From "Second Coming" To True Fulfillment

“Christ has come into the world.”  A key difference between Jewish Messianism and Christian teaching is the belief that “the Messiah” (“Christos” in Greek, “Christ” in English) regards the timing of the Messiah’s arrival. In a nutshell, Jews look back to Moses and the prophets, and forward to the coming of the Messiah at a time chosen by God. Christians believe all sorts of things about “the coming of the Messiah.” Catholic teaching has generally claimed that Christ came once into time through Jesus, born of Mary; Christ comes personally to the faithful whenever they will receive him; and Christ “will come again in glory (divinity) to judge the living and the dead” at “the end.” For the most part, Catholics and Orthodox Christians do not get too excited about futuristic speculations about Christ. And this is because we dwell on the event of Jesus Christ—born in the flesh, taught, healed, suffered for all, died, was raised from the dead—and, his present comings NOW through faith.   For my part, I surely do not speculate on Christ’s so-called “second coming,” and all such talk seems to me to be either doctrinally fixed or foolish. It is just talk without a basis in real experience. So I avoid it. Indeed, speculation about the “second coming of Christ” imaginatively seeks to force the eternal God back into time. Usually, Catholics are far more concerned about Christ in Jesus, Christ in humankind, Christ in the Sacraments, to waste time on futuristic imaginings. Still, fundamentalistic teachings on the imagined “Second Coming” influence some of our people, because of the intensity of opinion and sheer numbers of fundamentalists in American culture. Let me say it again: Our Catholic faith is not a variety of fundamentalism; t is a mature form of spiritual experience and practice. And yet… Even bizarre opinions, such as messianic, futuristic comings, often have a kernel of truth in them. Indeed, in the words of Plato, “Every myth has its truth.”  What might be the core of truth in futuristic speculations about Christ’s coming back, or about “peace on earth,” about “a war to end all wars,” and so on? Once we strip off the nonsense and sentimental dreaming, a spiritual core remains, although it would not satisfy utopian dreamers or religious fundamentalists. Here is the truthful core, as I see it: God is drawing each of us, and perhaps in some ways, all of creation, into a profound and lasting union with Him beyond space-time, beyond death. It is not that God is coming back into time, or that “Heaven” will be built on earth. The world has its own ways of being: “Everything that comes into being must perish.” But what we can experience, as well as see in the saints, is that that Divine Love, which we call “God,” reaches into our hearts and minds, and draws us into Love’s life, into truth, into “the End that has no end.”  In other words: “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face.”  Or in other words: All of the good and love we experience now is a foreshadowing of the fulness to come to all “in Christ Jesus our LORD.”  Amen!