That Tight-Lipped Jesus ...

So here is a stream-of-consciousness post for you.  Stay with me though, there is a point:

On the drive to work today I was praying the Rosary and meditating on the Lord's Resurrection.  I was thinking of the women at Jesus' tomb.  Nothing could have prepared them for the absolute shock of the empty tomb - and definitely not for their encounter with the Resurrected Jesus.  I was struck how you and I are often so completely in the dark about all of the good things that God is doing behind the scenes, completely surprised when they break out into the light.  God seems to work in silence; He doesn't make us privy to His plans - just shocks us with their awesomeness.

Wait, that's not quite right.  Hadn't Jesus told His disciples, over and over, that He would be rejected by the chief priests and elders and be raised on the third day?  Yes, He had; but they didn't understand.  Jesus had told them exactly what was going to happen.  His crucifixion shouldn't have come as a shock - and neither should His Resurrection!

And here is what Jesus says to you and me.  We should listen closely so that we're not caught off-guard:

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn.16:33).
  
Fore-warned is fore-armed.  We will suffer the Cross.  And if we stay united with Him, we will experience His Resurrection.

Why The World Will Not End on Dec. 21st (without dissing on the Mayan calendar)

For we Christians the "end of the world" coincides with Jesus' return.  The New Testament speaks of certain events that we can expect to see prior to Jesus' second advent.  As interesting as a N.T. "End Times" Scavenger Hunt would be, I realize that you are pressed for time, so I'll point you toward the great summary in the Catechism (click here for paragraphs 673-677, complete with Scriptural citations in the footnotes), and list two things we should expect to see:

1) a large number of Jewish people will recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and

2) a tremendous, final persecution of the Church will break out at the instigation of the antichrist.

We have had a number of Jewish converts over the past several decades, but I don't think it qualifies as the recognition by "all Israel."  And although the Church is persecuted around the world, I don't see how the present state of affairs could be identified as the antichrist's final assault upon the Church. Things may be bad, but I envision the Church's final passion as something much more grueling.  Even if we had witnessed these two events, Jesus still assures us that the exact "day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven" (Mt. 24:36).

None of this is to say that we shouldn't live December 21st as if it was our last day.  As individuals, it might very well be.  The Lord may come tomorrow to take your or me to Himself through death; He may come before this day ends.  How should a Christian spend his or her last day?  I don't think it has to be anything over the top; our usual daily tasks are sufficient in the Lord's eyes. "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17).  We should simply focus upon what the Lord has called us to be - sons or daughters, sisters or brothers, husbands or wives, parents, neighbors, workers - and with His grace, live those vocations to the best of our ability.  As Jesus said, "It will be good for that servant whose Master finds him doing so when he returns" (Mt. 24:46).

How Does Prayer Work? A Thought

When Jesus prophesied the seige and destruction of Jerusalem, a microcosm of the Final Judgment, he made a couple of very intriguing statements regarding intercessory prayer and God's care of His children:

And alas for those who are with child and those who are nursing in those days!  Pray that it may not happen in winter. (Mk.13:17-18)
If the Lord had not shortened those days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. (Mk.13:20)

Reading these passages in isolation, one may come to the mistaken conclusion that God changes His mind.  He means to do one thing, but then the prayers of His people cause Him to change course.  But these verses from Mark do not exist in a vacuum.  They are understood in the light of the larger corpus of Scripture, the Tradition that has come down from the Apostles, and the sense of the faithful throughout time; and all of these tell us of a God Who stands outside of and above space and time.  He is perfect, not subject to change.

So what good do our prayers do?  Why did Jesus tell the Apostles to pray and say that God would intervene in the tribulation for the sake of His elect?  Let me hazard a partial answer:  It's not that are prayers change God.  Rather, He has already willed them.  From eternity He has already woven them into His plan for the world, freely decided that some graces are released only in response to them.  And this is preeminently true for regarding the prayer and intercession of Jesus!  His human prayers for us, and His offering upon the Cross, and the torrent of grace they released have been woven into all of God's dealings with humanity.  After all, even though Jesus' sacrificial death took place c.30 A.D., Scripture refers to Him as " the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world" (Rev.13:8).

Keep those prayers coming my friends.  God has woven your petitions into His plan for the unfolding of history - both your personal history and that of our world!