End Times

If you believe in the Mayan calendar, you can skip Christmas planning and gift shopping.  The Mayans believe the world ends on December 21, this year.  Jesus talks about the end, as do the prophets and Daniel in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Why all this interest in the end times?  I think it is to embarrass us.  What?  Well, you say to yourself, "If I know when the end is coming, I will shape up my life and be ready."  Think about it.  Fear won't transform anyone.  If you have had a bad habit, called a vice, for most of your life, it won't go away just because you think the world is coming to an end.  You might be good for a few days, a week, but habits are habits.  They are deep rooted.  

So what to do?  Be embarrassed that you cannot change, that you are stuck.  There is a light here.  You are now at the door of humility.  If you can say, "Lord, without your help, I cannot change," then you can open that door.  It is the way to holiness.  The saints tell us this.  They know that they have bad habits, and they are saints.  Humility opens us to grace, God's free gift of healing and transforming love.  In summary, the road to holiness is embarrassment to humility to grace.  Or maybe you would prefer the self-help books.  Anything but faith or powerlessness, huh?