If we understand the eschatological texts of Scripture correctly, trust and courage will indeed be characteristic traits of Christians in the last days. The influence of the Christian cultural environment and tradition will lose its strength. All of this will be part of the danger of stumbling, of which Scripture says that it would "mislead, if possible, even the elect" (Mt 24:24).
Isolation in faith will be tremendous. Love will vanish from the general mindset of the world (Mt 24:12). People will not understand it, nor will they be able to. The greater the value it will have when it connects one lonely person with another: it will be the courage of the heart, which grows directly from God's love as revealed in Christ. This love may be experienced in an entirely new way in its sovereignty and originality, in its independence from the world and in the mystery of its ultimate "why." It may attain a depth of fervor and mutual understanding that has never been seen before. That there will be something of what is contained in the key phrases of Jesus' message about providence: that everything around the person who seeks first the kingdom of God and its righteousness will be transformed (Mt 6:33).
This eschatological character seems to manifest itself significantly in the religious attitudes of the coming era. This is not to proclaim any cheap apocalypticism. No one has the right to say that the end is coming when Christ himself declared that only the Father knows about it (Mt 24:36). Therefore, when we speak here of the closeness of the end, it does not mean an end in a chronological sense, but in a qualitative sense: that our existence is approaching an absolute decision and its consequences, the highest possibilities, and the utmost danger.
(Romano Guardini, conclusion of lectures in the winter semester 1947/48 at the University of Tübingen,
published in 1950 under the title The End of Modernity)
