Well, Judgment Day didn’t happen on Saturday – neither Skynet nor the Antichrist took over – and none of the 30 people I was with at 6:00 p.m. disappeared. These End Times predictions are just so silly that it is hard for me to believe that so many people always seem to take them seriously – I mean, this guy had already tried once before and was just as wrong. If it had happened though, I couldn’t have asked for a better spot to be at – taking part in the celebration of Mass while at my Parish’s high school retreat with 30 high school participants and other adult chaperones.
I don’t want to get too heavy into the theology of the End Times, much smarter Catholics than I have done so. Check out Paragraphs 668-682 of the Catechism and this short article for more on what Catholics believe.
Suffice it to say that, as Catholics, we do not believe that there will be a pre-tribulation “rapture” where Christ will take the faithful to heaven before the real suffering starts. Putting Biblical points aside, and thinking about it logically, the “rapture” view makes no sense. When did Christ ever tell his followers that things would be easy for them, or that they would get let off the hook? Peter Parker’s (Spiderman) Uncle Ben always told Peter “With great power comes great responsibility.” I think Uncle Ben was probably familiar with Luke 12:48, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more. “
Christ tells us over and over and over again that things are not going to be easy. I think that when the End Times do arrive, we will witness the greatest Saints and Martyrs the Church has ever seen, standing up for Christ and dying for him. Think about the great Martyrs in Church history – Ignatius of Antioch, Thomas More, Cecilia, Maximilian Kolbe, Maria Goretti, etc. – none of them took the easy way out, even though they could have.
I don’t mean to make fun of the views of others regarding this issue, but it just seems ludicrous that an 89-year-old radio preacher could pin down a date certain. God the Father is outside of time. We are not to know the day or the hour when we will be called upon to answer for our lives. “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Matthew 24:36
It is not for us to know, just like it wasn’t for the Apostles to know either, when they questioned Jesus on the matter. It is only up to us to make sure we are ready:
"Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." Luke 12:35-40
If Christ had come on Saturday, would we have been ready for him? Do we act as the servants who are always ready for their master’s return? I think the answer to that is a definite “no”. We let the world distract us. We worry about when we will be taken up into Heaven, not if we will be, not if we have done what is required to be able to meet God face-to-face. We spend so much time worrying about all of the crap, that we forget all of Christ’s examples, we forget the path that we are supposed to be taking.
We must always look for Christ’s return, but not only look for it – live each day as if that day will be the day. We do not fear death and suffering, we were created for God, not for this world. We anxiously await the Second Coming, yes, but we don’t fret over it, we are to live our lives so that we are always ready to go forth when we are called by the Lord.
Being on our retreat this weekend reminded me once again that it is not just me against the world and its distractions, rather God and our community of believers are always there to help me along the journey, to provide example and witness, so that when the day and hour do arrive I will be ready to immediately open the door when He knocks.
Let us pray that from this day forward we will live our lives so that the Master may find us vigilant at His arrival, and that we will then be invited to recline at table with Him who has saved us.
Good book on this--Carl Olson's "Will Catholics Be Left Behind?" It's a few years old now but it's very interesting from a theological/doctrinal stand point. Good reading. (Catholica probably has it, but Ignatius Press publishes it, so you can get it online)
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely true--we think we will go to heaven, and we forget that we aren't necessarily going there. Paul says we have hope in our redemption; reason to hope, sure, but we don't have certainty. It's always a good thing to be thinking about the last things, and how prepared we are in regards to them.