2nd Reading from 2Peter 3 : 8-14

“Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,
and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.

Since everything is to be dissolved in this way,
what sort of persons ought you to be,
conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire.

But according to his promise
we await new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without stain or blemish before him, at peace.”

One might surmise that it will be as though the realm of Purgatory is literally merged in all its fullness with earth, and for the time that is necessary for earth’s renewal.

It will be helpful to also reflect on what was spoken of by John the Baptist in the Gospel when he said:

“One mightier than I is coming after me.
I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptized you with water;
he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” *

Here in this Gospel passage we get the sequential image of the water of rebirth from the time of Noah corresponding to the time of the End by fire spoken of by St Peter in the second reading and referenced also by Jesus in Matthew 24 : 37-39 “…..as in the time of Noah so it shall be in the time of the End….” Here in Matthew, Jesus was using that eschatological imagery to illustrate the similarity between the world being destroyed by the Great Flood in Genesis and how things will be generally on earth leading up to the Omega Point,** the time of the End when the whole world will be baptized by the Holy Spirit with fire – that is, the fire of Purgatory. And there too in the Gospel of Mark, the difference is alluded to, as shown through the words of John the Baptist – between the baptism of water and that of fire. But both are indeed necessary because this sequence is part of the outworking of the grand salvific plan of God for all creation. And we can draw yet again another correlation. That Jesus’ Incarnation to be born of woman in a lowly human nature is linked to being born from a watery place, that is the womb. His Second Coming however will be of a powerful, firey nature, symbolizing the overthrow of all sin by the absolute power of the Holy Spirit.

One cannot be surprised at Thomas Merton’s fascination with Oriental religious & spiritual themes*** for two of the most foundational are present in the scenario we have expounded on in the above paragraph and these are none other than the relationship between the Yin and the Yang – those forces of natural law so treasured by the people of the Far East – for God saw it good that they should be given wisdom about these aspects of the creation dynamic. And such understandings and apprehension of the cosmic interplay of these behavioural traits of nature and the natural law as infused by God into the woven fabric of the created order from its Genesis serve to enliven our own appreciation for the marvelous and mysterious ways that God uses to make existance happen and to sustain it. We need also be mindful here of that heart-wrenching rendering in Psalm 139 of our own make-up, our own inceptions within the mind of God and His sovereign plan…..

“13 For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them ever came to be. 17 How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God, how vast is their sum! 18 If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.

Like Jesus’ own hidden birth in a Bethlehem stable, our frames were made in secret by God, known intimately to Him but unknown as yet to the outside world. This is our Yin moment, just as the stable birth in Bethlehem was Jesus’ own Yin Moment – He came hidden from the big wide world yonder, relatively unnoticed by humanity – symbolizing the humility and pragmatically necessary hiddenness of His Incarnation. His Second Coming by contrast will be a total Yang Manifestation of His Supreme Glory. Think Epiphany on a Grandè scale – a scale of fullness as yet unseen but nonetheless hinted at in the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, Triumphal Entry, the Resurrection, and Ascension.

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Other References

* Mark 1 : 8

** In a number of his works Pierre Teilhard de Chardin speaks of the coming of the End and makes reference to it as the Omega Point, i.e. that point in time when our entire temporal existance culminates in the return of Christ at His Second Coming – for Christ is the Alpha and the Omega – the Beginning and the End.

*** See the following article: https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/it-was-at-this-time-of-the-year/18828