“The world ends each night…”

  Father Pothin’ s reflection for Advent II,2018

Jesus saw terrible times ahead – a day coming when not one stone of our human temple will rest on another.  He warned of signs: Devastation, Ruin, Emptiness, Wars, Trials and Persecutions. The prophet Malachi foresaw the same doom, the global blast furnace where all pride and evil are reduced to rubble, where cancerous growth is uprooted, burned away.  Yet Christ, seeming to anticipate our wonder, offered this advice: “Do not be troubled. These things are bound to happen.” He is not speaking about the end of all times, but the condition of every time. Each day is the last. Each time is the end time.  Each human being faces the end of the world in the span of a life, whether it reach eight minutes or eighty years. The world, its opportunities and losses, passes away for us each night. Every sunset announces a closing of a day that will never come again.

Everything that Christ predicted has taken place and is taking place and will continue to take place.  We need not wait until the millennium or turn to Nostradamus to unlock the mystery. Life itself is the mystery, this great groaning of creation that finds its meaning in hope alone.  And so Christ counsels us not to be alarmed at our condition. Do not follow the false messiahs and easy predictors. We await His arrival; and “O Come, O Come,” will be our prayer.