“I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (RSV, Revelation 22:12, our emphasis). God is not only the source and origin of all things, he is also the end for which all things were made. God did not make anyone to pursue an existence independent of himself. As St John heard that Sunday on the island of Patmos, this truth is expressed in one of the songs of Heaven, “…thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11, our emphasis).

For God has made everything with one purpose and one only – that it may realise its full potentiality and its final destiny in him and him alone. So Holy Scripture tells us that in the end even Nature itself will be freed from pain and evil and will share in the enjoyment of the glory of God (Romans 8:19-23), and all things will return to him from whom they took their origin, and God will be all in all.