Doomsday?

While there is tongue-in-cheek coverage in the media of the end of the world, slated to begin today and after a series of further earthquakes and catastophes, be complete by October, life for most of us goes on as usual. Little can we predict in our own lives what will take place during the 24 hours after we slip out of our beds each morning. Indeed, a look back 222 years to this date on which St. Marcellin was baptized, the day after his birth on May 20, 1789, reminds us that the Champagnat family had no idea on that day, what a lasting legacy their newborn son, Joseph Benedict Marcellin, would leave to the world: a religous congregation of teaching brothers, and a spirituality that is applicable to all. Both are still having a profound effect on the world today.
On a less happy note, six years ago today, three students from Bishop Donahue High School in McMechen, WV and one father, perished in a tragic air plane crash just four days before graduation. Little did they know that the sight-seeing flight around Manhattan Island would be their last journey on earth. They are referred to now as "The Four Angels" and on this day the entire school does community service work in their honor, and students benefit from a scholarship fund that has been established in their memory, all in the spirit of St. Marcellin and his desire "to make Jesus knows and loved."
Our own baptism has incorporated us into the Body of Christ, assuring us of a lasting relationship with the God of Unconditional Love, and commissioning us to go forward and bear fruit, fruit that will last. St. Marcellin's baptismal day and the anniversary of these deaths remind us that doom is not our purpose on this planet, but LIFE...abundant life that will endure.
Bro. Rene