The drama of the End Times by Father Emmanuel
(January 1886)
I. It is unnecessary to seek to clarify the time that will be the second coming of Our Lord. There is an impenetrable secret to every creature. "Concerning that day and hour, Jesus Christ tells us, nobody knows, not even the angels of heaven, except the Father alone. "(Matt. XXIV, 36.)
But this supreme moment, that will end this world of sin, will be preceded by bright signs, which will set out not only believers but unbelievers themselves. There will
First, we have shown, the persecution of the Antichrist, the appearance of Enoch and Elijah. When St. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ will kill the wicked with the breath of his mouth, and destroy it with the brightness of his coming, it seems that the punishment of the Antichrist will coincide with the advent of the sovereign Judge. However this is not the general sentiment of the interpreters. We can explain Paul saying that the destruction of the wicked will be consumed that day of reckoning general, although his death occurred some time ago. On the other hand, the Gospels clearly hinting that there will be quite some time, although relatively short, between the punishment of the monster and the consummation of all things.
What does indeed our Lord? He begins by painting a tribulation such as there has ever been since the beginning of the world's persecution of the Antichrist. Then he added: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, stars fall from heaven, the powers of heaven shall be shaken: and then shall appear in heaven the sign of the Son Man, and all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and great majesty. "(Matt., xxiv, 29, 30.)
Those signs just prior to the advent Jesus Christ as judge. But how to reconcile with all these wonderful preludes, the suddenness and the unexpected, which, according to other texts of the Gospel, characterize this coming? A little further because Our Lord is the men of the last days of the world, while similar to the contemporaries of Noah, the Flood surprises eating and drinking, marrying and making wedding. (Id., ibid., 36-40.) Saint Thomas responds to this objection that all the upheavals of the late precursors of the world can be considered as integral with the trial itself, similar to those claims that no cracks distinguishes not the collapse that follows. Before all these terrible forebodings, men may scoff warnings of the Church. But when he heard the cracking machine in the world, they will fade, and as Luke says, they will dry with fear, awaiting what will happen to the universe. (Luke XXI, 26.)
The same St. Thomas sheds a bright light on the time elapse between the death of Antichrist and the coming of Jesus Christ when he said: "Before beginning to appear Signs of Judgement, the wicked will believe in peace and security, namely after the death of the Antichrist because they will not end the world, as they felt before. (Suppl. Q. LXXI, art. I, ad 1.) With the help of this little word, we can form on the last time the world's most plausible conjecture, and readers will not fail them interest, while not receiving them as mere probabilities.
II. We said and we continue as incontestable that the death of the Antichrist will be followed by an unparalleled triumph of the holy Church of Jesus Christ. The joys of Tobit prophetic vision covering the same time he finds his son, the intoxicating joy of the Jews the fall of Haman and its satellite, transport of the inhabitants of Bethulia Judith issued by the iron ring that bound them, and the purification of the temple by the Maccabees, who won the wicked Antiochus finally and above all quiet and peaceful Job's triumph restored by God in all his possessions, seeing his feet run to his friends and relatives repentant, bringing them all to a religious feast: these images express adequately the state of the Holy Church, opening his heart and his arms maternal to his enemies as his children to Jewish converts as heretics reconciled, descendants of Ham as the son of Shem and Japheth, in a word, realizing the great unity purchased at the price of blood of a God, one fold and one shepherd!
Surely, even in this time of triumph, there will still be wicked, wicked, but it is permissible to think that they will hide, and they disappear into the vastness of the public joy.
These beautiful days will not last, alas! that the time to forget the solemn events that have given birth. It will gradually take over the warmth and fervor to this passage will be unaffected even faster, that the Church has so to say more enemies fight.
One author estimated Abbe Arminjon, depicts the state then the world will fall: The fall of
world, "he said, will take place instantly and unexpectedly: veniet dies Domini sicut fur (II Pet. and III, 10). - This will be a time when the human race, plunged into the deepest sleep of negligence, will be a thousand miles to think about the punishment and justice. Divine mercy has exhausted all its means of action. The Antichrist will be published. The men scattered in all spaces have been called to the knowledge of the truth. The Church Catholic last time will be fulfilled in the fullness of her life and her fertility. But all these favors and overabundant reported, all these miracles will once again be erased from the heart and memory of men. Humanity, by a criminal abuse of grace, will be returned to his vomit. Turning all its aspirations toward the ground, it will be turned away from God, to the point of no longer see the sky, and no longer remember his righteous judgments (Dan., XIII, 9). All faith will be extinguished in the hearts. All flesh has corrupted its way. Divine Providence deems that there is no cure.
"It will, says Jesus Christ, as in the days of Noah. The men then living carefree, they were planting, they built lavish homes, they laughed pleasantly man Noah, vowing a carpenter and working day and night to build his ark. They said how crazy, what a visionary! This lasted until the day when the flood came, and swallowed all the earth and drift venit perdida omnes. (Luke XVII, 27.)
Thus the final catastrophe will happen when the world will be safer; civilization is at its peak, the money markets abound, public funds have never been more increasing. There will be national holidays, major exhibitions: humanity, packed with a material prosperity unprecedented, say as the miser of the Gospel: My soul, thou hast goods for many years, wood, eat, amuse Get ... But suddenly in the middle of the night, in media nocte - because it will be in darkness, and at this fateful hour of midnight when the Savior appeared once in his cuts, he will reappear in his glory - the men, awakened with a start, will hear a loud bang and a great clamor, and a voice will be heard who say: God is there, get to meet him, exite obviam ei. "(Matt. XXV, 6).
And the author adds that men will not have time to repent. Here we differ from him. The catastrophe will indeed preceded frightening signs that together form a supreme appeal to divine mercy, and although blind and well hardened to resist anyone!
The sun will be darkened, as if exhausted by loss of light. The moon will no longer strong enough radiation to shine itself. The sky will fold like a book, invaded by a thick darkness. The powers of the heavens will be shaken because the laws of the movements of celestial bodies appear suspended. There will be a profound disturbance in the sea, a great roar of waves raised, the ground being shaken by unusual movements, and men do not know where to jump to escape the raging elements. Finally the earth will open, and launch balls of fire that produce a general conflagration, while in the air seem a brilliant cross announcing the coming of the sovereign Judge.
How long will these signs? Nobody knows. What Scripture tells us is that men will dry with fear. It will be of them as contemporaries of Noah. While it continued the Ark, as everyone laughed at : But when the flood began to invade everything, everyone trembled, and several to the testimony of St. Peter converted. It is hoped as well as the trial approaches, some men, seeing the heavens veil and feeling the earth moving beneath their feet, will be a supreme act of contrition and will return to grace with God.
As to the righteous, they will raise their heads with confidence, and the cross that shines will fill them with joy.
The mortal career of the Church is completed. The world will wait to finish it has collected the last of His elect.
0 comments:
Post a Comment