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The Beginning of the End Is Now!
Our Encounter with the Risen Christ Betokens an Experience of Something Radically New in Us

By Lorenzo Albacete

Recently, I went to visit a friend in the hospital. The other patient in his room was in for open-heart surgery. He didn’t seem particularly nervous or worried. When I told him that, in a similar situation, I would be a nervous wreck, he said, “I understand, but I am a Christian.” I told him I was a priest, and he insisted, “Good, but I am a Christian who expects ‘The Rapture’ to occur any moment now. What happens on the operating table is irrelevant.” What is “The Rapture”? Those who believe in “The Rapture” argue that it is part of the scenario for the end of the world revealed in the Book of Revelation. When it happens, the “true” Christians, those who have been “saved” by their Biblical faith (Catholics are obviously not among them) will be snatched up into heaven to await the end of the world with Jesus and all the dead who have been “saved.” It will happen suddenly, and the elect will be taken up from wherever they are and whatever they are doing at the moment. As the man in the hospital room said to me, “Can you imagine how surprised the doctors and the nurses will be if, in the middle of the operation, ‘The Rapture’ takes place and I simply disappear from the operating table?” I couldn’t resist replying, “If I believed in “The Rapture”, I would be terrified to think that my doctors would be snatched up in the middle of the operation leaving me behind with my chest open!” I guess I am not that confident of my salvation. There is no such event as this Rapture in the Catholic doctrine about the end of the world–before the “Second Coming of Christ” at “the end of the world.” For us, the end of the world is above all what Cardinal Ratzinger calls an “anthropological event.” It concerns not primarily a cosmological event, but the end of the present human experience of the world, of life, of our human identity, and of our possibilities as human beings. Indeed, we can anticipate something of this “end” when we encounter the Risen Christ now. As Fr Giussani constantly reminds us, our encounter with the Risen Christ betokens an experience of something radically new in us, of a “new humanity,” a new way of being human, of fulfilling all the defining demands and desires of the human heart. If experiencing the beginning of the end of the world is called “The Rapture,” this occurs for us each time we encounter Christ. This change in us, however, cannot be without consequences in the very structure of the universe. According to Catholic doctrine, the cosmos is not simply some “container” where human beings live out their lives. Man and the future of the cosmos are bound by creation itself. Recall that in the Book of Genesis, man’s relation with nature (work) is the occasion for the manifestation of what it means to be human. More: this link between human destiny and the cosmos is an important part of our faith in Christ as the “archetype” of Man. The universe was created for Jesus, true God and true man. The resurrection of Jesus, His “new” way of being human, is the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation that discloses the ultimate purpose of all creation. The risen human body and soul of Christ already belong to a “different kind” of cosmos where it can pass through closed doors and eat fish! Therefore, it is not improper to expect that when Christ is “all in all” at the completion of His mission, it will bring about an unimaginable change in our cosmos. That is why the Bible portrays the end of the world in cosmological terms proper to the authors’ view of the universe. In the meantime, this “end” is made present through the life of the Church springing from the Eucharist and its impact in our “present world.” That is, the “end of the world” is not the result of a “natural current” of an impersonal history, as it seems to be for those who expect “The Rapture”. For us Catholics, it does not happen automatically, as if we believed in an unstoppable progress. It rests on decisions. It rests on freedom. It is fashioned by the way we live–for the human glory of Christ–all the circumstances of our lives… including open-heart surgery!