If we think of Epiphany at all, we may think of it as a passing season on the liturgical calendar. We may associate it with the Three Wise Men who followed the Star to find the baby King Jesus. We may even remember that Epiphany somehow adumbrates our Lord's Second Advent, and associate this with baroque paintings or Hallmark pictures of Jesus in the clouds. What most of us probably do not think of is how C.S. Lewis once described our Lord's Second Coming. "He will invade earth," he said. Think on that a few moments. And have a Blessed Epiphany.
3 comments:
Wisdom: For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction.
With good reason did Holy Mother Church (See Roman Catechism) begin Catechesis with happiness and love for if we were to understand Jesus as He really is in the fulness of His Glory, we'd faint or flee.
Just like God is a fire of love who will burn away all of our dross (not a painless process) the closer we draw near to Him, so too is Jesus love and He will come in Glory at the end of time with a fire that will destroy heaven and earth and those alive will, in an instance, experience their purgation while those extra ecclesia will experience the fire as the first inklings of eternal Hell; (Think of the stunning statuary, A Soul Damned, by the greatest sculptor ever, Gian Lorenzo Bernini; that is the collective look of non-Catholic man at the Parousia).
Pray, yes, for the Parousia, but no not kid yourself it will be but balloons and cotton candy; The Parousia is deadly serious - as is life itself.
And I think the only way one can be prepared for The Parousia is to live as a Catholic Traditionalist with the Real Mass, Sacraments, Sacramentals, and Indulgences and as to why Holy Mother Church is not prudent about the Four Last Things and passionate in its explication of them is beyond me; I thought that was its Salvific mission in essence.
I am not Spartacus,
Thank you for that meaty comment. I appreciate not only your sentiments but your learning. Michelangelo's "Damned Soul" is also vivid -- a look of pure torment.
I cannot help thinking, too, of that Advent hymn, whose one stanza has the line: "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." Indeed: the hopes of those such as ourselves who have cast our lots with Christ, and the fears of those such as our politicians who dread the thought that they may finally be accountable to someone beyond themselves.
Dear Dr. Because it is you delivering the compliment, I consider it one of the finest I have ever received; thank you
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