Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's gospel reading gives us a vivid description of what is to happen at the end time. Wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, persecutions, and betrayals will characterize the end times. This scene can be very frightening. But these things do happen. Even in these days, terrible floods, tornadoes, volcanoes, tsunami and forest fires to cause huge destruction. Certainly, npne of us thinks that this time, for sure, it will be the end of the world. At the same time, we know that our personal world can end at any time. This can be, for some people, a frightening thought.
Is the reading meant to frighten us? Is it meant to put the fear of God into our hearts? No! In fact, just the opposite! It is meant to help us focus on things that are really important. There is a possibility that as we live our lives we may lose our focus and vision from what is really important to the mundane things of our human existence. We can get caught up in making more and more money, in legal battles, in petty family feuds, and in accumulating things. We can be so caught up with ourselves that we can forget others; we can even forget God.
The important thing, then, is not when the world will end, or even how it will end. The important question is if the world does end today, will we have our minds focused on what is really important: on God, on love and peace, fidelity and justice, faith and hope; things that really matter. If we do have things that are really important in focus, then the message is not that frightening after all.
The Christ that will come on the last day or the Christ we will meet at our own end is the very Christ comes to us at Eucharist. Think about this as a real possibility, but, we might be only as prepared to meet Jesus at the end of the world as we are prepared today. Is that a reason for us to be afraid or does that make us confident to meet him? Only we know the answer to that question.
Fr. Satish Joseph