Today we get a happy ending to the dreadful story we’ve been hearing all week, starting with the Greeks’ brutal imposition of their culture upon the Jews, the revolt that followed, and finally the triumph of the Maccabees in expelling the Greeks and restoring the temple and its worship.

It is a happy ending for awhile, but students of history know that it was neither the first nor the last “ending.” There had been happy endings before, when David first seized Jerusalem from the pagans and when his son Solomon had built the first great temple. And then there was the time when the Israelites came back from captivity in Babylon in the sixth century and rebuilt the temple which had been burned to the ground. And long after the Maccabees’ triumph in the second century before Christ, the temple would need to be rebuilt and rededicated yet again by King Herod during Jesus’ childhood — awaiting its final destruction in 70 A.D.

In this life, sad or happy endings are rarely endings, but only moments on the road. There’s always another chapter in the story. And that points to the issue we need to focus on today. The journey we’re on is a very long one, with many twists and turns, and inevitably with moments when we lose our focus and lose connection with the Lord. It can happen at any time or stage in our journey, whether we’re young or old. The temple got rebuilt and rededicated so many times precisely because this was true about the Israelites, as it is true about us. That’s reality.

We can face that reality by engaging each new day with open and listening hearts, that are able to hear the Lord speaking to us when we’re wandering into dark places. We can face that reality by making prudent course changes — early and often. And each time, God will help us.

The Maccabees’ saga continues in today’s reading with Mattathias and his family being offered the ultimate deal with the devil: A small sacrifice to the pagan gods in exchange for vast riches and the title, ‘King’s Friends.’ It seems so little to give for so much, but Mattathias knew that wasn’t true. It was his faith, his connection to the Lord, that gave him life and made him who he was, and without that he knew he was nothing. So he rejected the deal, abandoned all his possessions, and fled with his family into the mountains.

Eventually, moments like that come to us all, though not usually with the glamorous offers that came Mattathias’ way. But the essence is there: give up ‘A’ to get ‘B’.  Real wisdom consists in assessing correctly what we’re thinking of giving up. Is it of the essence of who we are and who we’re called to be? Does giving it up erode or conflict with a commitment we’ve already made?

In those dangerous compromise moments, desire can cloud our minds and whisper lies to us. More than ever, those are the times when we need to lay open our hearts to the Lord. If we take the time, He will show us the truth, and He will help us choose the truth.

May we become faithful as He is faithful.

Fear is one of the greatest adversaries that any of us will ever face. It steals our peace and our joy, it closes down many roads, and throws up many walls. Some form of fear is at the root of every sin, and some kind of fear is behind every failure to live up to our best selves. Fear pretends to be a protector of life, but in fact it is a friend only of death. Jesus said it best, “Fear is useless. What is needed is trust.”

Nothing less than monumental trust can explain the confident courage of the mother of the Maccabees in today’s Old Testament reading. As she watched each of her seven sons being carried off to a martyr’s death, she was a tower of strength for them, and like the good mother she was, she explained to each of them why they had no reason to fear anything, not even death. “The Creator of the universe who shapes every man’s beginning, as He brings about the origin of everything, will in His mercy bring you back both breath and life…” They heard her words, they trusted in their Creator’s love, and they went to their death in peace.

Many things ever so much smaller than death frighten us and rob us of too many of our days. The time for that to stop forever is now. We need only trust in the love of the Creator who made us, and we will be free. Troubles will inevitably come, sometimes great ones. They may even kill us, but if we are connected to Him, they will never destroy us. That is God’s promise!

Out of every tragedy and every evil, God eventually brings a greater good, though sometimes that good remains hidden and invisible for a long time. Often, in the midst of suffering, it’s difficult to understand or believe, but it is true. And from time to time we can see it happening. That’s what we have in today’s reading from the book of Maccabees: Good coming out of evil.

Eleazar, a ninety-year-old scholar of great dignity and preeminence, was confronted with the subtlest of all temptations, the opportunity to save his life by pretending to abandon his faith, while not really doing so at all. It was the perfect out: He could continue to enjoy his old age, while keeping his hands clean of any formal violations of God’s law. Just pretend, for a few minutes! That was all.

But Eleazar refused, for he knew that he still had one gift left to give, a gift that was sorely needed, and that was the example of an old man, whose faithfulness could inspire the young to take heart and not betray what was best in them. Eleazar refused the seductive offer and was put to death amidst great agony. And the young men took heart and remained true.

Because Eleazar listened to God’s voice within him, God brought forth good out of evil through him. God wants to do the same through and with you: Bring good out of evil.  Are you listening to Him? Are you placing yourself entirely at His service? Some lives will be forever different if you do.

We have the beginnings of a great tragedy in today’s reading from the book of Maccabees. The Greeks had decided to impose their own language and culture on the various parts of their empire. And that meant zero tolerance for the religion of all conquered peoples, including the Jews. The temple at Jerusalem was converted into a gymnasium, and all Jewish religious observances were forbidden under pain of death.

It was decision time for the Jews, young and old, and many of them forgot what it was that made them special, what made them who they were: It was their conscious connection to the Lord. Hoping to win acceptance and advancement from those who held power, many of the Jews turned their backs on their connection to the Lord. And in doing so they lost their identity and lost their way.

It’­s a temptation that presents itself in every age, if not in so dramatic a way. We face it now, the temptation to give in to a culture that in so many ways has considerable appeal, but is simultaneously seriously flawed. It’s hard not to fall victim to its subtle allures and distorted values without even noticing we’ve done so. Only one thing can prevent that from happening, and that is serious time spent with the Lord every day.

Take that time every day. Let Him help you remember who you are and what really matters. Let Him give you the energy to be faithful and true.

There was a mother mouse who was scurrying across the kitchen floor with her brood of six little mice in tow.  All of a sudden she came eyeball-to-eyeball with a very large and very mean-looking cat.  Mother mouse was terrified!  But she pulled herself up to full height, squared her shoulders, and roared at the top of her lungs, “Bow Wow!”

The cat nearly jumped out of his skin, and in the blink of an eye was scrambling up a tree two blocks away.  Meanwhile, mother mouse gathered her little ones around her and explained, “Now, my dears, you see what I’ve always told you about the importance of learning a second language!”

Sooner or later we all come face to face with our own version of that monster cat — face to face with an event or circumstance that tells us that our world and life as we have known it has come to an end.  The ugly possibilities are endless: an irreversible illness, death of a spouse or child, rejection by our loved ones, abandonment by our friends, total loss of our fortune, utter failure in our life’s work, the final triumph of all our enemies.

That’s just the short list, but the possibilities are endless and we’ve all had a taste of them.  We all know what the Gospel means when it talks about the sun being darkened and the stars falling out of the sky.  We know!

So it’s of more than passing interest to discover how we are to survive when, inevitably, those moments do come.  The Gospel gives us the key: “When all these things happen,” it says, “you will see the Son of Man coming with great power and glory.”  That means that when our personal world falls apart and the bottom drops out of our lives, we’ll be able to see past the ugliness and see through the pain to the ultimate reality of things — which is: despite all appearances, God is still in charge, still cares, still has the power to make all things right, and still intends to do just that, in His own good time!

Now what is it that enables us to see all that so clearly when disaster has struck so hard?  Faith!  Only faith!  Not some eleventh-hour grasping at straws, but a deeply-ingrained habit of the heart that we’ve built a piece at a time over many years.

So what have our hearts been saying all these years?  I hope something like this, “Lord, I know from living that You love me even more than I love myself.  So, Lord, I entrust myself to You, and no matter what comes, I won’t be afraid.”  If that is what our hearts have been saying — if that is the habit of our hearts — we have nothing to fear from the future because we’re ready for it on the inside.

God never promised to insulate us from pain or sadness.  But He does guarantee that, whatever comes, we will not be destroyed so long as we stay connected to Him.  Whatever comes, He will see us through and we will, in the end, prevail, so long as we stay connected to Him.

So now is the time to speak our word of faith deeply from the heart.  Now is the time to entrust our whole selves to Him and never, ever look back.

And when at last the lights grow dim and our world fades away, we shall see Him coming in power and glory!  We shall see Him face to face!

A friend of mine lost his wife’s diamond ring while bringing in the evening cocktails. The two of them searched high and low, swept the floors, and crawled about on their hands and knees, but all to no avail. As they sipped their drinks, mourning the loss of a precious keepsake, they were in deepest despair till the last ice cubes melted. There on the bottom of the wife’s glass was her ring.  It had been literally right under her nose all evening!

That “right under the nose” phenomenon is what today’s Old Testament reading is pressing on our attention. Every day in a thousand ways, God is showing himself to us through the marvels of his creation, both great and small. How much of that do we typically notice? Very little. No wonder we feel so alone and so uncertain about life and the Lord so much of the time. We’re not paying attention!

So open your eyes, look more closely at the beauty that God has filled his world with, and take heart: You’re not alone, and you never have been!

In every age there has been an ample chorus of voices proclaiming the imminent arrival of the end of the world.  The volume only gets louder at the end of a century, to say nothing of a millennium. And people watch with fascination for signs and wonders and portents.

It has always been so, hence Jesus takes special pains to remind us in the gospel that we already have what we’re looking for so anxiously: “The reign of God is already in your midst,” He says. Look no further.

The Holy Spirit already dwells within every one of us, only waiting for us to open our hearts and our lives to the Spirit’s healing and guidance. Life could take on a very different shape now, if we could bring ourselves to doing that with confidence and trust. That is the challenge that confronts us repeatedly across the whole span of our lives: To trust in the Holy Spirit’s presence, to open our hearts, and to keep them open. That task will never be complete in this life, but for some it has not yet begun.

May we not find ourselves in that sorry company.

Today’s Old Testament reading is a stern warning to those in positions of authority that they will be held accountable for the power the Lord has put in their hands. But before we relax too much and count ourselves outside that august group, we’d better face the fact that God has put a surprising amount of power into the hands of every one of us.

Even the least of us is possessed of remarkable powers, to encourage or discourage, to stifle life or to revive it, to engender hope or to foster despair. And we do much of that without even noticing or intending it. That realization is both startling and tantalizing: What could we achieve in our own little orbit of friends, neighbors, and relations, if we consciously set out to use those powers that are already in our hands?!

That’s the bottom line for today’s meditation: You have a chance to make a lasting contribution to the building of God’s kingdom here and now. Don’t let it pass you by.

There are some passages in the scriptures that people really don’t like, and the end of today’s gospel is one of them. For those of us who work hard to do the right thing, and to be dutiful and responsible, even when it costs us a lot, it’s not very amusing to be told that we ought to count ourselves as useless servants who only did our duty! True, indeed.

But that misses the real intent of Jesus’ words, which is not to minimize our efforts or our accomplishments. Jesus’ purpose is to underscore that, no matter how terrific we are, we can never earn or merit the wonderful gifts that God wants to give us free.

So relax. God knows how hard we’re trying, even though we keep falling painfully short. He just wants us to know that in the end he desires to give us the kingdom and to give us life. And in doing that, he’s giving us a model for dealing with one another: Give what is needed, not because it’s earned, but simply because it is needed.  A share in God’s joy will be our reward.