Today's readings: Proverbs 31, 10-13.19-20.30-31; 1 Thessalonians 5, 1-6; Matthew 25, 14-30.
From a religious point of view, judgment day, or the end of the world, is not synonymous with catastrophe. Instead, what we gather from the Scriptures regarding the Day of the Lord is a message of hope for God's creation and an invitation for us all to be pro-active, responsible, and innovative. This contrasts with the nonsense that comes from some churches and sects proclaiming catastrophe everywhere in the name of God, and claiming to justify themselves by quoting the bible.
Judgment day is the theme for this Sunday, and next Sunday will be the end of the liturgical year. The Gospel proposes the parable of the talents, whose meaning, coupled with what Paul writes to the Thessalonians, is far from the usual moralising approach concentrating on the importance of using one's talents to the best of one's ability.
The coming of the Son of Man as represented in the parable by the return of the Master to his country, or in Paul's letter as the Day of the Lord, is judgment day, the day of reckoning. We repeat it always in our profession of faith that 'he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead'. But this is not chaos and darkness. It is the end not in terms of time but in terms of purpose.
The way we live today doesn't remind us of having one day to face judgment and be accountable to the God we believe in. In the past, judgment day was kept colourfully alive in people's minds, even being a motive of fear of the Lord, seen as some sort of 'watchtower' over us. But in truth, judgment day is the time of encounter with the loving God in whom we hope to find true rest.
In the Christian understanding, preaching about the end of the world gives less importance to when and how the world is to come to its end, and more emphasis on the fact that the present world will pass but we are responsible for it in the meantime.
History is heavily marked with a sense of catastrophe and interior discouragement. We've got too much havoc, evil, suffering, injustice and imbalance on our plate. Not that the world only consists of that. But that is what is mainly communicated to us. In contrast, we remember the recent past, when in its collective consciousness, humanity could afford to dream of a better and more humane future. There was a sense of security coupled with the idea of progress that was promising, but which today is no longer worth dwelling on.
Many of humanity's dreams have been shattered, starting from the idea of an enduring peace, to that of an emancipated and dignified third world. We seem to be more resigned to the hard facts that poor people are doomed to become poorer. What is the faith perspective on all this? Is there something we can add as believers? Or has our way of seeing and managing things made us part of the problem?
The words of Paul to the Thessalonians sound very true when he writes of a false sense of peacefulness we might have, when we are suddenly taken unawares by events. It happened at the turn of the millennium when our complacency came to an abrupt end with the crashing down of the Twin Towers. It is happening again now with the shock treatment the world's economies are going through. All of a sudden, the distant 1929 has returned to haunt us.
The eschatological perspective makes us more responsibile for the world and for what is happening around us, rather than alienates us, as it was sometimes alleged. We are called to be sons and daughters of light, not of darkness. We have one day to give account to the Lord not of our souls, but of the whole Earth. For that, the Gospel and Paul invite us to be wide awake.