“And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. And he shall send his angels with a trumpet, and a great voice: and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them.”
Moving from His warnings, Jesus moves into the glory of His coming. Isaiah mentions that, in the end times, “The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days: in the days when the Lord shall bind up the wound of his people, and shall heal the stroke of their wound” (Isaias 30:26). It will not be a fading of the light that heralds the coming of Christ, but rather the light of glory that He is will make the sun, moon, and stars fade in comparison: “And the city hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to shine in it. For the glory of God hath enlightened it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof” (Apocalypse 21:23). The sign of the Son of man, then, is the cross, and “they shall look on him whom they pierced” (John 19:37), and to look on it with a wondrous love that eclipses even the sun of wisdom, the moon of the beautiful things of the world, and the stars of other affections is to welcome the Son of man with marvelous affection. This gives a brightness greater than the sun, for a soul in love is more radiant than the great luminaries: “Now if the ministration of death, engraven with letters upon stones, was glorious; so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which is made void: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather in glory?” (2 Corinthians 3:7-8). On seeing Love Itself, Love Incarnate, the essence and form of love, and having rejected this love, all those on earth that did not love Love will mourn, for they did not love in heart, word, truth, and deed in their life: “And they say to the mountains and the rocks: ‘Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the day of their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?’” (Apocalypse 6:16-17). Rather than bearing Christ and radiating His love, they will have crucified Him in their souls, doing that which is a total defacement to human dignity, let alone to the divine dignity given to the Christian, the image and dwelling place of Christ: “In whom all the building, being framed together, growth up into an holy temple in the Lord. In whom you also are built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). This mourning is done by the tribes of the earth, who have lived entirely for earthly realities rather than heavenly ones. Being in love is an existence of the beloved in you, thus “being,” in the metaphysical sense, in you, who are a vessel of love. Thus, the one who has filled their being with bad love, things that are not the Beloved, are the tribes of the earth, rather than the citizens of heaven, who have allowed the divine Bridegroom to rest in their hearts: “Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). He will then come in His body, for the body is not a thing to be spurned or something that weighs down the soul, but rather an object of love, and through the bodily eyes He will be beheld, with the eyes of the soul comprehending His beauty, splendor, and divinity. Just as He went into the clouds in His ascension: “A cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9), He will come again from the clouds: “This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11), for just as the people laid down palm leaves and garments to welcome Him into Jerusalem: “And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way: and others cut boughs from the trees, and strewed them in the way” (Matthew 21:8), nature will rejoice at His coming, the clouds forming a glorious welcome for the glorious, wonderful, joyous, God that is the King of Love: “His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace” (Isaias 9:6). The Lord, who took unto His divinity what is of the earth: “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth” (Genesis 2:7), will give this same body the glory of His divinity, which will shine in its true splendor, the essence of love being apparent and visible through His glorified body: “And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow” (Matthew 17:2). The clouds could also be representative of incorporeal being, encapsulating such things as Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Justice, that the chariot in which He rides may be one of true glory: “With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed prosperously, and reign. Because of truth and meekness and justice: and thy right hand shall conduct thee wonderfully” (Psalm 44:5), and with these being manifest, and welcoming their source and King, the true glory of Jesus may have an appropriately glorious train: “Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him” (Apocalypse 1:7). With this interpretation, it could be said that He comes in great power and glory to the mind of the Christian in study and in prayer, for the mind that ponders glorious things of heaven searches the clouds: “But to us God hath revealed them, by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10), these are merely clouds, beautiful things of God that prepare the way to welcome Him in His love in prayer, when your heart can come to know Him and love Him: “And I have made known thy name to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). The heart that is filled with His love and the mind that knows His truths from meditation on the Scriptures and searching out the depths of their meaning are thus filled with His glory: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18), and thus He comes truly to earth in the soul that is united to Him in love and sculpted by wisdom and virtue, the individual no longer being present, but Jesus present through them with no weight of sin or imperfection, but rather fully alive in the freedom of Christ, which is a life entirely of love: “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). Jesus then discusses the angels, who will have voices like trumpets, for being fully in love is not to be timid or overly prudent: “Be not more wise than is necessary, lest thou becomes stupid” (Ecclesiastes 7:17), but to sing from the depths of one’s being with joy and jubilance, thus St. Francis dancing before the Pope, thus St. Teresa running into fields, thus St. Ephrem writing hymns and poems of love and joy, and so too do the angels sing, for the trumpet is metaphorical, instead representing the greatness of the voice that sings constantly of the good things of the Lord. The sound of the trumpets in Israel would gather them and direct them: “When thou shalt sound the trumpets, all the multitude shall gather unto thee to the door of the tabernacle of the covenant… if the sound of the trumpets be longer, and with interruptions, they that are on the east side, shall go first forward” (Numbers 10:5), and so the angelic voice that announces the coming of the Lord will gather the elect from the four corners of the earth and from the ends of the heavens, thus indicating those that are alive and those who have died and are separated from their bodies. This can be said to you, Theophila, in that to search the scriptures from their end to the beginning, letting grace provide the loud voice of what God wants you to meditate on, then digging in that place as for a treasure, before lifting it to God and letting Him lead you into His love, that you may drink deeply of His love from this meditation: “Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved” (Canticle 5:1).