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PAGE 5—January 6,1977
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Should We Expect
Jesus’ Return?
BY FATHER ALFRED MCBRIDE, 0. PRAEM.
Expatriate Irish Playwright, Samuel Beckett,
is world famous for his “Waiting for Godot.”
The play describes two genial tramps waiting on
a country road by a tree for the coming of a
mysterious Mr. Godot. In each act they are
finally told that Mr. Godot can’t come today,
but he will undoubtedly come tomorrow. The
two men talk about leaving the spot and going
somewhere else, but their final decision is to
stay simply where they are, waiting.
The point of Beckett’s play seems to be that
people expect and wait for a God that will
never come. No use seeking God for you won’t
find Him. No point in knocking. The door
won’t open. Quit waiting for Christ. He is not
coming.
But in the teaching of Christianity, there are
three comings of Christ. First, there was His
historical coming as the Word made flesh in
Galilee and Judea. Second, is the coming we
experience of Him now in sacraments and
Christian witness and the outpouring of the
Spirit in our hearts. Lastly, there is His final
coming which is to mark the end of the world,
and the full revelation of His love.
Like the two travelers in Beckett’s play, we
are all earthly pilgrims waiting for the coming --
not of Godot -- but of Christ. Our Lord does
not disappoint those who expect that He will
come each day with His love and acceptance
and forgiveness. Some Christians also possess a
keen interest in the final coming of Christ. The
results in their case are more like the two
travelers waiting for Godot. They are assured at
the end of each of the two acts by a messenger
that Godot is about to come. But he never
does. However, this does not deter them from
waiting for and expecting a final coming.
They keep scanning the stage of world
history for the biblical signs of the end of the
world. These signs are invariably some kind of
catastrophe. Wars. Earthquakes. Massacres.
Fires. Assassinations. Crimes. Hurricanes. Faith
grown cold. Black Plagues. Widespread
brutality. Famine. Bombs. Massive breakdown
of morality. Decline of empire. False messiah’s
who lead even the elect astray.
BY FATHER AUGUSTINE HENNESSY
A genuine Christian is a person who lives
habitually in an attitude of expectancy. He or
she awaits the coming of the Lord. We believe
that Jesus Christ has a timeless presence in our
human history. He makes His presence felt each
time we celebrate the Eucharist and when we
are invited to proclaim the mystery of our
faith, we put our basic convictions into three
concise sentences: “Christ has died; Christ has
risen; Christ will come again.” Then after we
address our Father in the words that Jesus
taught us, we confidently expect Him to
protect us from all anxiety “as we wait in
joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour,
Jesus Christ.”
There was a time when early Christians
expected their Saviour’s coming to be so
imminent that they cared little about worldly
affairs. They gave themselves unreservedly to a
passionate concern for readiness to meet their
Lord. Solitude and virginity had a beguiling
attraction to people who yearned for the day of
the Lord’s coming. “Come, Lord Jesus,” was
the simple prayer which embodied their longing
for a better world to come.
Only when the expected return of Jesus
seemed disconcertingly slow in coming did
early Christians learn to think out the deeper
meaning of their presence in a world redeemed
by Christ but not yet delivered completely
from human malice. They realized correctly
that they were entitled to feel victory in their
hearts while they were waiting for the hour of
their Lord’s revelation but in the meantime
they were left with a job on their hands. His
power and presence in their lives must make
them work to renew the face of the whole
earth.
Why were they so sure that a transfigured
world was already theirs in promise and that
the Lord’s promise could never fail? It was not
only because He is ever the Word of truth. It
was because this Word of truth, their living and
risen Lord, had entered into an inseparable and
holy wedlock with the human race. The
unbreakable bond was made manifest in the
sacred humanity of the Man Jesus who had
penetrated into the highest heavens in their
name and for their sake. In Him, all mankind
KNOW
YOUR
FAITH
(All Articles On This Page
Copyrighted 1977 by N.C. Newsservice)
V
The truth of the matter is that signs, like the
above, occur so frequently and regularly in the
unfolding of history, that there is scarcely ever
a time when they do not happen. If one were to
collect a file of news clippings in any one year
of recent history alone, we could find any
number of such “signs.” In fact more than
enough to make us certain that the end of the
world could hardly be far away. Some
Christians, indeed, are so impressed by the
multiplicity of current catastrophes that they
will even set a date, gather at an appointed spot
and probe the skies to see the coming.
But Christ Himself says, “You will know
neither the day nor the hour. Only the Father
knows.” (Cf. Mt. 24,36) What Christ seems to
say is that the yearly series of earthly troubles
and upheavals are signs of His present
compassionate availability no matter how bad
things are -- as well as dress rehearsal for the
final fulfillment.
These signs of the times are but signals to
open us to the current coming of Christ as an
assurance of hope and acceptance, not as literal
and accurate time tables for a celestial
spectacular that will bring the faithless and
godless mighty of the earth to their knees. The \
perennial cycles of death and anxiety are calls
to the human heart to reach out to a Christ of
comfort and hope beyond present troubles.
They do indeed signal that a day will come
when death shall be no more and Jesus will
wipe away all tears from all our eyes.
But that is the not yet. We live in the now.
The not yet is both the life we must live until
our appointed time to die, and the ultimate
unfolding of the grace of Jesus at the end of
time. The annual cycle of end-time signs remind
us that we should certainly expect Jesus’ return
- but at two levels. (1) His Easter return to us
in Sacraments and acts of daily Love for each
other. (2) His final return as Lord of history
and perfect lover of all peoples.
Practically speaking, the return we should
concentrate on is the daily Bread of His
presence. We may properly yearn for the final
revelation. But we should invest our main
energies in the “coming” available each day.
and the whole material universe had received a
new and irrevocable destiny - a destiny of
partnership in His own transfigured existence as
the Lord of glory.
The Second Vatican Council put this truth in
powerful words: “The Lord is the goal of
human history, the focal point of the longings
of history and of civilization, the center of the
human race, the joy of every heart, and the
answer to all its yearnings.” (“Gaudium et
Spes” no. 45)
In the poetic imagery of sacred Scripture, the
Christ who will return to us is a bridegroom.
Throughout history He is fashioning a bride for
Himself. She will be one without spot or
wrinkle, holy and unblemished in His sight. The
bride is flesh of His flesh. Her beauty and
holiness are compacted into oneness by the
Holy Spirit who makes all the holy people of
God into one body and one spirit in Christ.
Fittingly, the Bridegroom Jesus is intent upon
building a new bridal home for His beloved - a
new heaven and a new earth which will be
revealed to redeemed mankind at the second
coming of the Lord. It is He who makes all
things new and triumphs over all that is sinful
or sad or threatening to the joy of His people.
The hour of this transformation or the mode
of His coming is God’s own secret. No signs are
infallible guidelines for figuring out the time or
the moment. All signs are simply opportunities
for reaffirming faith, evoking hope, and
dynamizing our love. The signs and wonders of
our own scientific age can be seen as promises
of the ultimate transfiguration. The marvels of
medicine, mankind’s growth toward cosmic
consciousness, the possibility of interplanetary
travel, a new awareness of social and economic
solidarity among nations - all such signs of
hope can be seen as a God-given yet human
contribution to the transformation of our
world. But always the operating dynamic
behind this transforming power in our world is
the love of God which is poured out into our
hearts by the spirit of Jesus.
Jesus gave us a parable to help us keep all
this in mind. It is the parable of the wise and
foolish bridesmaids who are awaiting the return
of the bridegroom and his bride. Five are wise
and five are foolish.
All of them are virgins because all of them
are called to single-mindedness in their
fulfillment of the Lord’s command to love Him.
But some of them are foolish because they
carry no oil with them to keep their lamps
burning when the Bridegroom is unexpectedly
slow in coming. When the Bridegroom arrives at
the long-awaited hour, only those with burning
lamps are able to greet Him with joyful
confidence and fulfilled expectancy.
St. Jerome liked to think that the oil which
keeps our lamps burning is good works of love;
St. John Chrysostom suggested that it is mercy
or compassion; St. Augustine saw it as that
interior joy which sustains God’s friends;
Origen likened it to holy doctrine without
which our faith cannot thrive. All of them were
correct because if we are able to wait with our
lamps burning, it is because an anointing from
on high puts the spirit of Jesus into our hearts
when the night is long and He seems to come so
slowly.
r
We Wait With Our Lamps Lit
FATHER ALFRED MCBRIDE tells of how oracles of doom
often see catastrophes such as floods, famine, earthquakes, or
wars, and interpret them as signs that the end of the world is
near. The truth is, Father McBride writes, these “occur so
frequently . . . there is scarcely ever a time when they do not
happen. Some Christians are so impressed by the multiplicity of
current catastrophes that they will even set a date, gather at an
appointed spot and probe the skies for the “coming ” (NC
Photo by Robert L. Miller)
We “Know Not The Day Or The Hour”
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
Every time we recite the Creed, we voice our
belief that the victorious Christ “will come
again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”
Having said that, we have said about all that can
be known with any degree of certainty about
the “Parousia,” the Second Coming of Christ.
When and how will He come? How will His
coming affect our universe? We do not know.
Such questions were real and vital for the first
Christians. It is hard for us to realize how
excited and confused they were about this
subject. Their excitement is responsible for the
considerable attention paid to it in the New
Testament; their confusion is reflected in the
bewildering conflicting data those books offer
on the Parousia.
JESUS’ PARABLE of the wise and
foolish virgins is retold by Father
Augustine Hennessy. Five wise virgins
go out to meet the bridegroom and his
bride with lamps burning and carrying
extra oil; the five foolish virgins also
have their lamps burning but carry no
When we turn to the Gospels for
information, we have an initial difficulty of
determining whether Jesus’ sayings on the
subject are authentically His or rather
expressions of the sentiments of the
communities within which the Gospel tradition
was formed. No one can ignore this difficulty
without doing violence to the real nature of the
Gospels and without adding to the confusion.
In one passage, Jesus warns the Twelve that on
their trial preaching mission they will have to
endure persecution. But he encourages them:
“When they persecute you in one town, flee to
the next; I solemnly assure you, you will not
have covered the towns of Israel before the Son
of Man comes” (Mt. 10,23). Did Jesus expect
the Parousia during His ministry? This is hardly
likely, and if He did, He was terribly
disappointed. It is most probable that the
extra oil. Father Hennessy writes, only
“if we are able to wait with our lamps
burning” will we be able to welcome
Jesus out of the long night and into our
hearts. This woodcut of the “Wise and
Foolish Virgins” is by John Everett
Millias. (NC Photo)
background for this chapter of Matthew is the
situation of the Matthean church, and 10,23 is
an expression of its confidence that persecution
will not prevent it from fulfilling its mission
before the advent of the Son of Man.
Other passages suggest the expectation of a
Parousia immediately after Jesus’ death. “I am
going to prepare a place for you, and then I
shall come back to take you with me, that
where I am you also may be” (Jn. 14,3). There
is an echo of this in 1 Thessalonians, where Paul
groups himself with those who will be living
when the Lord returns (1 Thes. 4,16-17). (See
also Mk. 14,62, 14,25 and Lk. 23,42-43.) Fr.
R.E. Brown of the Pontifical Biblical
Commission says: “All of this would fit in with
a theory that Jesus did not know precisely what
form His victory over death would take. One
might conjecture that as a Jew He spoke to this
victory in terms of the imagery of Daniel and
the coming of the Son of Man, whereas it was
the resurrection that took place after His death,
and the Parousia remained in the future”
(“Jesus God and Man,” p. 72).
On the other hand, several statements suggest
a delay of the Second Coming. Under this
heading come all those texts which look to the
continued life of the Christian community after
Jesus’ death. In some cases the delay would be
brief: “I assure you, this generation will not
pass away until all these things take place” (Mk.
13,30; see also Mk. 9,1; Mt. 16,28; Jn. 21,22).
Some passages referring to a more or less
remote Parousia mention all sorts of signs
which must precede it. (There is a classically
difficult text of this sort in 2 Thes. 2,3ff). In
the so-called Eschatological Discourse in Mk.
13, Mt. 24-25, and Lk. 21, where descriptions
of the Fall of Jerusalem and of the Parousia are
disconcertingly intermingled (not so much so in
Luke), all sorts of preliminary signs are
mentioned: false Messiahs, persecutions, wars,
famine, pestilence, earthquakes, cosmic
upheavals - all the conventional stageprops of
apocalyptic drama. Even if they are not to be
taken literally, they do at least point to a
Second Coming in the indefinite future, one
which must await the appearance of all these
“signs.”
Well, then, if these are preparatory signs,
shouldn’t one be able to read in them the
nearness of the Parousia? No. Famine,
pestilence, earthquakes, wars, are not so unique
as to herald anything unusual. And Scriptures
tell us the time of the Parousia cannot be
known. It will come suddenly, unexpectedly. In
a most striking Gospel passage, Jesus admits
that He, too, is ignorant of the “exact day or
hour” (Mk. 13,32; Mt. 24,36).
It is most unlikely that the early Church
would have attributed such a saying to Jesus
had He not really uttered it, and in it we may
well have the answer to the confusion so
evidenced throughout New Testament writings.
The Christians knew the Parousia was coming;
they had conflicting traditions about Jesus’
mind on the subject, and they had the reality of
their own Christian existence to explain in the
light of those traditions. But behind all the
uncertainty about time and other details,
behind all the obvious imagery (God’s trumpet,
archangel’s voice, clouds of heaven, fiery
annihilation of the elements, etc. etc.), the
fundamental truth of our Creed is a solid
constant. Christ will come again in the
end-time, and he will come to call each of us
individually. His repeated appeals to vigilance
are perennially relevant, for we “know not the
day or the hour” (Mt. 25,13).