The End Of The World – This Weekend’s Gospel

(By Fr. Dexter Brereton)

“When you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the very gates!”

Becoming pastor of my first parish in Pont Sonde in the Artibonite region in Haiti, was a nice “promotion” of sorts and provided me the opportunity to grow the Christian community into the kind of loving, welcoming, creative community that I felt God wanted them to become. It was also a challenging and nerve-wracking experience, since it involved disturbing some leaders who were well-established by the time I had arrived. These were not ready to change how they operated… even for me. As the average, poor, rural Haitian parish, we also had significant challenges meeting our financial obligations, like paying our teachers, for example.  For a prolonged period then, I lived the story told by Jesus’ prophecy on the end of the world this Sunday: “…the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” Every new conflict, every new crisis seemed like the ‘end of the world.’ It was in some ways both a nice time and a ‘time of terror.’ Yet, at that time when I read the words chosen as the epigraph for this reflection (when you see these things happening: know that he is near, at the very gates), I felt myself being invited to enter into my period of crisis in a trusting or ‘trust-full’ way without anxiety or violence. It was as if God was inviting me to allow the storm to swirl around me and not react to it. The Son of Man was ‘at the very gates’ of my time of testing and distress.

A new job, a new situation, a new appointment can indeed be nerve wracking.  So can a deep personal crisis: you lose your job, a spouse proves unfaithful, you fail a major exam, you enter a period of very bad health. Each of these situations can seem like the “end of the world” “the sun becomes darkened” in some ways. We are invited to trust-filled perseverance. The “Son of Man”, the symbol of our victory over the darkness of life (we learn to love ourselves, we stop judging ourselves by our ability to pass exams, we find more fulfilling employment, or whatever) always comes eventually. We simply have no reason for becoming excessively ‘worked up.’