Dirty Tricks
or Foretastes?
Introduction
(liturgical bearings)
The
Western World ends its old year on the last day of December. The Church ends her liturgical year in late
November, on the 34th Sunday of Ordinary Time. But since we always celebrate
the feast of Christ the King on that Sunday, the readings about the end of
time are read on the 33rd Sunday (this
Sunday). That makes this Sunday sound more like the last Sunday of the church
year than next Sunday.
Simple
solution: we could eliminate the feast of Christ the king (created by Pope Pius
XI in 1938) because we already have such a feast; it is palm Sunday. Then we could do the end-time readings on
the 34th Sunday of Ordinary Tme, and that would make it sound more
like the last Sunday of the church
year. No big deal; just a matter of liturgical tidiness.
But
there is a little plus in this big discussion about nothing: it helps us get
our liturgical bearings. It tells us how far we have come: through almost 34 Sundays of Ordinary Time. It tells us where we are the present
moment: by the church calendar it is
almost new year’s eve for us. And it
tells us where we’re going: we’re soon
on our way to Advent and the Christmas
season.
But
before we head off in that direction, we give the fast departing church year a
finishing touch with scripture readings about the end-time. "In the days after that time of trouble
and tribulation, the sun will grow dark, the moon will no longer shine, the
stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. And then
will appear the Son of Man, the Messiah,
coming in the clouds of heaven, with great power and glory" (Mk
13:24-26). A bit scary, at first.
Such writings are
called “apocalyptic writings.” They appeared with frequency in the two
centuries before Christ and the two centuries after Christ, the Messiah.
Strange as it may seem, they were
written not to scare but to console.
//You write an apocalypse because the 5:30 news, both B.C. and A.D., is
so depressing, with Palestinians and Israeli forever battling it out, and trampling underfoot the relentless efforts
of heroic peace-makers. //You write an
apocalypse because the evening news is
so depressing with Republicans and Democrats, outshining Palestinians and Israeli in their obvious
hatred of each other and their mean-spiritedness (which trickles down to us,
the people, and which has divides us,
the people. //You write an apocalypse
because you’re depressed wondering whether the black smoke over the White House
will ever turn white, before the White House itself turns black. // You write
an apocalypse because you are so depressed over this world which obviously was not
created as the best world possible, with
all its terrible disasters of
sunken submarines and airplane crashes and burnt-out mountain passes
which entomb loved ones who had gone off momentarily either for business or for
fun --
never, never to return.
You
write an apocalypse because in your despair you believe that only God and
God’s Messiah can put an end to the bad
news and fix this “not best of all possible worlds.” The coming of the Messiah, this great Fixer, will indeed
be momentous: “the sun will grow dark,
the moon will no longer shine, the stars will fall from the sky, and the
heavenly bodies will be shaken. And then will appear the Son of Man, the
Messiah, coming in the clouds of
heaven, with great power and glory" (Mk 13:24-26), to straighten out
the whole mess, to fix it all up,
to do for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. That is apocalyptic writing –
not all that good, not all that bad. We
might call it “Old Testament end-time.” [1]
New
Testament end-time (i.e. end-time according to the gospel) is somewhat
different. When Christ, the Messiah, comes again in glory and power, it is not
in order to do for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves, but rather to bring to
perfection, “to free from stain, to
burnish, and transfigure” everything that we have done for ourselves.[2]
New Testament end-time (i.e. end-time according
to the Gospel) waits for the Second coming of Christ to fulfill the Divine
Promise made to this “not best of all worlds” -- the promise that “the
best is yet to be.” New
Testament end-time waits for the Second coming of Christ to fulfill the
Divine Promise made to this tragic world of sunken submarines and airplane crashes and
burnt-out mountain passes -- the promise “to wipe away all tears from
their eyes, to do away with all
suffering, all crying and all dying” (Rev.21:4).
End-time
according to the Gospel has us supposedly waiting for the coming of
Christ. But as we look around nobody
(including ourselves) seems to be
waiting much for anything. That
superb theologian of the end-time, Teilard de Chardin, writes, ”We persist in saying that we keep
vigil in expectation of the Master. But
in reality we should have to admit, if we were sincere, that we no longer wait
for anything” (Divine Milieu). Our
“culture of the instantaneous” has made waiting (the essence of Advent) an
endangered species. Nobody waits much for anything anymore. We live our lives on drive-thru lanes, and we
feed ourselves with fast-food.
End-time
according to the Gospel carries for us the promise that “the best
is yet to be.” But the
commercials of our culture keep telling us that “this is about as good as it
gets.” The commercials keep telling us that the best of all worlds is not “yet-to-be” but is already here
with all its electronic toys and
gadgets, and with all its instant
ecstasy and fast-fixes.
In a word, our culture is not “end-time friendly.” It is not “Advent friendly.” It prefers not
to deal with the end but simply to get on with Christmas. But it is important to deal with the End. Karl
Jung, the father of modern psychology, made the interesting observation that no
one over forty ever came into his office with a problem that wasn't somehow
rooted in the perception that the wine was beginning to run out, and that the
End was beginning to draw near.
But
culture friendly or not, there is an
end-time dimension written into all of
us and written into all creation around
us, and we can’t escape it. Some
are more in touch with that dimension
than others. A friend writes: “I remember Sundays as a child. We were given our weekly dime, we went
off to the movies, and when the movie was finished, the word Finis, End, flashed across the screen. That was the end
of the movie, the end of my dime, and
the end of Sunday. Tomorrow was Monday, and a kind of sadness came over
me.” She was in touch with the end-time dimension written
into her, and into you and me, and into all of
creation.
When
the falling leaves of Autumn write
"Finis" for us on all
the delights of the summer season and
we feel melancholy; when in late November and early December, we feel
in our bones that life is an exile, and that we don’t have here an everlasting
dwelling; we are in touch with an end-time dimension written into us.
When
dusk writes Finis on Thanksgiving Day and on Christmas Day and on all
the other days that we keep vigil
for, wait for, prepare for, and they
come and go, and we feel let down or we feel disappointed simply for no other
reason than the sun has set on our great day, then we are in touch with an end-time dimension written
into us.
When
painful farewells along the way of life write Finis for us on dear and
precious friendships, and we feel lonely,
we’re in touch with an end-time
dimension written into us.
Whenever
the mystic in us has us believing that
none of us raises a little finger to do the smallest task unless moved by a
conviction (be it ever so refined) that
our creations will not perish
completely -- a conviction that we are contributing to something that will be
eternally saved, then we are in touch with an end-time dimension written into
us and into all our creations.
The
mystic in us believes that every
material improvement we have effected upon the surface of this earth, every inspiring thought we have sent forth
from our human spirits, every moving
manifestation of tender love that we have authored in life (e.g. like
when the cabbie turned off his
meter), every note of harmony that we
sounded through the years, -- the mystic in us believes that all these new creations and all these
beautiful precious off-springs of ours
will not perish eternally but
will in some way be eternally rescued and saved, and will enter with us into
the new Jerusalem and will bedeck the
new heavens and the new earth. The Book of Revelation says, “Opera illorum sequuntur illos.” “Their
works shall follow them” (Rev 14:13).
Whenever the
intense feeling we have for some creature of incredible goodness and
unconditional love finds us demanding an eternal home for it, a place in heaven
for it, e.g. like the family dog, yes like the family dog, then we are in touch
with an end-time dimension written not just into us human beings but into the
whole of creation around us. I always say that
I don’t want to go to heaven if Simeon isn’t going to be there. Sounds irreverent? Listen to Romans 8:22:
“For we know that even the things of nature, like animals and plants, groan (ingemiscit),
suffer in sickness and death, and that
they too are in labor (parturit) – they too are just dying to be born into
the glory that is to come.” Sorry, you selfish human beings; you’re going to
have to share heaven!
foretastes
//The more in touch we are with this end-time according to the gospel (secundum
Ioannem), the more at peace we are with
the falling leaves of autumn that put an end to the delights of summer. //The
more at peace we are with the sunset that puts an end to Christmas day and to all our other “prime
times.” //The more we are at peace with the Finis that’s splashed across
the movie screen and across all the other things and creatures that we love
with all our hearts and souls.
//The more in touch we are with this end-time according to the gospel (secundum Ioannem),
the more at peace we are with all the endings that dot our human live along the way. They are no longer “dirty
tricks” that life has played on
us. They are instead foretastes,
previews, reminders that the best is
yet to be, that the best wine has been saved for last, and that the eye has not
seen nor the ear heard what God has prepared for those who love God.
[1] This Old Testament sort of end-time, which does not believe too much in human endeavor and labor has plagued Christianity down through the centuries. The age-old complaint against us has been this: Instead of harnessing Christians to the common task, their religion causes them to lose interest in it. Nobody addressed this complaint more forcefully than PierreTeilard de Chardin. “Do not blame anything (i.e. our religion) but our weakness: our faith imposes on us the right and the duty to throw ourselves into the things of the earth” (Divine Milieu).
[2]Vatican II on the end-time dimension and value of human labor and endeavor – The Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, The new Heavens and the New Earth, no. 39.