The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas

Today's Mass Readings

As we become more technologically advanced, we think less about times and seasons. Even farmers who are tied to land and weather have found ways to overcome much. Here in the country, farmers’ wives lament that farm implements now have headlights and that they plant and harvest without ending when the sun goes down. So now beginnings and ends of the year seem rather arbitrary.

St. John tells us that now that Christ has come into the world, “It is the last hour.” He wrote this some two thousand years ago. Therefore, he must not mean that the Lord is long overdue returning to judge. Rather he means that time is not cyclical for a Christian – that is, endlessly spinning around in beginnings and endings. For the Christian, time is linear and it has an endpoint to which it is moving. That goal is Christ. When He came into our world He gave meaning to all of our lives and points all of our choices to His eternal life.

Thus, the apostle tells us that many so-called antichrists – that is, those who were once believers but have explicitly or by their choices implicitly – are among us and opposed to the Church. That dismays and perhaps even scares us. Nevertheless, St. John says that is no worry because Christ is the ruler of time and He has anointed us to bear these trials until time’s end.

So, if these are the last days and this is literally the last day of 2021, what are we to do? Pope Francis admonishes us to give thanks and ask for forgiveness, the two together. We may find that the greatest blessings when we look backward were in those trials, and it was only the clinging to selfishness or not putting on the mind of Christ that led to us not seeing it. May we give thanks and ask for forgiveness so that our time is better spent next year and that our orientation becomes the season of the Kingdom of Heaven’s advancement.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB