Our apocalypse

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Not only that the fires of the divine wrath will consume this world. The heat will also lick our flesh, devouring it to ashes. The sins that scourge the world will be swept away, and so will those that trampled our guts, our eyes, our lips.

The eschatological teaching is useful to the Christian not only to prepare him for the end times. Indeed, it may be that we will live the Final Judgement. But whether we live through it or not, we will all have our own particular judgement. The Lord will put our heart in the scales, He will judge if we truly love Him.

Or, on the contrary, His gentle gaze will turn stern as He observes us and confirms whether we idolize pleasures, or riches, or the honors of the world, or some creature, or ourselves.

This is why it is useful to know the last days, because our own last day awaits each one of us. And as we do not know the moment of the Parousia, neither do we know “the day nor the hour” of our death (Matthew, XXV, 13). As long as we live, the Lord is at the door and knocks (Revelation, III, 20). But not forever: the God Who promised the grace did not promise the time.

The obligation towards faith is not only to attain it, but to keep it, to defend it. “When the Son of man comes, shall He find faith on earth?” (Luke, XVIII, 8). When the Lord comes to ask us to give an account of our life, shall He find faith in our heart? What will we have done with our talents?

Being aware of our frailty makes us work our firmness. Knowing that we are fluctuant makes us cultivate constant devotions. Watch and pray, lest the enemy catch you in your weakness (Matthew, XXVI).

For just as the powers that withhold evil will fall (II-Thessalonians, II, 6), so also the vigor and strength of our body, which withhold death, will be overcome. And perhaps not only the physical strengths, but also the strengths of our higher faculties will falter or even capitulate. The clarity of our judgment, which seems an unassailable right, might evaporate like a match.

In those final moments, with our entrails unraveling and maggots threatening, the skull showing itself to take the place of the countenance, the burnings running through our skin and announcing hell, the most severe is to come. We read about the end times that false prophets will have power insomuch as to deceive even the faithful, if they were allowed, and not even these will endure the end times unless those days had been shortened (Matthew, XXIV, 22-24).

Let us prepare ourselves and pray that neither our end may be delayed too long, and let us pray the Lord not to forsake us in this passing. May the latter, like the apocalyptic fire, be the purifying crucible that forges us for Christ. Let us dispose ourselves to abandon ourselves faithfully to His Providence, asking with confidence: He does not despise a contrite heart, nor does He forsake His faithful.

Roberto Moreno, Antonio Molle Lazo Circle of Madrid

Translated by the Gremio San Jerónimo