Today marks the first Sunday of the liturgical year: that is, the first Sunday of the season of Advent. Over the last month, we have heard countless readings from the book as Revelation. This is more than mere coincidence. The Latin word for “Advent” (adventus) means “coming”, so as we prepare the celebrate the first coming of Our Lord in the Incarnation, it is fitting that we should reflect on how to prepare for his second coming.

This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

Acts 1:11

Recently I attended an event where we reflected on these themes: the second coming, the end of the world, and the coming of God’s Kingdom. There were two readings which caught my attention. One was a reading of the seven days of creation from Genesis. The other was a non-Biblical reading structured in the same manner, except that it told of the last seven days before the end.

I’ll admit, listening to the days count down, I didn’t feel overly concerned. Those days were of the type one would expect: we heard of the coming wars, pestilence, plagues, famishes, and what not. It was only when I heard the words “And on the last day” that my heart felt like it had stopped.

I imagined waking up on that day, knowing that it would be the last, and thought, “That’ll be the last time I wake up like this. This is it.” For the other six days, it felt rather easy to distance myself from what was to come, opting to see it as just another date in the future that I need not be concerned with. However, when I imagined waking up on that last day, I felt scared. Not that the other six days didn’t sound terrifying, but in that moment I saw my life in the context of the eternal, and it was overwhelming.

I knew that what was to come would be better—the triumph of Good over Evil—but I’ve got to admit, there were things that I felt like I would miss; but why? In Heaven, one is perfectly fulfilled, so why did I feel afraid? Come to think of it, why is it that so many times in the Bible, an Angel or Our Lord himself says not to be afraid when one encounters the things of Heaven? Is it a fear of the unknown? I think that perhaps this is correct.

George Orwell—who was not a religious man by any means—noted this problem in one of his essays, saying:

Many a revivalist minister, many a Jesuit priest (see, for instance, the terrific sermon in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist) has frightened his congregation almost out of their skins with his word-pictures of Hell. But as soon as it comes to Heaven, there is a prompt falling-back on words like ‘ecstasy’ and ‘bliss’, with little attempt to say what they consist in.

George Orwell, Can Socialists Be Happy?

Is the beatific vision of Heaven so unlike anything we know that we can’t imagine it? Perhaps we spend so much of our lives feeling like we lack things that the thought of needing none of it is completely alien to us. In fact, one of the first principles one would learn in any economics class is this principle of unlimited wants. We long for the eternal, but when it’s on offer, we can scarcely comprehend it. In my mind, this is an intriguing observation to be made about human nature.

When I shared these feelings in our small group discussions, I found that my fears were not uncommon. I won’t pretend to have perfectly understood (much less solved) this issue, but what I have found helpful is, in the words of my spiritual director, to remember who God is even amidst such worries. So, as we approach the beginning of this Advent season, let us reflect on this question as we celebrate the Lord’s first coming and prepare for his second.

The Scriptures saith:

For I, the Lord your God,
    hold your right hand;
it is I who say to you, ‘Do not fear,
    I will help you.

Isaiah 41:13