9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
Even the longest life passes quickly and, when gone, is like a dream in the night. All that is dear
to us — our family, our home, pleasure, knowledge, talent — all is transitory: our work, our
profession, our business, the body which we pampered, even our sufferings, our pains, and
our miseries all pass and leave us with empty hands. “All flesh is grass and all the glory thereof
as the flower of the field. The grass is withered and the flower is fallen because the spirit of
the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass. The grass is withered” (Is 40:6 ff.).
Every day before our very eyes we see that all that surrounds us becomes dust; death changes
all, death disrupts all and tramples all underfoot. All that surrounds us vanishes and perishes.
We ourselves shall vanish like smoke. “For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that
is to come” (Heb 13:14). “Remember man, that thou are dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”
“Waiting for the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We Christians labor for that
which is eternal. We know that “whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever
shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel, shall save it. For what shall it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul?” (Mk 8:35 ff.) We know that “every one that hath left house, or brethren, or
sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My name’s sake, shall receive a
hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting” (Mt 19:29). We know the reply of the Lord
to the rich young man: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven” (Mt 19:21). “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on
earth, where the rust and the moth consume and where thieves break through and steal”
(Mt 6:19). “The time is short; it remaineth that they also who have wives be as if they had
none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced
not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as if they
used it not. For the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor 7:29 ff.). We are risen with
Christ through baptism. Therefore we “seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting
at the right hand of God; mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the
earth” (Col 3:1 f.). In this way we await the manifestation of the Lord.
When we recall the imminent return of the Lord at our death, we understand the beatitudes
of Christ’s sermon upon the mount. “Blessed are the poor in spirit. . . . Blessed are the meek. . . .
Blessed are they that mourn. . . . Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice. . . . Blessed
are the clean of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:3 ff.). Their thoughts dwell on eternal life,
which they look forward to. That is Christian wisdom. They are “waiting for the manifestation
of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We Christians do not fear the day of our Lord’s coming; rather we
rejoice and long for it. Men who have clung to the nothingness of this world fear the loss of
that nothingness; there remains for them only a great, eternal emptiness. But we, since we are
Christians, have long since learned to value only what is divine and eternal. We have endeavored
to make the seed of eternal life spring to life in a handful of loam taken from the earth. When the
Lord returns and calls us, our work will bear fruit. Should we therefore not rejoice? “I rejoiced
at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord.” We may die, but we
shall go home to heaven.
“Bring up sacrifices and come into His courts” (Communion). The Christian finds the way
to his eternal home in the celebration of the Mass. From the Sacrifice we receive the necessary
grace by which we shall merit eternal life.
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