This week the readings convey a sense of imminent crisis, a realization that life has come to a point of fundamental decision. Do I recognize those decision moments in my own life? How about in the lives of people I encounter in my role as minister? 

We live in fretful times. World events have many people looking to the Bible and arcane sources for omens, predictions, and signs of what’s to come.

The truth is, we're sinners, locked into mortal limits where actions invariably meet and embrace consequences.

It seems easy to get caught up in a kind of terror that everything we believe in is threatened. We can find signs in the news, signs in the stars, signs in the Bible that tell us the end is near. The fact is, the end is always near: the end of everything as we know it and the end of right now.

Like a microcosm of the end time described in today’s gospel, I have regular experiences of dark days filled with the tribulation of piled up deadlines at the office, unrelenting household chores, family responsibilities, financial worries, psychic funks, and catastrophic events, such as the illness and death of loved ones. 

In Jesus’ day, the storyteller created the images in people’s minds. So Jesus’ description of the last days had to have been both frightening and awesome to those who listened to him.

We look to the day when the reign of God will be fully revealed.

The promise of Christ’s forgiving victory over sin encourages steadfastness.

Do not believe that, because Christ is a priest, he always discharges his function; he was content to fulfill his ministry once, and then he sat down. To stand in the presence of God is the sign that one is a minister, but to sit near God proves that, like God, one receives the sacrifice. —Saint John Chrysostom (c. 347-407)