The Eschaton (pronounced ES-ka-ton) is a fancy way to say “THE END OF THE WORLD.” As a kid, I was horribly afraid of the end of the world. All the dark images we hear in the scriptures (Daniel 12:1-3; Mark 13: 24-32) were highlighted and expanded upon by the nuns to frighten us kids into heaven. Sr. Angeline made it a point to tell my second grade class that ten of us were going to hell. (Of course, we knew who they were.) However, I wondered frighteningly, “Was my name in the book of the saved or the book of the damned?”
The images of the Gospel, sun and moon darkened, stars falling from the heaven, Jesus coming at the end of time to judge me and everyone, didn’t produce much hope for salvation. Allow me to illustrate this in an adaptation of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. “You better watch out! You better not cry! You better be good, I’m telling you why! Jesus Christ is coming to town! (And he is VERY mad!).” At that time, we didn’t run to Jesus to intercede for us. We were too afraid of him (read the English translation of the Dies Irae, sung at all Requiem Masses, funeral Masses at that time, to find out why.). Rather, we fled to Mary, so that she could soften Jesus up a bit so that he would not damn us. The END OF THE WORLD, as taught by the Church at that time, was a thing of nightmares. W.C. Field once stated, “The good old days, may they never return.” I completely concur with him!
It is true that we will be held accountable by God when we enter eternal life at our death. It is important that our lives must be ones that love God with all our mind, heart and strength, and, equally, love our neighbor as ourselves. Let us meditate upon and focus our lives instead on these words of St Paul, “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
