Yeehaw!!! Finally, the year 2020 is set to pack and go. It has been an unusual and challenging year with natural disasters, global pandemic, social and political unrest. Whatever has a beginning must also have an end. As the year comes to an end, St. John in today’s first reading draws our attention to the very end of the world; the last hour. It is a time of endings and beginnings. We look back on the past year and wonder what 2021 will bring.
The First Reading speaks of the Antichrist, even several antichrists, manifested in certain persons who work against what comes from God. The Gospel sings about the coming of the Christ. The two readings present the everyday realities. Time goes on. We end an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year. Every end brings a new beginning. There is something mysterious about time. Once gone, it cannot be retrieved.
In this moving time, we experience the struggle between good and evil in the world as well as within ourselves. Like St. Paul, we live in constant tension between the good we want to do and the evil we actually do.
It depends on what or who the center of our life is. Time can be understood as linear; it begins and moves towards an end. Buddhists have a cyclic understanding of time; it moves and returns to its starting point and begins again. Christians have a spiral understanding; it moves around a center, and as it advances, it reaches higher levels. Our time moves around Christ present in the church and the sacraments, moving us forward to ever-higher levels in our spirituality until we reach our goal, when our limited time on earth moves into eternity in heaven.
As we enter the last hour of this year, let us examine our hearts: Am I for Christ (pro-Christ) or against Christ (anti-Christ)? Do my actions and inactions promote the kingdom of Christ or act as stumbling blocks to Christ’s kingdom?
Take some quiet time and remember how good God has been to you during 2020 despite its huge challenges and devastations. In all those experiences, I hope you will discover that God did something for and through you. I trust that something has contributed much to your growth as a disciple of Christ and has brought you closer to Him. I trust that those God experiences have equipped you, made you stronger and wiser. So that, as you face the challenges of the coming new year 2021, you’ll emerge even more pleasing in the eyes of the One whom you desire to be with at the end of your life’s journey. Let us all move again tomorrow around Christ to reach a still higher level, closer to the goal we are called to.
A blessed and grace-filled 2021 to all the readers and supporters of Gratia Vobis Ministries.
Father, Creator and Lord of time, thank You so much for Your guidance throughout this year. I thank You for another year of grace, blessings, and love. Despite my failures and sins, You remained close to me and brought me safely to the threshold of a new year. Continue to stay with me and travel with me on the ongoing journey of faith and of life. AMEN.
