Tuesday of Week 21 – 2 Thes 2:1-3,14-17; Ps 95:10-13; Matthew 23:23-26

I’m looking at today’s first reading, the second letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, and I read:

To turn, brothers, to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we shall all be gathered round him: please do not get excited too soon or alarmed by any prediction or rumour or any letter claiming to come from us, implying that the Day of the Lord has already arrived. Never let anyone deceive you in this way.

Setting aside the style, it could have been written today, right? You only have to enter appropriate words into your web browser to see a whole lot of predictions about the “end being neigh”. In the tabloids over the years there have also been many of them. Their sources have always been someone who foresaw something which had just happened and so, if he speaks of something that is going to happen, it’s also highly likely that he’ll be right again.

In addition, we now have fear generated about the catastrophic consequences of a crisis in climate change, the renewed threat of nuclear weapons being used.

The end of the world will is sure to come. Space exploration by scientists reveals how sure they are that the earth will eventually be destroyed. Undoubtedly in the distance future, when inevitable astronomical events take place, or sooner if something unexpected happens (in the sense that it might happen in millions of years, or today). But when it will happen, we do not know. And this is why we must be prepared for this day. But at the same time we can always look to the future without fear. When all’s said and done, since the hour of the world’s end is unknown, it’s probably not going to happen at a time someone has predicted.