The Time is Running Out

The time is running out

The liturgy for Wednesday morning eerily fit the twenty-third anniversary of 9/11. A day that seemed to change everything but In reality accelerated the forces that were already set in motion.

Like all first-century Christians, Paul was certain that this world was ending.

I tell you, brothers, the time is running out.
From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,
those weeping as not weeping,
those rejoicing as not rejoicing,
those buying as not owning,
those using the world as not using it fully.
For the world in its present form is passing away. Full Text

On that clear, crisp, September morning, twenty-three years ago, surely none of the 256 passengers boarding American Airlines flights 11 and 77 and United Airlines flights 175 and 93 planned to die that day. Most likely, at least one or two of the nineteen young jihadists [only one was over thirty] had doubts about their horrendous actions as they watched the looming towers, Pentagon buildings or the Pennsylvania fields hurtling toward them.

Although our nation promised never to forget, 9/11 has largely been forgotten. In fact, Americans under the age of twenty-five likely know nothing about the attack on our nation by Muslim jihadists. Tragically, many of our campuses are filled with the same ideology.

Where did all that post 9/11 sense of community, love of country, of America’s ideals, of our nationhood, go?

Saint Paul’s exhortation to his listeners, “The time is running out” forces more than a few seconds of thought about those 256 passengers and crew who ran out of time.

Even facing death, we choose

United Airlines flight 175 to Los Angeles took off from Logan airport at .8:14 am.. Brian Sweeney, a former Navy pilot and instructor, sat in the rear of the airplane. In the forty-five minutes between takeoff and crashing into the South Tower, Sweeny would have watched the entire, horrific takeover of the plane. Since his wife called him a warrior, we can assume he’d considered overpowering the five men once they announced themselves. Maybe during the breaching of the cockpit. Or later when there were just three left wandering among the passengers.

“Jules this is Brian. Listen. I’m on an airplane that’s been hijacked. If things don’t go well and it’s not looking good. I just want you to know I absolutely love you. I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody. And I just totally love you. And I’ll see you when you get there.

Bye babe and I hope I call you.’

Voicemail from Flight 175

Sweeny would have noted the drop in altitude and change of direction from westward to the south. But until he saw that the plane was flying low over Manhattan, he’d not have thought about the gas. A coast-to-coast flight assures that each airplane was completely filled with gas, thereby guaranteeing unimaginable explosive potential upon collsion. He had to know this plane was headed directly on a collision path with something. Brian picks up the airphone on back of the seat in front of him and calls his wife.

Brian Sweeney’s calm voice expresses neither anger nor fear but rather a curious, almost superntural, confidence and trust. And even more than those, we hear love. Brian Sweeny’s choice to love in the midst of unimaginable terror recalls a film about Saint Paul’s last days. The magnificent film of Paul, Apostle of Christ teaches Saint Luke, and those of us willing to learn, that evil could only be overcome with love.

Looking into the faces of evil

It’s impossible to think about Sweeney and all of the 3700+ people who died that day without wondering, “What would I have done?”

Would I have been paralyzed with fear, unable to breathe, thinking, “Why is this happening to me?”

“Would I have died cursing and hating those lost, confused jahidists?”

“To you who hear I say, love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you,
pray for those who mistreat you…To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you,
and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you….

Looking straight into the face of evil has to be transformative. Mustn’t it? Could it have been so for Brian Sweeney? Might he have looked into the faces of the three young men and seen the frightened children of God behind the masks that possessed them?

We speak of evil when describing something transcendent, something beyond human experience. In his newest book, The Dragon’s Prophecy: Israel, The Dark Resurrectinon, Jonathan Cahn explains the personhood of evil, its uncreated nature. Evil has supernatural force yet it’s personal therefore requiring consciousness, will and volition.

What is it that makes evil evil? Evil is an inversion–an inversion of truth, of reality, of existence. Evil is, by nature inverted, and by nature, inverts, It twists, bends and turns existence in upon itself. It exists as anti-existence. It’s being is anti-being, and its nature anti-nature…It has no true, ultimate or absolute existence and therefore seeks to bring that which exists into nonexistence. And so evil, by its nature seeks destruction. It opposes that which is.

The Dragon’s Prophecy: Israel, the Dark Resurrection and the End of Days.

The Exultation of the Cross

Yesterday was the Feast of the Exulation of the Cross. To many, it’s an oxymoron–wholly foolish. But the more we pray, study, adore, we begin to glimpse the beauty, majesty and privilege of participating in suffering. In joining Christ in the victory over the destroyer and a growing confidence –like Brian Sweeney’s –that what seems to be happening, isn’t.

Adorable cross, I embrace you at last! You were the longing of my love. You, O cross, lingered until now, while my steps were always directed toward you…In you I concentrate my whole being; in you I place all my children. You will be their life, their guard and their strength…You will come to their assistance in everything and will bring them to me glorious, in heaven…

Jesus’ words to Luisa Piccarreta in The Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Image Father Boniface Hicks