Christ. A time when we will all be judged. When Malachi's prophecy that everything is going to be burned with fire and this stubble and all these things. And what we see in the book of Revelation. And all these different things will take place when God returns to judge the living and the dead. And nobody knows when that is. When will these things take place? Jesus didn't lay that out for them. He said, basically, look, you need to be watching, you need to be ready. You need to be about the work of the kingdom of God. Now we're going to talk about what that means. But before we do that, we got to understand what it is that we have to think about. And what it is, is this judgment day is coming for us. It's coming. What do you do with that? Do you think to yourself, well, that's just far off down the road. People have been talking about Jesus coming back so many. I mean, we just had somebody just recently talking about the rapture was going to happen. Of course, didn't happen. Of course we know that's not going to happen. But we do know this. He will return to judge the living and the dead. We know that. Now, whether or not we live long enough on this earth to see that take place, that really isn't the point. Because our judgment day, our day of reckoning could come at any moment because our lives are like a vapor that is here for a little while and vanishes. Friends, think about that. At any moment, we could be standing face to face with Jesus and. And that is our day of judgment. Or we might be here when he returns. Either way, we need to understand we have to be prepared. What can we do about it? Some people say, well, nothing I can do about it. What should I. Well, no, that's not what we read today. There are some things that you can do about it to prepare yourself and to prepare for Jesus to return. Whether that's you going to him or him coming to you, it's all the same ultimately, isn't it, my friends? What are we going to do? Well, the first thing that we have to do about this is found in our first reading. And what does it say? Check it out. He says, that day comes burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and evildoers will be stubble. Okay, there's a warning. Now look at verse two. But for you who fear my name, the Son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. See, here's the thing that you got to remember with this promise of judgment is the promise of your redemption. It's the promise that even if you have to go through this horrible experience, those of you who fear the Lord have nothing to worry about. Jesus said they're going to do all this stuff to you. But you yourself will not perish. That's really what we have to remember. But you saw what he said there. But you who fear my name, friends, that's the first thing we have to do, is we have to fear the name of the Lord. Now, what does that mean? Oh, I'm terrified of God. No, what it means. Well, maybe to a certain degree. Yeah. What it means more than anything is that you live your life in reverence for who God is and you take seriously his commands and the way that he's called you to live, that you understand who he is and who you are, and that you will be held accountable one day for every careless word that you utter. Doesn't that terrify you? It terrifies me because I've offered, I've uttered a lot of them. Everything we do will be called into an account. We'll have to, have to stand before God. And the question is, will you stand before God in your own righteousness based on what you do alone, or will you have the grace of God cover you and infused into you? Will you be forgiven or will you be condemned? The only way is to fear the name of the Lord. It doesn't matter what church you belong to. It doesn't matter what your parents did or what your husband or your wife did. It doesn't matter what your grandparents said about you. It doesn't matter what company you keep if you don't personally fear the name of the Lord, if you haven't personally been impacted by God's grace, been born again, if you don't receive him, if you don't walk in obedience to his commands, friend, you're going to give an account. To fear the name of the Lord is not just this idea that you embrace. No, that's not fearing the name of the Lord. That's just acknowledging something. To fear means I'm going to take action. I'm going to be transformed by the power of God in my life. I'm going to turn myself over to Him. Why? Because I don't want to stand before him in judgment. I want to stand before him in love. That's what it means to fear the name of the Lord. It means in a practical way that when you're standing there and you have a choice given to you to sin or to not sin, that you make the choice to not sin. Why? Because you fear the name of the Lord. And you know what? I'm totally cool if someone says, oh, don't scare people. You don't want someone to obey God out of fear. Look I don't think it really matters that much, honestly. I can just speak for myself. If my fear of judgment keeps me from sinning, great. I would rather not sin because of fear than think that it's okay, not take it seriously and just go, well, I can do whatever I want. God will forgive me. I've done that in my life, friends, and you probably have too. I don't want to live that way. And if I have to be a little scared of what the result could be, so be it. I think this is kind of the point. So, number one, fear the name of the Lord. And you take that however you need to take it. Now, I know some people are scrupulous and they go, oh, I can't handle that. It's so terrifying. And I'm just going to live my whole life in terrifying fear all the time. You know, here's the beautiful thing about the scriptures and about God. He gives us what we need in the moment to live his way. And if you're a person that needs assurance, if you're a person that needs to know that you're loved and that you can be redeemed and restored and forgiven and that you don't need to be afraid because you're in a state of grace, then God gives that assurance to you. You can find it. But if you've got a lackadaisical attitude about your behavior, if you think that you're special and God's rules don't apply to you, if you think that you can just put off holiness for whatever reason, then you do need to be afraid. So my prayer is that wherever we are, myself included, we hear what God needs us to hear so that we can be who he needs us to be by his grace. Second thing, work and earn your keep. This is amazing. Don't you love that passage? St. Paul's talking about practical things, isn't he? You might say, what does that have to do with judgment? What does it have to do with the end of the world? It has to do with how we are to behave in the midst of this life that we're in, to be prepared. And what St. Paul is saying is, look, you don't need to be like this busy, body, idle person who, who just makes everybody else take care of them and doesn't work to contribute to anything. He says you need to work in quietness. You need to earn your life. If you don't work, you don't eat. St. Paul did not imagine this world where people's careers were just dependent on doing nothing. But being a burden on other people. He didn't imagine that world, my friends. He imagined a world. And he didn't imagine a world of entitlement either. He said, even though we were technically entitled to receive from you. Remember what he said? He said the worker's worth his wages and let him who preaches receive a double portion. Right? That's in the Bible too. But St. Paul said, even though I'm entitled to that, even though that we should be able to make our living from the gospel as his workers, we didn't exercise that right. Rather, we came to you, we worked among you to set an example for you. See, my friends, that's the thing we got to remember. Each of us needs to pull our weight. Each of us needs to not be thinking about, well, how can I live off of everybody else's pity? Rather, I should figure out how I can be productive in and of myself so that I can be a blessing to other people. And at the very least, not a burden. At the very least, not a burden. Friends, that's important. We can't live our lives in such a way where we just freeload off everybody else. And I don't think this is something that most of you are really thinking about, but the principle here of each person taking responsibility for themselves so that they can care. Now remember, St. Paul talks a lot about caring for others. And I remember what St. James said, that religion that God admires is to care for widows and orphans in their affliction. So this isn't some sort of get out of jail free card. To take care of the poor and the needy. To not take care of the poor and the needy. No. If someone is disabled or they don't have the ability to care for themselves, that's. Those are the people that need the resources. Not someone who's able bodied and will and can work, but just chooses to be a busybody and be idle. Remember this sin of idleness, Lackadaisical attitude, sloth. Friends, this is not a virtue. This is a sin. A serious sin. Because what does Christ call us to? To be productive, to always be thinking about how can I be working, staying busy so that I can contribute, so I can help care for the poor, so I can help care for the needs of the church, so I can be about my master's business. St. Paul takes that very seriously. Because what he doesn't want us to do is be idle. No, this is the example that he gives us. Such persons. We command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work. In quietness and earn their own living. So important, my friends, that we keep that in mind. Work and earn your keep. And then of course, the next thing that we need to do, according to Jesus, is bear testimony, speak the truth and endure persecution. You'll find those in his discourse there. He talks about when you're drugged before people to give testimony to who God is, but not be worried that you're on your own, but let the spirit of God speak through you, speak the truth. And then, of course, endure that persecution. Now, we might look at this and go, well, okay, he's talking to this specific group of people in Jerusalem, you know, that had to go through that. And they did. You look back at what happened to these people that were listening. They were. They were persecuted. Many were killed. They were. They were drug out, they were put to death. It was illegal to be a Christian for the first 315 years. I think it was before the Edict of Milan made it tolerable to be a Christian. So these were people that had this real life experience of, you're going to be a Christian in the ancient world, the Romans are going to hate you, the Jews are going to hate you, everybody's going to hate you. And families would turn against each other. Jesus had to encourage these people. And people like Saint Ignatius of Antioch would go to their death in the Coliseum because they were leaders in the church, my friends, and Jesus gives them this encouragement so we can look back on that and be thankful for who they were and what they did. And we can apply this to our own lives today. Maybe not in as much of a literal way, but maybe so. There are people in this world today that are being persecuted for their faith. We just saw President Trump tweet out about those Christians in Nigeria, and I'm glad he did. They're being massacred. I saw a news report a few weeks ago of 60 people that were murdered at Mass. We're so far removed from that. But this is a reality for people in our world, my friends. But what about you? Let's just get real here. In your family situation and your work situation, in your everyday life, maybe nobody's coming for your head, but they might be coming for your reputation or your relationship or your job. What are you going to do? How do you respond when you're put on the spot about your faith? What do you do? Do you fold? Do you cower? Or do you give testimony to who God is in your life? Do you speak the truth? And do you endure that persecution, that work, that St. Paul's talking about. Sure. He's talking about, like, you know, the physical work of life that we have to do. But we're also called to do that spiritual work of proclaiming and enduring and testifying to the truth in a world that is full of darkness, that hates it. And friends, that's hard work, isn't it? It's tough. But what Jesus tells us is, don't worry about that, because two things. The Spirit will give you the words to speak. You will know what to say. You don't have to worry about that. He says, in your minds, do not meditate beforehand how to answer for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. God will work in you. When you stand at the in the face of persecution and you are submitted to the Lord, he will speak through you in powerful ways. Don't be afraid. Persevere. Speak the truth and endure. I love verse 18, but not a hair of your head will perish. You might say, wait a minute, I thought you just talked about these guys being killed. How can you say they didn't perish? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Friends, it's not about this world. You can have everything in this world. You can live a long life filled with ease and pleasure and riches, and you can perish. Jesus said, whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Perishing is not about what happens to you in this life, my friend. It's about what happens to you in eternity. And if you want to perish for all eternity, then live according to the fear of man. Live according to the fear of the world. Do whatever the world tells you to do. Do whatever the world judges that you should do. Live your life to please those in the world and turn your back on God and you will gain their adulation. Perhaps you will gain prestige and pleasure and whatever. Perhaps you might not, but the thing that you'll gain for sure is judgment. But if you want to live in eternity, then turn your life over to Christ. Receive what he's done for you. Fear the name of the Lord. Don't be a busybody and an idle person, and don't back down to persecution. And Jesus says, no matter what happens to you, this is your encouragement, my friend. No matter what happens to you, you won't perish. I talk to People all the time who are in tough spots in their life. God's calling them into the church or he's calling them to a greater level of holiness. And many people I talk to have real world challenges with that. Sometimes people say things to me like, hey, if I give my life to Christ, if I become Catholic, then this bad thing is going to happen to me. Or, what am I going to do about this? What am I going to do about that? How am I going to feed my family? Sometimes I hear that, and I can relate to that one. And here's the encouragement. Whatever happens to us will be okay. If we're following Jesus, not a hair on our head will perish. He'll give us the words to speak, and as long as we're willing to do whatever we got to do. You know, I've had that conversation with people sometimes who, like me, were in ministry, and they knew that to become Catholic was going to mean they were going to lose their job. And they said, what am I going to do for a job? You know, I thought about this text in Thessalonians. You know, one time I was talking to a guy and he's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do for a job. And I said, don't worry about it. What do you mean, don't worry about it? Well, you'll do something. Yeah, but I don't know what. Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? Find a job and do something. I became a photographer. Then I became a salesman of photography things. I did a lot of things right. And you know what? It was great. You do what you got to do. You find a way. If you got to go wait tables, you go wait tables. If you got to deliver pizzas, you go deliver pizzas if you have to. You know, I was talking to my friend, My friend Ken Hensley, who's an incredible guy. He was a Protestant pastor, became Catholic, works for the Coming Home Network now. Amazing guy. I need to get him on my show sometime. When he became Catholic, he waited tables. He was a server. He wasn't too proud to do that. Friends, we don't have to be like, we can't have pride. We gotta be willing to do whatever it takes to be obedient and follow Christ wherever that leads us. And if it leads us to a tough spot, so be it. If it leads us to a great spot where things are awesome, great. Praise the Lord. But we never put those conditions on our obedience to God. No, my friends, we fear the name of the Lord. We work hard in whatever way we can. We speak the truth, we bear testimony and we endure. That's what this whole year has been about, isn't it? And I pray that it will continue as we prepare right next week, the Feast of Christ the King, we declare our allegiance to Him. We know that judgment's come, and we declare Christ. This is it. That's how we end liturgical year. Then we begin to prepare for his coming anew. And I want to finish strong. My friends, this is so cool. Like, we've made it another entire year through the Church's liturgical calendar, and that's pretty awesome. I'm very happy that we could accomplish this work together, that we've endured, that we've made it through, and hopefully it's been fruitful for you. If it has, do me a favor, will you? Just put that in the comments, let us know. It really does give a lot of encouragement when we see that and maybe share something that unpacking the Mass has meant to you. And, you know, of course, let other people know. We want to see unpacking the Mass continue to grow so that the work of God can be done in our lives and we can grow deeper in His Word. So once again, friends, thanks for being here, and I look forward to finishing up the liturgical year with you here on Unpacking the Mass next week. So make sure you don't miss it. Take care, everybody. God bless.