The End: Be Sober, Be Hopeful

I am struck by the way Jesus ascended into heaven. The apostles had been staying in Jerusalem, but Jesus “led them out as far as Bethany, and…he parted from them and was carried up into heaven” (Lk 24:50-51). Jesus led them out of the earthly Jerusalem to witness his ascent to the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; Rev 21:22). It was a graphic reminder that these two cities were not to be confused. And yet, one of Jesus’ final directives to the apostles was that they were to return to the earthly Jerusalem, the city in which he had been crucified, to await the coming of the Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). Jesus had passed over from this world to the Father and was preparing a place for them (Jn 13: 1; 14:2-3); but their work – the continuation of his redemptive mission – was just starting, and this fallen world was their mission field.

Unlike me, the apostles never seemed surprised when they faced resistance. Seeing the treatment Jesus suffered, they had no illusions about what was to come. Jesus had also, after all, directly told them that they would be ostracized from family and polite society, publicly flogged, and even put to death (Mt 10:16-25). This knowledge, however, was unable to cripple them. They had seen the Risen One. Death was no longer something to be feared; Jesus had broken its hold and he extended this freedom to them (Heb 2:14-15). The only fear Christ would permit them to entertain was that they might prove unfaithful in loving and obeying him – a fear that kept them constantly returning to private and communal prayer for fresh infusions of grace (Lk 12:4-9; Lk 21:36; Jn 6:57-58; Heb 10:23-31).

The Apostle Paul stressed that, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). We too must follow Jesus in death and resurrection (Phil 3:10-11). The Lord was blunt, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). It’s true for each individual, and it is true for the Church as a whole. The Church has passed through cycles of turmoil and rebirth; but never forget that her most challenging period still lies ahead:

“Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers….The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil…[taking] the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.” (CCC 675, 677)

This truth, this reality, should keep us sober during our time in the world. This is not our homeland. We “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb 11:16). And we can never become so emotionally enmeshed in it that we are left reeling when it turns on us. We know how flimsy this world is, how easily it breaks – from refrigerators and cars all the way up to nations.

The Lord allows us to experience these difficulties. They are our participation in his Cross. The little disappointments, borne with his strength, prepare us for the ever greater struggles that lie ahead – our personal ends and The End. Recall what we heard on the First Sunday of Advent:

“The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire…But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.” (2 Pet 3:9-10, 13-14)

If we put anything before Christ, then we are fools. But the culture in which we live increasingly says just the opposite – that we are fools because we put Christ before everything else. It was the same in the beginning (1 Cor 1:20-31), and it will certainly be so at The End. Let’s not pretend otherwise and be caught off guard. Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that God has abandoned us. The Father was just as united to Jesus on the Cross as he was to him in the glory of the Transfiguration, and he is to us, too! Obedience to God in the midst of suffering is rewarded with the glory of the Resurrection (Phil 2:8-11; 3:10-11).

Faith is the gift that makes the Christian life possible. It is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Even in the midst of a pandemic, even knowing of the Church’s future Passion, we have joy and hope, because the eyes of our hearts are fixed upon Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).

 I’ve started telling myself something at the start of each day: “Today, I will be crucified” – there’s the sobriety – “with Christ” – and there’s the hope. May the Lord fill us with joy as we live each day, awaiting his return and the world that is to come.

Why I'm "No" on the Rapture, But "Yes" on Mary's Assumption

In my last post I shared my reasons for giving up belief in the Rapture.  Introduced to it by author Hal Lindsey, and confirmed in it during my time in a non-denominational church, study brought me to the conclusion that it was not a legitimate element of Christian Faith. Despite its popularity among Christians in the U.S., not only did it have no basis in Scripture, but it directly contradicted what Christianity has always taught - that in the last days, the Church will share Christ's Passion in an intense way, and then at His return, His Resurrection.

The wild thing is, at the same time that I believed so whole-heartedly in the Rapture, I also argued against the Catholic belief that Mary was assumed into heaven.  Do you see the irony?  I was absolutely convinced that Jesus was going to raise the entire Church up into heaven, but totally opposed to the Catholic dogma that Jesus had already done so for His Mother!

My change of heart occurred long before I came to have a positive view of the Catholic Tradition regarding Mary's assumption.  My thought process went something like this:  

• The Bible does not say that Mary wasn't assumed into heaven.

• The Old Testament does speak of two other people having been assumed, Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-12).If it was true for them, then couldn't it be true of Mary?

• Matthew's Gospel states that at the moment of Jesus' death, "The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (Mt. 27:52-53).  Wasn't it reasonable to believe that after these appearances they too were assumed into heaven?  Again, if it was true for them, then why not for Mary?

• If the assumption occurred at the end of her life, then wouldn’t portions of the New Testament already have been written? Did the Bible have to explicitly say it for the event to have occurred?

• There are tons of things not explicitly recorded in the Bible; the Holy Spirit moved John to end his Gospel with that very thought, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (Jn. 21:25)

• The Assumption coincides with, dovetails into, Scripture; whereas a pre-Tribulation Rapture is in contradiction to the overall picture of the last days painted by the New Testament.

• Belief in Mary's assumption is witnessed to in writing prior to 400 A.D. (although it claims to go back to the apostles), while the Rapture does not make an appearance until 1850.  

• The Assumption squares with the Christian reality that glory follows suffering (Mary's share in Jesus' Resurrection came only after she shared in His suffering upon the Cross [Lk.2:35; Jn.19:25-37].)  The Rapture on the other hand, holds out a false expectation regarding freedom from suffering and persecution.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians have of course always said that the Christian Faith was not be limited to those things explicitly stated in Scripture.  (No legitimate point of belief could ever contradict Scripture, but there is not a requirement that it be explicitly stated in Scripture either.)   

If you, however, object to Mary's assumption because you are a "Bible-only" Christian, then you really ought to take a second look at John's vision in the Book of Revelation.  And as you read, please keep in mind how the Gospel of Luke's identified Mary with the Ark of the Covenant (compare Luke 1:39-45,56 with 2 Samuel 6:2-3,6-12,16) and how in the Gospel of John, Jesus always addressed His Mother as "Woman" (Jn.2:1-5; 19:25-27):

"Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon…the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne ... " (Revelation 11:19-12:5)

Something to consider. Catholics do not appeal to any particular verse of Scripture as a proof text for the dogma of the Assumption; but the above verses certainly do not hurt their case! As I looked more into the foundations of Catholic belief in the Assumption, I discovered that it had a much more ancient pedigree than whatone could find for the Rapture.Once Constantine became Emperor and Christianity was no longer a persecuted sect, Christians were able to erect churches over the sites sacred to them (such as the Holy Sepulchre in 336 A.D.). These sites had been preserved in the local church's memory throughout the centuries. One of the sites, close to Mount Zion where the first Christian community had lived, had always been reverenced as place of Mary's Dormition ("falling asleep). It was not the place where Mary's body resided however - only the place where it had temporarily rested before Mary was raised body and soul into heaven.   

Although different local churches could point to the tombs of the Apostles and martyrs and boast of having their relics (bodies), there was never any such claim made in regard to Mary.  Had their been a body, the early Church would have cherished it.  But instead of a body we have this memory, this witness, from the time of the apostles, ingrained within Christians in and around Jerusalem.  Just a little research on the web can provide early witnesses:

"If therefore it might come to pass before the power of your grace, it has appeared right to us your servants that, as you, having overcome death does reign in glory, so you should raise up the body of your mother and take her with you, rejoicing into heaven. Then said the Savior [Jesus]: 'Be it done according to your will" (Pseudo-Melito The Passing of the Virgin 16:2-17; 300 AD). 

"Therefore the Virgin is immortal to this day, seeing that he who had dwelt in her transported her to the regions of her assumption" (Timothy of Jerusalem Homily on Simeon and Anna; 400 AD).

"And from that time forth all knew that the spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise" (John the Theologian, The Falling Asleep of Mary; 400 AD) 

"The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord's chosen ones..." (Gregory of Tours, Eight Books of Miracles, 1:4; 575-593 A.D.)

 St. John Damascene, living in the desert outside Jerusalem in the early 700's, gave the same testimony:

"In the Holy and divinely-inspired Scriptures no mention is made of anything concerning the end of Mary the Holy Mother of God; but we have received from ancient and most truthful tradition ... the Apostles ... opened the coffin.  And they were unable anywhere to find her most lauded body ... Struck by the wonder of the mystery they could only think that He who had been pleased to become incarnate from her in His own Person and to become Man and to be born in the flesh, God the Word, the Lord of Glory ... was pleased even after her departure from life to honor her immaculate and undefiled body with incorruption and with translation prior to the common and universal resurrection." (Second Homily on the Dormition of Mary, c.715 A.D.)

The celebration of Mary's Dormition in the liturgy was first recorded in Palestine in the late 400's and was taken up throughout the Eastern Church and then the West throughout the 500's.  

In the end, I see the Assumption's credibility as standing head-and-shoulders above the Rapture's:

And thus, I was forced to change my tune.  Which is good because on top of everything I have already shared, in 1950 Pope Pius XII used the power of the keys to definitively state that Mary's assumption is a legitimate point of the Faith that has come to us from the Apostles.  To neglect it is forego knowledge of one of the "many other things" that Jesus did that were not written down in Scripture (Jn. 21:25), but have been preserved within the living memory of His Church.  And that Church is, in the words of Scripture, "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

Early Christmas Gifts (My Theological Justification)

I grew up with a mom who loved giving Christmas gifts early…and I loved it! What child wouldn’t? One minute you are dreaming about playing Yars' Revenge on the Atari 2600, thinking it's still two weeks away; and the next thing you know it is in your hands! It was amazing. And I must confess that I often do the same with my own kids.

Oh, I can see a few of your heads nodding in disapproval. "It's ADVENT; Christmas doesn't begin until Mass on Christmas Eve!" That's the liturgical calendar, alright. But I think the early Christmas gift has a neat lesson to teach us, too.

Christmas is not only when we cast our glance backward in celebration of our Lord's first coming; it is also when look forward - to the day of His return. Many of us, at least unconsciously, feel that Day to be a long way off. (Two thousand years have already elapsed.) But the truth is that it could be just around the corner. We expect certain prophetic events first, but the exact day and moment of Jesus' return are going to come as a shock. It's not on a calendar; we can't watch the seconds counting down in Times Square. One second we will be slugging through difficulties, and the next we will be staring into the eyes of the One we've longed for our entire lives!


That's what the early Christmas gift reminds us of. A child is going along, trudging through the loooong weeks before Christmas Vacation, when BAM! Christmas suddenly breaks out!

The Lord might come for you or me at any second. None of us knows when our lives will end. The post I am writing may never be finished. Or perhaps I will be worrying about the big meeting coming up at work when...Christmas suddenly breaks out! That is quite a thought.

My Friend, the DOOMSDAY PREPPER

I went to Mass with a good friend this past Sunday.  In the middle of the Gospel reading he leaned over to me and and whispered, "DOOMSDAY PREPPERS."  My buddy has talked about this National Geographic Channel show for months and never misses a new episode.  What reminded him of it in Mass?  Jesus' words:  

"Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." (Lk 12:39-40)

Now I'm always on the lookout for new ways to relate the Faith to pop culture, so after Mass I asked him point-blank, "So if Doomsday was looming, what would a 'prepper' tell me I had to do to survive it?"  And without batting an eye he answered, "You need to stock up on water, find a sustainable food source, shelter (hopefully bomb proof), and then you need to stock up on weapons and ammo."  Sounded pretty thorough to me!

As I listened, I was like, "Yeah - that's exactly what we need to do to survive Judgment Day."  Everything he listed has a corollary in the spiritual life; and if we prepare ourselves in this way, then we will be ready to meet the Lord when He comes - cosmically or individually.

• Stock up on water?  In Scripture the Holy Spirit is frequently spoken of as Living Water.  The Spirit flows from Jesus' Heart as from a spring (Jn.7:37-39), "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (Jn 4:14).
• A sustainable food source?  The Eucharist is always available to us.  And it just isn't any food.  It is, in the words of the Our Father, epi-ousios, “super-substantial” bread (CCC 2837).  It is Christ Jesus Himself! 
• Shelter?  A bomb-proof shelter?  The Church.  Not only is she the "household of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15), but Jesus has guaranteed that nothing can destroy her - "I tell you, you are Peter (Rock), and on this Rock I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:17)!
• Weapons and ammo?  God's Word is the sword with which we confront the deceptions and temptations of the Enemy (Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12); and Prayer calls forth the power of Almighty God to both strengthen us for the fight and to tear down enemy strongholds (2 Cor 10:4).  And to quote Sts. Padre Pio and Josemaria Escriva, "The Rosary is the 'weapon' for these times;" "The holy Rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you'll be amazed at the results."

You can argue the merits of being a Doomsday Prepper, but only a fool will argue the merits of being a Judgment Day Prepper.  "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Cor 5:10).

0.34 Seconds - That's All It Takes

0.34 Seconds - the time it takes to blink your eye; that's as quickly as everything can change for the better.  When I prayed the Rosary this morning, I meditated on Jesus' Resurrection, putting myself in his tomb.  One second He was there, wrapped in His shroud.  And in the next second, with a brilliant flash of light, the shroud lay flat on the stone slab; He was gone.  That's how quickly God can change defeat into victory.  

We have little glimpses of this throughout life.  Think of those times when the phone has rang with a surprise invitation, or you ran into someone you hadn't seen in months; or you got an email out of the blue.  One moment everything was moving along as ho-hum as usual and then boom - you're like a rocket shooting into the stratosphere.  Life is not just one long struggle, carrying the Cross up Calvary; it's also shot through with these experiences of the Resurrection -and we never know when the Lord will surprise us next.

What we know for sure is that each second brings us closer to that instant when "we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed" (1 Cor. 15:51-52).

Why I'm Not Down with "the Rapture"

In a nutshell, the rapture is a belief that says Jesus will instantaneously transport (rapture) believers from earth to Heaven just prior to the final antichrist’s rise to power.  Christians will not have to endure the horrible suffering of the final days (known as the Great Tribulation).  That is reserved for those left on earth, some of whom will finally recognize the signs of the times and come to a belief in Jesus prior to His return in glory.

Although proponents of the rapture appeal to Scripture (and I admit, I use to count myself among them), no one – and I mean no one - in the first eighteen hundred years of Christianity saw it there. The two key verses appealed to by its proponents are 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 and Matthew 24:37-41. Allow me to address them each in turn.

I will start my quotation from 1 Thessalonians before, and end it after, the verses alleged to concern a rapture prior to the time of tribulation:

For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess.4:15-5:2).

Note the words I have italicized. Paul is talking about the great Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment. He is talking about the glorious, triumphant manifestation of Jesus and His Body when He returns in glory. Paul says nothing about the Church being raptured away so as to escape persecution. Instead, those translated directly from earthly existence to glory are those who are “alive,” who are “left.”

Read within its historical context, Paul is probably likening the Lord’s return to that of a victorious general. As the conqueror returned to Rome, he would stop outside the city, and wait for his family to be brought to him. Once his entourage was fully assembled they would enter the city together, amidst fanfare and celebration.[1]

Lets turn now to Matthew’s Gospel. After just employing apocalyptic imagery to describe the fall of Jerusalem, Jesus tells the Apostles:

But of the day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect (Matt.24:36-44).

Like Thessalonians, we have that image of the Lord coming like a thief in the night. It was a common motif for talking about the Second Coming; that is what both of these passages are dealing with. In Thessalonians we saw the Lord sweeping up His beloved. Not so in this passage. Who is taken? In this passage it is the unrighteous! “As [in] the days of Noah,…the flood came and swept them all away.” Much to the chagrin of Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins, in Jesus’ example it is the righteous who are “left behind.” Jesus gave a similar description earlier in Matthew:

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire, there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear…

So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth (Matt.13:41-43,49-50).

This idea that the Church will not suffer the great tribulation is completely unbiblical, and at odds with historic Christianity. Jesus, the Master, suffered. Eleven of the twelve Apostles died as martyrs; there have been martyrs throughout Jewish and Christian history. To believe in a rapture of the Church, so as to save it from suffering, flies in the face of this.

So how did belief in the rapture begin? With a man named John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a former Anglican priest and founder of the Plymouth Brethren.[2] The teaching made its way to the United States and was disseminated through the study notes of the incredibly popular Scofield Refernce Bible. Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, and Talbot Seminary then incorporated it into the training of future pastors. Hal Lindsey, whom I have read for example, was a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary. His first blockbuster, the 1970 The Late Great Planet Earth brought the idea to the masses.[1] As we have seen, however; this belief has no ground in Scripture and runs counter to almost two thousand years of Christian belief.

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[1] Thigpen, Paul, The Rapture Trap (West Chester, Pennsylvania: Ascension Press, 2001).

[2] There is conjecture that the rapture was seen in a vision by a fifteen year-old Scottish girl, Margaret McDonald, and that this private revelation then found its way into the teaching of Darby.

[3] See Currie, David,. The Rapture (Manchester New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2003), p.14-17.