Post-feast of the Encounter; Our Venerable Father Isidore of Pelusium (408-50).
2 Timothy 3:1-9; Luke 20:45-21:4.
Read 2 Timothy 3:1-9
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Brothers and sisters, we live in the “last days” as scary as that might sound. This is not an alarmist point of view but simply one which takes the gospel on its face—Christ has come and fulfilled God’s promises throughout the ages. As Our Lord says on the Cross: “It is finished.”
What isn’t finished, however, is the final push of the evil one, the struggle for virtue and the personal battle for our souls. Although God has decisively won the battle, we still must struggle until His second coming in glory.
St Cyprian writes:
The Lord’s teaching required both unity and love. They embraced all the prophets and the law in two commandments. But what sort of unity, what sort of love, is preserved or contemplated by the mad fury of discord that rends the church, destroys faith, disturbs peace, scatters charity, profanes religion? This evil began long ago, my brothers in the faith. Now its cruel havoc has increased, now the poisonous plague of heretical perversity and schism is beginning to spring up and put out new shoots. So, it must be at the end of the world, as the Holy Spirit forewarns and foretells through the apostle (Unity of the Catholic Church, 15-16).