Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand! (Mt 4: 17 RSV)

But 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 heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.  And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. (Mk 13: 24-27 RSV)

Jesus spoke of the time when every knee will bow before the Lamb and all the brokenness of creation will be set right.  This is the eschaton, the Second Coming.  Part of what Jesus preaches refers to that promise, the promise when God will rule the world with pure justice and pure mercy and pure grace; setting all things right and in their proper place.  We do not know the time of this conclusion of history; but we know that it is on the way.

When speaking of the "Kingdom of Heaven", however, Jesus tells us not only of a coming event that may or may not be distant in its arrival.  Jesus also speaks of a present reality; the presence of God in the midst of His people.  Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The new proximity of the Kingdom of which Jesus speaks - the distinguishing feature of his message - is to be found in Jesus himself.  Through Jesus' presence and action, God has here and now entered actively into history in a wholly new way.  The reason why now is the fullness of time (Mk 1: 15), why now is in a unique sense the time of conversion and penance, as well as the time of joy, is that in Jesus it is God who draws near to us.  In Jesus, God is now the one who acts and who rules as Lord - rules in a divine way, without worldly power, rules through the love that reaches 'to the end' (Jn 13: 1), to the Cross.  John Cardinal Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth

We live in a history that has been touched irrevocably by the physical presence of God.  He chose to make himself one of us, fully man and fully God, so that we might not only look forward to the promise of life eternal with Him; but that we might share in a restored relationship with our Father right here and right now.  Jesus points to the future, but he is not only about prophesy and promises.  Through our faith in Christ, our actions guided by the Holy Ghost and our participation in the Body of Christ, the Church, we find that we are in the presence of the Kingdom even while we await its arrival at the end of time.

Fr. Michael+

Happy New Year

As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with beholding thy form.  Psalm 17: 15

This short quote from the Psalms seems to encapsulate an important concept that we should all strive to understand and make a part of our lives.  There will always be things and people to distract us; there will always be things that we want but don't necessarily need; there will always be those who have much more stuff that we do in this world: but, in Jesus Christ, we share in the promise of spending our eternal lives in the presence of God The Father, and all the rest of that stuff just doesn't matter that much.

Father Michael+

The Doors of Hell

This morning, I picked up a book that I bought several years ago called A Year with C. S. Lewis.  The compiler of this book has selected a bit of Lewis' spiritual insight for each day of the calendar year.  I found the selection for 1 December to be very intriguing.  It is taken from his work The Problem of Pain, and it challenges the notion that the loss of even one soul diminishes the omnipotence of God.  Quite the opposite, Lewis proclaims, because God's willingness to create a being that has the capacity to resist and reject its creator is, "the most astonishing and unimaginable of all the feats we attribute to the Deity."  God created us to be more that mindless slaves worshiping at His feet because we have no other choice in the matter.  Rather, He wants us to choose to worship Him because He is our Father and He is worthy of our praise.

The real money quote, however, is this:  "They [the damned] enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free."  His contention is that the gates of Hell are locked only on the inside, and that those who have rejected God out of some misguided desire to be free are merely imprisoning themselves inside their pride and self-worth which merely masquerades as freedom.  They are no longer capable setting aside their love of themselves and therefore abandoning their place in Hell even if they wanted to do so.

C. S. Lewis was a remarkable thinker and an amazing Christian apologist.  If you, Dear Reader, are looking for a book upon which to meditate as part of your spiritual discipline, I highly recommend Lewis' The Great Divorce.  It is a fascinating exploration of Heaven and Hell that is on par with Dante's Divine Comedy but is, in my humble opinion, much more approachable and edifying.

Good reading and God bless.

Fr. Michael+