I was reading an article on Billy Graham recently in The New York Times. Given his age – he's eighty-six - Rev. Graham was said to be conceivably into his last crusade in New York.

On a hazy sun-filled afternoon, the old evangelist continued to mesmerize some 90,000 thousand people at Flushing Meadow-Corona Park in Queens. He used his own frailty to underscore his message not only of repentance and hope but also about the end. He warned that the end of the world might very well be imminent.

I've heard warnings about the end of the world before, and I am not sure why Billy Graham's warning gave me some pause. Apart from the longevity of his commitment, there was also his integrity.

Tele-evangelists brought shame to evangelist preachers some years ago for their decadence and money –grabbing, in much the same way as pedophile priests recently brought shame to Catholic priests. Billy Graham's name was never mentioned in any scandal.

More recently, in the US, evangelist preachers have practically all lined up on the political right, with complete endorsement of the Republican Party's agenda. Graham has remained studiously neutral, staying completely away from party politics.

So there is a record of integrity. But what was one to make of warnings about the end? Did he mean his end? That was part of his thought, of course. At eighty-six, he expected, he said, to be in heaven soon enough. But his reflective range was wider. He meant the actual end of the world, and the re-appearance of Jesus.

It led me to wonder what Catholics today make of “end times” predictions. I suspect many simply do not know what to think. I myself have not given the matter much recent thought.

I have focused rather on understanding “the end of the world” as the end of different “personal” worlds, something which everyone experiences at some time. When a loved one dies, for instance, a world (the world) comes to an end.

Similarly, when one gets divorced, undergoes a significant crisis, or suffers some personal catastrophe. These are all real endings, and in all of them “there are signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth, distress….” In other words, they are all accompanied by turbulence. Internal turbulence, not external.

But the end of the world means more than this. In none of the above endings does Jesus “come again.” The last thing they occasion is expectancy. Indeed, quite the contrary. The world just ends, and only slowly and painfully comes together again.

That Jesus will come again is, however, part of the economy of faith. “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,” we repeat at Mass, without thinking too much about it, of course. What images accompany such repetition?

The early Church, that is, the communities of the earliest believers, believed in the imminent coming of Jesus after his ascension. “Come, Lord Jesus (Maranatha)!” was the staple of their expectations, and it meant “Come now! Give us release from this vale of tears.”

But time passed, and the Lord seemed, as we say in Trinidad , to be taking his cool time. We can hardly imagine the feelings of disappointment, indeed, despair, this must have caused. “With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Pet. 3:8)

This was what St. Peter was led to respond. It has a nice poetic air about it, but it could hardly have brought immediate comfort to Christians in the throes of longing.

It meant, however, that adjustments had begun to be made. The return of the Lord was not going to be immediate. “Soon” became the apocalyptic “at any time, you don't know when.” Delay was a time for vigilance. The Lord's coming would be at a time you least expect, like a thief in the night. Be awake, therefore.

“Slumber” thus became a moral word. It meant a life without reflective alertness, or being blind with one's eyes open. A life without care for repentance.

The “immediate” coming of Jesus, in the sense of “at any time, you don't know when” is part of Catholic belief about the “end times.” More than other Christians, Catholics emphasize a key, directly relevant scriptural text. It is Mk. 13:32: “But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son; no one but the Father.”

The new Catechism also underlines a time of trial and distress that will mark the Church's experience before the Second Coming (para. 675-677), but generally, there is no attempt to read indications of Jesus' return or the end of the world from events and signs in history.

It's one thing, however, to say, that no one “knows” the day and the hour. It's another thing to rule out surmise, or seeing events and signs as anticipations of the end. The text leaves those possibilities quite open. In fact, the history of “end times” reflection from earliest times till now has been a history of such surmise and anticipation.

One difference, which marks today's experience, is that preoccupation with the end appears to be going mainstream. Is this perhaps an effect of globalization? More important perhaps to present and past belief is anticipation of the end through the experience of profound destabilization.

For many people the moral collapse we live through is too severe and serious to be anything but a portent of the need for the Lord to come, anything but a negative indication that the Lord will come and wind things up. Moral collapse generates complete destabilization. Historically, however, destabilization has arisen from a variety of sources.

We remember, for instance, the vague apprehension associated with Y2K a few years ago. In fact, what is called “round-number panic” occurred first in 500 AD, and again, with greater impact in 1000 AD. Before the latter date, Christian armies in Europe sought to convert pagans, by force if necessary, before the Lord (who had to meet “faith on the earth”) returned. They also sold all their possessions, as they would many times thereafter, with the same motivation: the world as they knew it was passing away.

Great natural disaster was also deeply disturbing. In 1346 and ensuing years, the Black Plague swept across Europe , decimating a third of the population. The resulting destabilization was felt to be a terrible prelude of the end to come. Many have seen similar implications in AIDS.

As with early Christianity, however, the world endures, despite predictions of cataclysm. The history of end-time speculation has thus been a history of continuing disconfirmation.

This raises the obvious question: why do predictions recur? In his book, When Prophecy Fails, Leon Festinger explores the paradox that the failure of prophecy often has the opposite effect of what the average person might expect. Faith gets stronger and the members become more convinced of the truth of their actions and beliefs.

“[Human] resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge not only unshaken, but even more convinced of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.”

“A man with a conviction is hard to change. Tell him you disagree with him and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.” Prophecies, Festinger concludes, are just “the surface ripples” of a much deeper current in the lives of a movement's adherents.

Montanism survived for more than a century after its leader's his end-of-time recommendation (abstain from marriage, dissolve marriages undertaken, and await the end) failed to produce results. For years in a row specific dates given by the Witnesses – 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1930, 1925 – came and went.

Disconfirmation has been no mortal blow to their existence. The list of other disconfirmations in the intervening centuries is completely staggering.

Since predictions from such a diversity of sources, over such an extensive range of time, keep recurring, it's logical to conclude that what's at stake is something affecting the human as such, whatever the expressed religious coloration.

This, in my estimation, is the “much deeper current” Festinger refers to. But what could this be? What human desire, apprehension, worry, need, or hunger do end-of-time predictions encapsulate?

My feeling is such predictions reflect Advent-type consciousness at a higher, more insistent level. It's unfortunate that we no longer feel Advent's “end- time” relevance.

The longing or desire in Advent consciousness is for “a world transformed,” where swords are turned into ploughshares. In end-time consciousness, however, longing is for an end to pain and suffering, loss, and all forms of human travail and distress. “ Fiat iustitia et ruat caelum – Let justice prevail, though the world collapses” - is an expressive saying about justice's absolute character.

End-of-time absoluteness says: let joy, peace and happiness come; let misery end; let tears cease to flow; and let the world, where such negatives occur, collapse. Let it not only collapse and disappear; let it disappear for good!