In an earlier issue of The Life Of The Spirit I said: ‘The kingdom of God is here, these are the last days and, therefore, this is the time of heaven; we await the completion of the kingdom of God only in the sense that for a little while the effects of this situation are suspended'. I think that the idea of the kingdom of God is neglected in popular Catholic instruction and thinking, and that if we are to understand the community of God properly then we must try to understand what is meant by the idea of the presence in the world of the kingdom of God. The difficulty facing most people when they approach this question seems to be engendered by a mistaken understanding of that ambiguous term ‘the four last things'. The phrase has too great a history in Catholic thinking to be abandoned, but we must see what is meant by it, or rather, we must see how it is applied.