Reading the Signs of the Times
Fr. Campbell
The
world is full of distractions, and those whose minds are distracted by
the things of this world forget what life is all about. But if we wish
to be ready for the Lord’s coming, we must think about what He told us,
and be careful to observe the signs of the times. Jesus told us what
happened to the foolish people who failed to listen to Noah’s warnings:
“For
as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying
and giving in marriage until the day when Noe entered the ark, and they
did not understand until the flood came and swept them all away; even
so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Mt.24:38,39).
That should be enough to wake us up! Our Lord continues:
“Watch
therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is to come. But
of this be assured, that if the householder had known at what hour the
thief was coming, he would certainly have watched, and not have let his
house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready because at an
hour that you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Mt.24:42-44).
There
is nothing wrong with enjoying life, but our real purpose in this world
is to prepare for the life to come. Our Lord admonishes:
“Let
not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In
my Father’s house there are many mansions. Were it not so, I should have
told you, because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will take you to
myself; that where I am you may also be” (Jn.14:1-3).
But
most of us are so busy with the things of this world that we can hardly
spare a thought for Heaven. We say like the men in the Lord’s parable
about Heaven, “I cannot come to the banquet”:
“And
they all with one accord began to excuse themselves. The first said to
him, ‘I have bought a farm, and I must go out and see it; I pray thee
hold me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen,
and I am on my way to try them; I pray thee hold me excused.’ And
another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come’”
(Lk.14:18-20).
And
the Lord finishes his parable with the words, “I tell you that none of
those who were invited shall taste of my supper” (Lk.14:24).
How
can we be so distracted from our true purpose? The answer is that we
are being distracted by the devil, who is so envious of us that he will
never rest until he sees every last one of us in Hell. But we have a
serious purpose in this world. We are not here to waste our time, but to
bear fruit worthy of eternal life. Consider what Jesus did to the
fruitless fig tree:
“Now in the morning, on his way back to the city, he felt hungry.
And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he came up to it, and found
nothing on it but leaves; and he said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come
from thee henceforth forever!’ And immediately the fig tree withered up”
(Mt.21:18,19).
We
are treated like thoughtless children by the media. They have us
believing that there is no real purpose to life except to enjoy it. The
result is that we bear no fruit. We work for the goal of retirement,
imagining ourselves on our own yacht, or enjoying the swaying palm trees
on the beach. But it’s not Heaven! Instead we develop creaky joints or
kidney stones. We fracture a leg or a hip, and we start forgetting
things. The life we looked for becomes a vanishing dream.
If the TV and our iphone have become our teachers, we are kept in ignorance of the real purpose of life. We never grow up. Life is an endless succession of baseball games and Saturday Night Live. Our minds are given over to a worldly way of thinking, and we forget about Heaven.
Our
first responsibility now is to free ourselves from the false formation
we receive from the media, so we can grow up before it’s too late.
Otherwise we remain children, whether 35 years old, 50 years old, or 80
years old. If we think that there is no more to life than making money,
having fun, and eating and drinking, we are ruined as human beings,
worth nothing but to be bound up and thrown into the fires of Hell.
“I
am the vine, you are the branches,” says our Lord. “He who abides in
me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for without me you can do
nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he shall be cast outside as the
branch and wither; and they shall gather them up and cast them into the
fire, and they shall burn” (Jn.15:5,6).
Great
human beings don’t let the pleasures of this world have such power over
them that they don’t become what they were born to be, and are even now
capable of becoming by the grace of God. Start growing up! Realize that
the media are not our true teachers but are being used by the enemies
of our souls to bring us to ruin. St. Paul tells us what God has
provided to bring us to full maturity in Christ:
