Daily Retreat 12/02/07
2007 Dec 2 SUN:FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
Is 2:1-5/ Ps 121(122):1-2. 3-4. 4-5. 6-7. 8-9/ Rom 13:11-14/ Mt 24:37-44
From today’s readings: “Come, let us climb the LORD's mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths.... Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.... let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealousy.... Stay awake, for you do not know on which day your Lord will come....”
The Rapture Racket
"One will be taken, and one will be left!" These ominous words of scripture and a few other verses picked out of the New Testament are claimed as the inspiration for the popular "Left Behind" fiction series and other Fundamentalist discussions about the "Rapture" and the "Tribulation." However, the Catholic Church (as well as a solid historic majority of Protestants) finds that these alarmist and imaginative interpretations not only lack a solid biblical basis, they simply contradict the actual scriptural prophecies about the Second Coming of Christ!
Here are the pieces of this puzzle: Toward the end of the Book of Revelation, a verse tells that the Devil will be bound for a millennium, a period of a thousand years. Elsewhere in the New Testament, Jesus (and His Apostles) warns of a period of Great Tribulation on earth, which is to precede the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment, the ultimate End of the World. The disagreements derive from different interpretations of these key terms.
First of all, is the biblical millennium literally one thousand years, or is that cipher to be interpreted symbolically as an indefinite substantial number, as is commonly done, for instance, when a parent complains, "I’ve told you a thousand times not to do that!" And then, symbolic or literal, is the millennium strictly a phenomenon of a future time when Christ will establish an earthly kingdom in a global period of Christian peace and virtue, or is this millennium already actually being lived out in the present Christian era, in which Christ offers His sacramental presence as the invincible antidote to all evil, even though He refrains from robbing us of the freedom to refuse Him and His Church?
Second, will Christ come secretly right before (or perhaps in the middle of) the worldwide period of Great Tribulation to "rapture" up and rescue faithful members of His Church before His definitive coming at the end of time? Or, will that Tribulation happen before Christ comes again, so consequently, that will be a time of trial for all people, whether faithful Christian or not?
An essential key to any defensible interpretation of scripture is to never isolate verses from the larger context of paragraphs, chapters, books, and the whole bible - always, always, read things in context! The Book of Revelation is clearly a very symbolic book which invites the reader to contemplate Heavenly realities through means of earthly images. St. John, the author of the book, repeatedly uses numbers in a symbolic sense - consider, for example, the numerous series of "sevens ," understood as a harmonious number of perfection and completion, evocative of the seven days of God’s week of creation. In contrast, the mysterious "666" mark of the Beast thus can be understood as emphatically imperfect. So, the thousand years of the millennium are justifiably interpreted symbolically.
Likewise, if a person merely focuses on the isolated verse Matthew 24:40 "One will be taken, and one will be left," it would be possible to postulate some "Rapture," a secret coming of Christ. But when the whole Chapter 24 is read, ideally along with Chapter 25 and all the other passages in which Christ talks about a period of Great Tribulation, it’s clear that He speaks of this tribulation as a prelude to His glorious Second Coming and the Last Judgment. He specifically warns His followers that they will have to endure much for His sake, and that we must always be vigilant in our conduct, for no one knows the day or hour of His Coming, when the Last Judgment will definitively divide all of mankind between those who are taken into Heaven, and those who are left.
For more details about the biblical, historical deficiencies of the "Rapture" racket, check out http://www.catholic.com/library/rapture.asp
Is 2:1-5/ Ps 121(122):1-2. 3-4. 4-5. 6-7. 8-9/ Rom 13:11-14/ Mt 24:37-44
From today’s readings: “Come, let us climb the LORD's mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths.... Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.... let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealousy.... Stay awake, for you do not know on which day your Lord will come....”
The Rapture Racket
"One will be taken, and one will be left!" These ominous words of scripture and a few other verses picked out of the New Testament are claimed as the inspiration for the popular "Left Behind" fiction series and other Fundamentalist discussions about the "Rapture" and the "Tribulation." However, the Catholic Church (as well as a solid historic majority of Protestants) finds that these alarmist and imaginative interpretations not only lack a solid biblical basis, they simply contradict the actual scriptural prophecies about the Second Coming of Christ!
Here are the pieces of this puzzle: Toward the end of the Book of Revelation, a verse tells that the Devil will be bound for a millennium, a period of a thousand years. Elsewhere in the New Testament, Jesus (and His Apostles) warns of a period of Great Tribulation on earth, which is to precede the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment, the ultimate End of the World. The disagreements derive from different interpretations of these key terms.
First of all, is the biblical millennium literally one thousand years, or is that cipher to be interpreted symbolically as an indefinite substantial number, as is commonly done, for instance, when a parent complains, "I’ve told you a thousand times not to do that!" And then, symbolic or literal, is the millennium strictly a phenomenon of a future time when Christ will establish an earthly kingdom in a global period of Christian peace and virtue, or is this millennium already actually being lived out in the present Christian era, in which Christ offers His sacramental presence as the invincible antidote to all evil, even though He refrains from robbing us of the freedom to refuse Him and His Church?
Second, will Christ come secretly right before (or perhaps in the middle of) the worldwide period of Great Tribulation to "rapture" up and rescue faithful members of His Church before His definitive coming at the end of time? Or, will that Tribulation happen before Christ comes again, so consequently, that will be a time of trial for all people, whether faithful Christian or not?
An essential key to any defensible interpretation of scripture is to never isolate verses from the larger context of paragraphs, chapters, books, and the whole bible - always, always, read things in context! The Book of Revelation is clearly a very symbolic book which invites the reader to contemplate Heavenly realities through means of earthly images. St. John, the author of the book, repeatedly uses numbers in a symbolic sense - consider, for example, the numerous series of "sevens ," understood as a harmonious number of perfection and completion, evocative of the seven days of God’s week of creation. In contrast, the mysterious "666" mark of the Beast thus can be understood as emphatically imperfect. So, the thousand years of the millennium are justifiably interpreted symbolically.
Likewise, if a person merely focuses on the isolated verse Matthew 24:40 "One will be taken, and one will be left," it would be possible to postulate some "Rapture," a secret coming of Christ. But when the whole Chapter 24 is read, ideally along with Chapter 25 and all the other passages in which Christ talks about a period of Great Tribulation, it’s clear that He speaks of this tribulation as a prelude to His glorious Second Coming and the Last Judgment. He specifically warns His followers that they will have to endure much for His sake, and that we must always be vigilant in our conduct, for no one knows the day or hour of His Coming, when the Last Judgment will definitively divide all of mankind between those who are taken into Heaven, and those who are left.
For more details about the biblical, historical deficiencies of the "Rapture" racket, check out http://www.catholic.com/library/rapture.asp
posted by FrPitstick | 12/01/2007
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