Thoughts for your consideration: By Stephen Dunn, CP

Modern people seem to have a difficult time with the fantastic imagery of apocalyptic scenes such as these readings present; “a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence”; “after the time of suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light…” But actually, we are surrounded by a whole genre of contemporary literature we call “sci-fi”, so why should that be?  Of course we don’t associate the Scriptures with fiction, maybe that’s the issue.  On the other hand, sci-fi arose in order to imagine something we sensed or feared was going to be true (disaster plots) or hoped could be true (utopian plots).  In either case there is a link from the fantastic future back to the menacing or hopeful present.

It might be helpful to put two images side by side.  The first would be “Dr. Strangelove” the disaster plot describing potential nuclear world-wide disaster (apocalypse) unleashed by a rogue, indeed mad, military general – a story line which had strong crediblility during the years of the cold war.  The second is the event we’ve been celebrating recently, the collapse of the Berlin Wall – redemptive for us, apocalyptic for the Soviet Union.  We never imagined that it might happen as it did. Rather, we got confronted by a real event that was hardly imaginable. Not capable of being forecast, it participates in the uncertainty of “day and hour” of apocalyptic images.

The liturgical readings are affirming this unique  “Berlin Wall” reading of apocalyptic signs.  Forces are in play assuring an end to the evil we suffer. The “end time” is in-the-making and we are free to embrace those forces.  We Christians have identified them as the on-going work of the Spirit of Christ in our midst; the power of the Resurrection.  Like the forces that brought down the Berlin wall, they go unnoticed by the negative structures of our society.  They are nourished in good will rather than bad… discovered more in song and art and religion than guns and coercion and violence.  In the image of Jesus’ parable, we are asked to learn the lesson of the fig tree: like the signs it gives of summer approaching, even the worst negative things we can imagine will still signal the ultimate bringing down of the “wall” of evil.

Someone has noted, however, that, unlike the situation in Jesus’ time, our imaginations are tormented, not by the cosmic cataclysms that in that day were felt to need divine agency to occur: “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven,” but the apocalyptic scenarios we ourselves have put in play. Only now do we realize that cosmic dynamics are being triggered by human actions.  They are quickly taking over.  What we had the power to start we will not have the power to stop.

Just one example: the biosphere of the Earth has developed, over the last 65 million years into a flourishing of life forms biologists have called the Cenozoic Era.  It is over … as a result of our own doing.  In the opinion of leading biologists, we are creating the sixth mass extinction of life that the Earth has endured.   Human activity has produced a genuine “end time”. It is a sobering thought as the nations of the Earth prepare to convene in Copenhagen to discuss climate change.  Thomas Berry has said that our hope for the future is to strive toward an “Ecozoic” Era to succeed the Cenozoic: an age of “mutually enhancing relationship” between the Earth and its humans.  In a way it is making new use of the parable of the fig tree.  When we see all the signs of cataclysm we should remind ourselves to look for the “signs of summer”… of new life, and seek to preserve the tender branches so that they can put forth their leaves.

Like the forces that brought down the Berlin wall, the forces of reverence for all creation are alive in our midst, although unrecognized within our prevailing world view.  The Spirit, giver of life, is our guarantee of hopefulness.  We do not know the “day or the hour” when creation will come to its fulfillment, but we know we are called to participate in the Spirit’s on-going creation of a “new heaven and a new earth”.