From Season to Season

Jesus said to his disciples: “In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in heaven will be shaken. And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky”   —Mark 13:24-27 Speculation and anxiety about the end of time and of the world is neither new nor unusual. For centuries, seers and sages and mystical texts—like Nostradamus and the prophecies attributed to St. Malachy—have been making dire predictions about the future. Science, too, has contributed to public anxiety by citing a series of possible scenarios in which the world (at least as we know it) could come to an end through climate change, collision with another celestial body, and even because of the cooling of the sun. While these...

What is the purpose of the Christian life? Or, we might ask even more simply: What’s the point? As the Church Year comes to an end, this essential question is brought into sharp focus. The answer is as simple as it might be unpopular: because we’re waiting for the fulfillment of time and of hope-filled promises of an untold future. We are awaiting the return of Christ. I would go so far as to say that if we’re not watching and waiting in hopeful expectation, then something vital is missing from our individual faith.   The Last Judgment from the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo depicts Christ the Judge surrounded by Mary and the Saints Many Christians become immediately uncomfortable with talk of Heaven and hell, death and judgment. And, while the naïve concepts of heaven's “streets paved with gold” and hell’s "fire" shape the lives of some believers, these simplistic Sunday school images (could we say "threats"?) aren’t what we are about as Christ...