Daily Retreat 11/28/08
2008 Nov 28 Fri: Ordinary Weekday
Rv 20: 1-4. 11 – 21: 2/ Ps 83(84): 3. 4. 5-6a and 8a/ Lk 21: 29-33
From today’s readings: “All the dead were judged according to their deeds.... Here God lives among His people.... In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near. ”
1000 Years
Although the span of 1000 years is not mentioned until Chapter Twenty of the Apocalypse, for centuries, superficial readers have focused on that number as the interpretative key of the whole book. Their position, known as "Chiliasm" or "Millenarianism" (respectively derived from the Greek or Latin word for "thousand") is that Christ will reign on earth for a literal period of 1000 years.
There are variations on this theme: some have held that Christ began this reign with His Incarnation, so they expected the end of the world in the year 1000 AD; others believe Christ secretly initiated that 1000 year reign sometime in the twentieth century; others look for His earthly kingdom to be established at a not too distant date in the future; still others latch onto the 1000 year span in speaking of a strictly political reign (such as Nazism and its "Third Reich" which was supposed to endure for 1000 years).
But "the Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the ‘intrinsically perverse’ political form of a secular messianism" (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church §676). So, like many numbers in the Book of Revelation, this "1000" is not to be taken literally; instead, it is probably best to understand the Apocalyptic 1000 year span as an indefinite but amply long period of time, as in the expression, "That won’t happen again for 1000 years!"
Rv 20: 1-4. 11 – 21: 2/ Ps 83(84): 3. 4. 5-6a and 8a/ Lk 21: 29-33
From today’s readings: “All the dead were judged according to their deeds.... Here God lives among His people.... In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near. ”
1000 Years
Although the span of 1000 years is not mentioned until Chapter Twenty of the Apocalypse, for centuries, superficial readers have focused on that number as the interpretative key of the whole book. Their position, known as "Chiliasm" or "Millenarianism" (respectively derived from the Greek or Latin word for "thousand") is that Christ will reign on earth for a literal period of 1000 years.
There are variations on this theme: some have held that Christ began this reign with His Incarnation, so they expected the end of the world in the year 1000 AD; others believe Christ secretly initiated that 1000 year reign sometime in the twentieth century; others look for His earthly kingdom to be established at a not too distant date in the future; still others latch onto the 1000 year span in speaking of a strictly political reign (such as Nazism and its "Third Reich" which was supposed to endure for 1000 years).
But "the Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the ‘intrinsically perverse’ political form of a secular messianism" (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church §676). So, like many numbers in the Book of Revelation, this "1000" is not to be taken literally; instead, it is probably best to understand the Apocalyptic 1000 year span as an indefinite but amply long period of time, as in the expression, "That won’t happen again for 1000 years!"
posted by FrPitstick | 11/25/2008
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