A priest recentlyshared in his homily that the readings toward the end of the Liturgical yeartend to be about eschatology. And starting this exercise of writing shortreflections based on the readings for the day at this time of the year reallydrives home the point. In the Gospel for the day, Jesus tells his disciples theend of times will be preceded by wars and insurrections, powerful earthquakes,famines, and plagues from place to place.
Some people claimthat the world will end on December 21, 2012 and I can imagine that they'll bespooked by all these readings around October/ November next year not realizingthat these eschatological readings are par for the course at this time of year.
My thought for theday is more of an observation of how caught up the Gospel writers were on thistalk about the Second Coming. I remember two points from my theology classesback in college. First that these writers really believed that the Second Comingwas near. And second, that what they wrote was not just a historical accountbut also a pastoral letter (an extended parable based on events, as it were) tothe early Christians. Given the frequency with which the question of the end ofthe world is brought up in the Gospels, I can only imagine that those earlyChristians must have really been in a state of anticipation but also ofdiscouragement when the Second Coming was taking so long.
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