There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, on earth distress among nations, the roaring of the seas and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
I wonder how the good people of British Columbia must have felt as the endured a storm of the century. Their lives were turned upside down. Within hours families were shattered, lives were lost. Electrical power was no more, main highways, rail roads and bridges were no more. Their businesses gone, farmlands flooded, live stock lost. They were without safe drinking water, they had no sanitation facilities. All this in a matter of hours. It was the end of life as they knew it.
Last week it was B.C. this week it’s Nova Scotia and NFLD. Global warning and climate change are full of surprises. May we keep these people in our prayer that they have the strength and determination to rebuild their lives. Resiliency is part of the human condition, and these disasters bring out the best in us. But still, we know not the day nor the hour. Just think on this…
The poetry of these apocalyptic writings, terrifying as they may be, really is all about the vulnerability and unpredictability of our daily living more than with clues to the schedule of the coming end of all things. Our world disintegrates when a loved one dies or our life is shattered by divorce or our future in uncertain when we lose a job. We fear our future when we’re told we have cancer or we’re in the first stages of dementia.
But even with these portents of the end times, there is the promise born: We will “see the Son of Man coming on a cloud. When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and raise your heads, for your Redeemer is near at hand.”
God’s promise to all of us is; fear not, I am with you always, even to the end of days, especially in the worst of days…
Founded by St. Paul of the Cross, every Passionist takes a special vow to spend his or her energies in promoting remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus, the memory of the Cross, and reflection of the meaning of the Cross for the world.
