Jesus spoke plainly. At some time in the future, the Son of Mary will come back to His earth with angels and saints in glory.  When He does, He will come to judge the living and the dead.

We do not know—Jesus said He didn’t, either—when that will happen. It could be tomorrow. It could be many centuries from now. We just do not know.

But there is a nearer end time for each one of us. We will die and that will end our time in this sin-pocked humanity. We have all of us been stained and wounded by sin—all of us.

In one particular, we are like the Pharisees who refused to accept Jesus: We are all of us sinners.  The saving difference between us and those negative hearts is this:  We have repented.

That does not mean that we will sin nor more. To claim that is an exaggeration and a serious mistake. We are still surrounded and soaked in the sinning humanity we belong in. We are still sinners.

So we are personally invited to join Jesus in His redeeming work. We  are invited to share with Him the purification of human sin—starting with ourselves but not ending with ourselves.

We  can never forget this:  The Person in God is always thinking of the Others. And we are made in the image of this Trinitarian God. So, as persons, we are naturally always thinking of others.

If we are not, if we are always thinking of ourselves, we are perverting what God is creating. It means that we have not repented.

There is this relieving reality: We are limited creatures, so we must make the same act of repentance every day, and maybe all day.

This is our real Lenten penance. So ask the Lord Jesus for mercy, like the crook who stood in the back of the Temple beating his breast.

That’s how we get and stay ready for our own, personal end time. Do it, because it is coming!