The End of the World As We Know It?

Note: The following was originally written for Our Sunday Visitor in late 2009, in part because of the movie, "2012", released at that time. I am posting it here in light of the interest about the Mayan calendar and the date of December 21, 2012.

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T. S. Eliot, at
the conclusion of his 1925 poem, “The Hollow Men,” wrote, “This is the way the
world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.” That’s a far cry from the cosmic
crisis depicted in recent apocalyptic books and films, including the
heavily-touted and movie “2012” (see sidebar below), which is crammed full of
bangs, computer-generated crashes, explosions, earthquakes, and floods.



Curiosity about
the end of the world abounds. For many, it is both frightening and exciting to
think they will witness The End. Wars and natural disasters are commonly
interpreted as signs of approaching apocalypse; future famines and ecological
crises are often promoted as hastening the same.



But are we
really living in the end times? And what, exactly, does the Catholic Church
teach about the end of the world?



These Are the
Last Days!



For Catholics, the terms
“end times” and “last days” refer both to the conclusion of history at some
future point, and also—even primarily—to the last two thousand years. “God,
after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in
many ways,” wrote the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “in these last days
has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom
also He made the world” (Heb 1:1-2). It was the Incarnation, the entrance of
God into time and space, which ushered in the end times and the last days.



In The Lord
of History (London:
Longmans, 1958), his study of Jesus Christ and history, Jean Cardinal Daniélou
wrote of how the first and second coming of the Lord are intimately connected:
“First of all, it means that the Last Things have already begun. The
resurrection of Christ is presented as the first and decisive act of the last
day. The Word of God took humanity to himself in the Incarnation, and cleansed
it through his precious blood, and brought it into his Father’s house forever
at his ascension. The work of salvation has been substantially done, everything
essential has been secured already …” Yet God’s work of salvation and judgment
still continues. “We are still waiting for that Judgment that will destroy the
world of corruption and establish the kingdom of saints. This twofold
relationship to something achieved and to something awaited specifies the
current phase of time, which is the epoch of the Church.” The message of the
gospel is that man can only be saved from the trials of history—especially sin
and death—through God’s work within temporal history. 



The Kingdom
is the Key



Compared the
often fevered beliefs of certain fundamentalist groups, New Age groups,
extremist cults, and radical environmentalists, the Church’s teaching might
appear decidedly mundane, even boring. But false teachings and skewed
sensationalism cannot compare to the authentically radical and sensational
teachings of the Church about history, salvation, and the eschaton—the culmination of time and history. The
heart of this teaching is Jesus’ proclamation, made during his public ministry,
that he was establishing the Kingdom of God (Matt 12:28; Mk 4:11; Lk 8:1-10).
This everlasting kingdom was realized through his death, his resurrection, and
his ascension into heaven. 

Continue reading on the CWR blog.