Last Sunday after Pentecost 21.11.10
When we talk with one another about the state of the world the question arises: is this the end? Can it get any worse than this?
A bit of historical perspective will enable us to see that previous generations must have also asked the same question. Probably every generation has had enough things going wrong to be able to put those questions. Things have seemed black many times before this; but the end ‘was not yet’.
As for our time we certainly have some of the ingredients of the last days: increasing rebelliousness against God and His Church; increasingly blatant immorality, particularly sodomy (always a sign of degeneration); people have itching ears for new doctrines (Christianity is perceived as old hat).
Can things get worse? Yes, they could and they might. Predictions of evil can always be overruled if there is sufficient repentance and reparation. If everyone in the world went down on their knees there would be no need for chastisements, plagues, and other horrors to come.
God sends these things (or threatens them) not because He likes to punish us, but by way of claiming our attention.
He is trying to impress upon us how much we need Him, and how wrong things will go, and wronger still, if we do not seek to be reconciled with Him. The various images of Scripture threatening dire punishments are attempts to bring home to us that we have a vital need for God, and if we do not possess Him we will suffer agony.
After a certain point, if we deprive ourselves of God’s grace, there will be a reaction. There will be trouble in this life and the next. There will be anguish and distress as the soul realizes its loss, like the pain of grief multiplied a thousand times.
Many people have come to repentance in all these misfortunes over the centuries, but we have never managed to convert the whole world or even the majority of it. The message of repentance is not a bestseller; there is tremendous resistance to the Gospel, even though it be Good News.
People often prefer to remain in darkness and misery than change what they know.
For our part we never let up on praying for conversion of sinners and imploring God’s mercy on the world.
We deserve to be wiped out many times over by now, but still in His mercy and patience He gives us more time to get things right.
We thank Him for the time but we also gently remind Him that He has promised to come again and wind everything up!
We must not let the disintegration of moral values around us in any way loosen our own desire for holiness of life, nor of its absolute necessity.
The temptation is that when we see others relaxing their moral grip and giving way to things that they would have once been appalled by – the temptation is to join them; throw off the yoke of obedience we have been carrying for years and join the ‘progress’ to the new ways.
We must hold firm and thus be light in the darkness for others to see; a voice in the wilderness for them to hear. We are the leaven in the bread, the mustard seed that will expand to cover the whole world.
Confronted with bad news some will turn to the pursuit of more pleasure. Turn up the sound to drown out the unpleasant reality.
It is better to face reality head-on. It is the only way to discover the truth. If we read the signs of the times, realized our total absolute need for God and turn to Him at every opportunity then we have peace of mind, and we will pull back from the brink.
Can it get any worse? Yes, but it can also get better. We must make it so.
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