Merry Christmas to all my Sober Catholic readers; I hope your Advent season bore much spiritual fruit in your lives as you prepared for this day, the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
If any of you paid attention to the Mass readings during Advent or even to the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours you are aware that Advent wasn’t just about preparing for the commemoration of His First Coming as an infant; no, the readings were also about the need for us to prepare for His Second Coming as a Just Judge, bringing history to an end and taking the righteous home to eternal life with the Father and casting into Hell the unjust, the oppressors, persecutors, the selfish and the exploiters. The damned.
Based upon all this, and combining that all with the variety of spiritual reading I’ve done in recent memory, it appears to me that the World is in almost as dark a place now as it was in the times immediately preceding Our Lord’s birth. Barbaric times of slavery and oppression, infanticide, wars and the commoditization of human beings, these times are little different. Oh, we seem more sophisticated nowadays and are more conscious of our troubles, but factor in abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, human trafficking (modern slavery) endless war, economic and political corruption, the degradation and dehumanization of human life… these times aren’t that much different.
Seems like we need a Saviour, again.
Of course, He is here, still among us in the Eucharist and the Mass; in some places He us available 24/7 in Eucharistic Adoration chapels. Otherwise, through prayer and meditation you can establish and maintain your conscious contact with God and keep that channel of life sustaining grace flowing into your soul.
He doesn’t need to Come again now to save the World from itself; He is here in His Church and Her sacraments and prayer life. We can partake of these and be Christ -bearers to others lost in the World. Many are starving for objective Truth and they know not where it is or even that it exists.
You can be a Christ-bearer in this Dark Age and bring His light to those blinded by the World. You need not become street preachers or add your voice to the blogosphere; you can merely be Christian. By doing things with great love, fulfilling the duties of your state of life, by trying to see the brokenness and woundedness of others about you. Not easy when we are often absorbed by our own pain. But we try.
How long this Dark Age will continue is unknown. There are Catholic prophecies that state that light of Christ may appear to vanish before the Second Coming; that His Church may suffer many tribulations and persecutions and will be all but destroyed. There are also Scriptural signs about what must happen before He returns. Nevertheless we must be like the servant in the parable who does his duty not knowing when his master will return. We do what is in front of us, care for each other and prepare… for we know not when He will Return, either and the end of time or for us personally. Our lives must be like a continual Advent and Christmas season; ever watchful in preparation for His Coming, and being Christ-bearers to others.
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