21 October 2011

As we wait today to see if Harold Camping is correct about the Lord's Second Coming, we might do well to consider, briefly, the end of the world.

As Pope Benedict XVI has noted, throughout the centuries Christians have looked both to that final day with joy crying out, "Maran atha (Our Lord, come)!" and also as the dies irae (day of wrath).  There is something of truth in both of these views, but we must always remember "it is not a stranger who judges us but he whom we know in faith."

What is more,
On that day of fear the Christian will be allowed to see in happy wonder that he to whom "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given" (Matthew 28:18) was the companion in faith of his days on earth, and it is as if through the words of the Creed Jesus were already laying his hands on him and saying: Be without fear, it is I (Credo for Today: What Christians Believe, p. 120).

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