It’s that time of our liturgical year when we hear apocalyptic Scriptures. Today they are from the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of Mark. This highly imaginative and symbolic writing was meant to both warn and to reassure people who were facing death-dealing forces around them. So we are invited to do that, too. What are the death-dealing forces around us today? What in our culture subverts our good intentions, our wish daily to love and serve God? What destroys our hope and threatens our faith in God? These Scriptures also nudge us to look at death (and whoever wants to do that!). The “End time” that Scripture speaks of is happening for all of us during life. Consider all the endings you have experienced! Have you ended being a student, ended being young and comely, ended being single, ended living in a certain place, ended jobs, ended having living parents or a spouse, ended having children living with you, ended being healthy? Each ending includes loss, a kind of dying. Reflecting on these end times helps us see that these experiences have not destroyed us, but that we have passed through them with increased wisdom and tranquility. Thus we can have confidence as we contemplate death, the final end time, the last dying. And we can put our trust in the Lord who also died, knowing that He has our back!
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
This is the first time I have seen or heard this reflection on these scriptures. I have always thought of them as speaking of the end of the world. This is certainly a different interpretation & made me look back at all the endings in my life & how they changed me.