Apologies to my vast readership for the two-week hiatus. My work schedule has changed so that I've had to reverse my body clock. I was left a zombie for about ten days, which was fine for a job that doesn't even require a high-school diploma but won't do for serious mental work. Then my wireless-network card died. But now that the old bod and the new card are in good working order, I'm back with another homilette.Today's feast marks the end of the liturgical year. It is fitting that Pope Pius XI established this feast for that purpose at a time in history when the rule of God over humanity was being so radically rejected by totalitarianism and other forms of secularism. That struggle is murkier today with Nazism dead, Communism in retreat, and radical Islam ascendant. But in the West, especially in Western Europe, the pretense remains widespread that man can successfully define the good for himself, both collectively and individually, without reference to the Creator. Today's feast and readings remind us that, at the end of the age if not of the day, that pretense will be utterly shattered along with all temporal regimes.
Whether one fears or welcomes that is a good measure of what one's fate will be.
