The End Times Are Here? Are You Ready?

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 the heavens 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.

"Learn a lesson from the fig tree.
When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves,
you know that summer is near.
In the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that he is near, at the gates. 
Amen, I say to you,
this generation will not pass away
until all these things have taken place. 
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.

"But of that day or hour, no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Back in the late 1960's Bob Dylan wrote us a song that assured all of us that the times were "a changing."  Today one just has to look at the news to see that there are earthquakes, many wildfires, political chaos, with inflation, discord, lack of faith,  with a lot of religious persecution, rejection of morals, and other things that we associate with the end of time.  Can all of these things mean anything else but the imminent return of Jesus?  Well, first let me say that I believe that Jesus is going to return to judge the living and the dead and that His kingdom will have no end.   I also believe that as a Christian, that I will see these things when they happen. I just have to say that I do not think that the time is now.  I really do not know when the return of Jesus will be.  There is no one in heaven or on earth that knows when the end of time will happen. Jesus tells us of that day or hour no one knows, not the angels, nor the Son, but only the Father.

With that being said, we always have to remember that the end times are as near as our next breath. We are not guaranteed to live another minute in this life.  We can be called home to give an account of ourselves at any time.  In this respect, the end IS near because even if we live late into our nineties or even past one hundred when you stack it up against eternity it is almost no time at all. 

Above we see a fallible prediction that man has made of when the end of the world will come.  Remember the Aztec calendar?  It was predicted that the Aztecs knew something that we did not know and that is why they stopped their calendar at a particular date because it was assumed that they knew that no day would follow that last day on their calendar.  Actually, I believe that they got bored with the whole thing and decided that they had a bit of time before the calendar would go out of date so they gave the stone carvers a day or two off. 

When someone tells you that they know the date of the end of the world and that you better get ready for it, well, smile at them, thank them and walk away.  You are not going to convince them that they are wrong.  It appears that they do not know their Bible as good as they think they did.  In the meantime, while we wait, do not waste time.  Remember what Jesus said: "Love one another as I have loved you."  Get on with it - the end of the world is coming! 

Pray for the poor souls in Purgatory this week.