Thou Shalt Not Wilt

The magic moment had arrived for a young man about to be married. He stood before the clergyman projecting a classic image of the nervous bridegroom: little beads of perspiration forming at the temples, a bit weak in the knees, hands trembling slightly, mouth dry. And when he heard the crucial words, “Wilt thou, Henry, take Helen for your lawfully wedded wife?” He immediately replied, “I wilt!” Perhaps some of you had that same reaction when you listened to today’s Gospel Reading in which Jesus recites a long list of coming calamitous events: earthquakes, famine, fearful omens in the sky, persecution, hatred, death–it’s enough to make anyone wilt! But, if you really think about it you realize that those “coming events” are here. The calamities Jesus lists are among the everyday, ordinary events of our time. Disastrous earthquakes have occurred in our time. Genuine famine is an ordinary event in many parts of today’s world. Fearful omens in the sky? Each day the skies are…