"When you see these things happening: know that he is near, at the very gates." (Mark 13:29)
Which gates is Jesus talking of in Sunday’s Gospel? The gates of heaven he is waiting to pass through at his Second Coming or the gates of our world he wants to enter? St Matthew records this same saying of Jesus (24:33) and also his promise that "the gates of Hades will not withstand" the Church (16:18).
Hades, where the dead wait for the last day, is not hell, the permanent home of those who reject God. At his death, Jesus, in his soul, descended among the souls in Hades and on the last day, in his risen body, he will reunite each soul with its body, whether the soul is in heaven or in hell.
