12 October 2019
Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
We tend to dislike deadlines, because they are a time of reckoning, a time after which what has been done has been done and there is no more that can be done about it. A Magis reflection, for example, needs to be written before the day on which the liturgy proposes a certain set of readings. If one finishes late, nothing will be sent out at the appropriate time, and the good that could have resulted is lost.
This is not the only way to see an end-time, of course. An end might also be seen as a matter of rejoicing and of reaping what has been sown, especially if the judgment is one that is a blessing and the fruit is long overdue. Thus, in Joel 4:12-21, the judgment of God is cause for celebration, because through it, God keeps His saving promise to His people and rights wrongs so that what remains for eternity is only the right ordering of love.
If we fear judgment, it may be because we have lived in ways that have not been just and we fear losing what we ought never have had in the first place. But if we ought not even to have this or that thing, then perhaps what is best, even for ourselves, is for it to be taken away. We need not complicate things. Since God loves us, his judgment will be one of love, even if it may be painful in the moment. The trust of Mary shows us the way: let us ask for the grace to “hear the word of God and observe it,” starting anew each day (Lk 11:28).