The End of Time
“Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”
Reflection:
This is the final Sunday of our Church year. Our focus today is the end of time when Jesus will return again to judge the living and the dead and establish His permanent and glorious Kingdom, visible to all. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes this moment in time this way:
“The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death (#1040).”
God is truly a mystery. He is the greatest of mysteries. As a mystery, God is forever the unknown in the sense that He is endless and eternal. He has revealed Himself to us but we will forever enter deeper into our knowledge of Him because of His infinite and endless nature. This is important to understand because when we contemplate the many mysteries God has revealed, we must approach them as both known and unknown. Our solemnity today is one of those mysteries.
Of this great moment in time, we know that the Son of God will return to earth to issue forth His final judgment upon all the living and the dead. It will be the final moment of time as we know it now. The dead will rise and our bodies and souls will be reunited. The just will enter the glorious New Heavens and Earth. Those in mortal sin will be condemned for eternity. The world will no longer be a fallen world. All illness and disorder in nature will be eliminated. Peace will ensue and perfect order will be established. God will be the universal King and will govern this new world forever.
As we celebrate this glorious mystery of our faith, we must accept and believe all that we know about it. But as we do, we must also approach it with deep humility, admitting to ourselves that we will never fully comprehend the awesomeness of that day until it comes. No earthly concept will ever come close to fully describing that moment in time, but we must adhere to our belief in it with a profound and unwavering faith.
Source: https://catholic-daily-reflections.com/2023/11/25/the-end-of-time/
