From a Catholic perspective, we can divide the history of the world into four phases. The first one is the original state of blessedness of humanity. When God created the world, he created a perfect world, without suffering or death. Humanity was to live in this perfect world without end. But through human sin, the world fell from grace, causing suffering and death to enter the human experience.
The fall of humanity ushered in the second phase of the history of the world, characterized by sorrow, the self-destructive cycle of sin, and the inevitability of death. But though the world had fallen into darkness, God did not abandon humanity. He called the Jewish people for a special mission. They were to be his chosen people, set apart from the rest of the world in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, who would redeem the fallen world. We see the centuries of preparation unfolding in the Old Testament Scriptures, through the ups and downs of the history of the Israelites, leading up to the coming of Christ.
With Christ, the third phase of the history of the world began. Christ is God Himself, God Incarnate, who came among us as a man. He lived among us as one of us and then offered himself up on the Cross as a sacrifice for our sins. Through the sacrifice of Christ, the original falling away of humanity is undone. Our personal sins are also washed away. We just have to accept his self-sacrificial love through baptism and by living according to the life of the Church he established.
The redemption of the world by Christ also initiated the remaking of creation itself. Through the fall of humanity, creation itself was marred. Through the sacrifice of Christ, the restoration of creation began. In fact, the beginning of both the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John treats the coming of Christ into the world as equally important to the original creation of the world by God.
As this third stage of the history of the world unfolds, our calling is to follow Christ with our entire lives and to spread the Good News of his redemptive love to all the world. We are also to prepare the whole world for the Second Coming of Christ, which will usher in the final phase of the history of the world.
As Catholics we believe that at an appointed time, Christ will return and will transform the world. At that point, the temporal human timeline of history will end and we will enter into the eternal timeless now of the heavenly order. Christ will raise all of the dead. For those who have already died, their soul will be united with a glorified body. For those who are alive at the time of the Second Coming, they will be transformed into the resurrected state at that time.
The remaking of the world will also be completed at that time. Christ will refashion creation, eliminating death itself and all that has caused humanity sorrow. The fall brought about by human sin will be completely undone.
The fourth and final phase of the history of the world will be the eternal glory of the New Jerusalem, the New Heaven and New Earth that Christ will bring about. In this new reality, Christ will be in the center of all. The love of Christ will imbue all those in this new world and the love of Christ will radiate from each of us to all others. We will abide eternally in the infinite love of God, fully at peace, completely fulfilled, experiencing unending joy.
The Gospel passage for today lists some signs that point toward the Second Coming of Christ at the end of our present world. But before we start speculating about when the end of the world might arrive, we should remember that Christ specifically tells us in the Gospels that we cannot know the time of his Second Coming. Thus, speculation is futile. As one Bible scholar put it, all the people who have predicted the end of the world through the long history of humanity have one thing in common, which is that they have all been wrong.
Instead of trying to ascertain the date of the Second Coming, we should live our lives every day as if Christ were about to return that day. Each day, we should ask ourselves the question, if Christ returned today, what would he say about what I am doing right now? Let us also remember that though the world might not end in our lifetime, the end of our personal world might happen at any time. We never know when our earthly life will end and we meet Christ face to face. Let us always be ready to meet him in every moment of our lives.
A good guide is the Benedictine Latin motto Ora et Labora, which means pray and work. We are to work for the betterment of the world as if we were to spend all of eternity here. At the same time, we are to pray as if the end of the world was about to happen and Christ was about to return in this moment. Sometimes Christians focus on our earthly responsibilities so much that they forget about Heaven in the process. On the other hand, sometimes Christians focus so much on Heaven that they neglect the work we must do during our earthly lives. Let us focus on both, working hard for a better world and being fully united with Christ in prayer, every moment of our lives.
||
The readings for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B are:
Dn 12:1-3
Ps 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11
Heb 10:11-14, 18
Mk 13:24-32
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: Second Coming Icon from Wikimedia Commons.
