It probably will someday but hopefully not during our lifetime. Being mere mortals, we will all die anyway. We just don’t know exactly when.
For those people who died in Japan during the recent tsunami, it was the end of the world for them. For those who died during the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, it was the end of the world for them. For the more than 3,000 people who died during the September 11, 2001 attack in New York, it was the end of the world for them. That’s what most of them probably thought.
There were predictions that the end of the world would have occurred on May 21 last month. Well, the mere fact that you are reading this editorial means that the prediction is not correct. Did Nostradamus make an error in his calculations? Maybe he used a different kind of calendar, which is very different from what we are using today.
So the question remains—when is the end of the world? Is it really that important to know?
Isn’t it more important for us to be prepared for the next life? After all, our life on earth is not meant to be permanent. We should all be prepared to meet our Creator—anytime! Hopefully, our destination will be in Heaven. Hopefully, we will all be accepted into the Pearly Gates.
I remember many years ago when my Jesuit teacher in Religion asked all the students in class to write an essay about death. We were asked to answer a seemingly simple question—what would you do if an angel of God appears before you and tells you that you will die within an hour?
Most students consumed an entire page writing their answers. Some even continued writing at the back of the paper as if they did not have enough space for the many things that they wanted to accomplish within such a limited time.
It took me no more than 10 minutes to submit my essay. It was not much of an essay. I wrote just one sentence. My classmates were amazed and even complained that my one sentence essay got an “A” mark.
I simply wrote: “I will continue doing what I am doing.” That was the answer our teacher was looking for. It meant that I was prepared to die and meet my Creator.
The moral of this editorial is: we should all live as if it will be the end of the world today. – Nostradino