By Carol Glatz • Catholic News Service • Posted November 27, 2018

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — People would be wise to think about Judgment Day and wonder what God will see when he examines their lives, Pope Francis said.

“If the Lord were to call me today, what would I do? What will I say? What harvest will I show him?” the pope asked during Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae Nov. 27.

In his homily, the pope reflected on the day’s reading about the end of the world in the Book of Revelation, in which St. John uses the image of the Lord and angels armed with sharp sickles, reaping the harvest.

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With the liturgical year coming to a close and the readings focused on the end of time, the pope said it would be good for people to examine their lives and reflect on how they might be judged when their hour has come.

“We don’t like to think about the end,” he said. “We always put this thought aside,” especially when people are young, “but look how many young people go, how many are called. Nobody’s life is guaranteed.”

No one is on this earth forever; everyone’s life will come to an end, he said, and God will want to see what has been harvested — “the quality of our life.”

This examination of conscience will help people understand what things they must fix in their lives and what things should be continued because they are good, the pope said.

“Yes, there will be an end, but that end will be an encounter, an encounter with the Lord. It’s true there will be accounting for what I have done, but it will also be an encounter of mercy, of joy, of happiness,” he said.

“Thinking about the end, the end of creation, the end of one’s life, this is wisdom, the wise ones do it,” he said.