The Second Coming of Christ

Caught up as we are in our current events and concentrating on "just making it through the day", or "one day at a time", we need to be reminded, as the Church is doing in this phase of the Liturgical Year, that we are moving to a point where Jesus will come again to turn over all of creation to the Father and establish the permanent "Reign of God."  Christ will come again, and with him there will be no sorrow, no wrangling, violence, injustice or despair. We need to remember this as the doom and gloom "conspiracy" penetrates more and more into our view of the world with its multiple problems.
The readings at Mass currently are featuring the Book of Revelation and Jesus' "last discourses" which describe the "end times".  Revelation was written when the young Church was already under heavy persecution and the promised return of Jesus was becoming apparently less immanent than first believed.  Talk about discouraging times!  Yet this book is full of hope because it sings the praises of the triumphant Lamb and the arrival of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, as a bride adorned for her bridegroom...the Church as the Bride of Christ.  2000 years later, we still await his coming, which will happen, but striving and struggle are evidently still needed to prepare for it.  Hence the seasons of Advent and Lent, which call us to make a special effort to "get with the program"...tune up, as it were, our spiritual engines, and live the challenges of the Gospel with more sincerity and authenticity.  That is, not just with our lips or thoughts, but with our behavior. Come  Lord Jesus, take over my life and strip me of all that stands in the way of following you as closely as possible. Amen.
Bro. Rene