In the Book of Genesis, as God creates the vast universe each day, on the fourth day, He creates the sun, the moon and the stars. In our Gospel, the final signs before Jesus returns is that the same sun and moon will be darkened and the stars themselves will fall from the sky.

What that means is that in preparation for Christ, Creation itself will be undone, and, most important of all, those things that became our source of light on earth will go dark because they will recognize and, literally, bow before Him who is our Light, so that, as it says elsewhere in the Book of Revelation: “Night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.”

For, His return will not be as a gentle child away in a manger, but, rather, as a Sovereign king, with great power and glory, accompanied by angels, who comes to judge, as we say in our Creed: “the living and the dead.”

It may seem unbelievable, it may sound like something we watch on TV, but it is Christ Himself who said this, and it was not often that He spoke in metaphors. Perhaps, it may even sound like the “doom and gloom,” that was so often preached in the past, but, truth be told, it teaches us something very important, it teaches us that, to use a popular phrase: “all good things must come to an end,” and that just as there was a beginning there is also an end, and, more importantly, it is God who is both and the cause of both.

It shows us, indeed, that true dominion rests with Him, and that everything and everybody is completely dependent upon Him, which is why He calls Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the one who is and who is to come.

And, while many predict that this will come next month on the 21^st of December, as Jesus says, we are to learn a lesson from the fig tree, for the fig tree is merely an analogy of reading the signs, for those in Jesus’ day it was their calendar, the way in which they could determine the season, by reading the sign of the leaves upon the tree. For us, however, the only sign we need is the one that Jesus gives us, that while we don’t know when, we must always be aware and should always be prepared.

So that, if we are praying, we should pray more, if we aren’t praying, we should start. If we are going to Mass, we should continue and if we aren’t going to Mass, we should start, because it is not just for our spiritual sustenance, it is also for our strength, for our conviction to live as Catholics and to practice our faith.

If we are going to confession, we might confess more, and if we haven’t been in a while, now is the best time to start, not because we fear Christ’s return, but because we want to make our souls ready, and we always want to experience the state of grace, a spiritual return, as it were, to Eden, when all was right in the world, and when our only desire was to see God face to face.

Because, no matter when Christ returns, we want to be counted as those who are worthy, so that, as it beautifully says in our first reading, not only will we shine with the light of Christ, but we will be like the stars forever.