Once a month I visit Sister Mary Lucy–a hermit at a Poor Clare monastery to hear her confession. Today we got talking about prophecies and the end of the world.
She asked if I thought the end of the world was nigh. I was skeptical. “I grew up in a fundamentalist church.” I explained “where we heard terrible prophecies about the Rapture and the tribulation and the end times and how there was a big computer in Brussels called ‘The Beast’ which had everyone’s number, and how San Francisco would fall into the sea because of a big earthquake and this would be God’s punishment and maybe New York City too etc. etc. etc.”
When I became a Catholic the apocalyptic stories were even more stupendous. The three days of darkness, the prophecies of St Malachy that there is only two pope until the end of time, Fatima, consecrations of Russia to the Blessed Virgin, etc. etc. The exciting thing about the Catholics is that they actually had visions of Mary and stigmatics and visionaries and miracles and lots more to boot.
Added to the religious apocalyptic prophecies there has always been a secular apocalyptic story in currency. When I was growing up it was the threat of nuclear war. Then it was the new ice age that was coming. Then it was the population explosion and we would all starve by the mid 1980s, then it was AIDS which would destroy the world, then the millennium bug, now it is global warming and global economic meltdown and added to all this there has always been the threat of meteors hitting the world, earthquakes and tsunamis and terrorist outrages.
I don’t really know if we’re headed for apocalypse now, but I somehow doubt it. We may come in for hard times, persecution and terror. It has happened before, but what interests me more than the actual possibility of apocalypse is the apocalypse mentality.
Why is it that in virtually all places and at all times and all cultures there is a cloud hanging over everyone? Why is there the fear of disaster, death and destruction? I think it is just part of human psychology. We are all aware of death and so we project the reality of our own eventual death on our culture–even on our whole human race and our whole world.
What to do? Live with it. It’s part of being human. Realize that whatever you fear, it probably won’t happen. Take moderate precautions, but most of all, live in hope. Christ is (soon to be) risen from the dead. He the Phoenix. He rises from the ashes. Behold he makes all things new.
And this is what Sister Mary Lucy said in her quiet, sweet way, “I’m always excited to think that Our Lord said he ‘makes all things new’ and not that ‘he makes all new things.’ It’s much better that he will bring it all back to a much better and more glorious existence out of the destruction we bring about. That’s much better than him just starting again, and if he is going to make all things new, well, that includes me too.”
THank you Fr L and thank Sr Mary Lucy, too. Whatever comes is in our wonderful Lord’s Hands, so, now, we get ready to celebrate His Death and Resurrection, AnneG in NC
Father,Great post!1. I don’t know why people read this wrong, but what Jesus actually says is that when we “hear of wars and rumors of wars . . . it will not be the time yet.” Jesus says very clearly that as long as the world is in turmoil, we do not need to “worry” about the End. The true Sign of the Times will be “just when they are saying ‘peace and security'”: when the world will say it’s solved all our problems without God. (As happened at Babel).2. I would argue that, given both the huge changes in the Church and the culture, we have to be at the beginning of *something*. If we are not heading towards the End, we are certainly at the dawn of a new epoch. Of course, JPII was fond of speaking of a “new springtime”, “Second Pentecost,” etc.3. The “prophecies” of St. Malachi were only “discovered” in the 1940s, which lends a great deal of doubt as to their authenticity. Like many “prophecies,” the descriptions of the Popes up till the 1940s are fairly specific, but they’re vague after that.4. The other prophecy claiming that JPII was the last Pope was Garabandal, but that said, “He will be the last Pope of ‘these times,'” and the visionaries have clarified that they weren’t sure wehther “Our Lady” (if the apparitoin was true) was referring to the current epoch of Church histroy or history itself.5. A lot of people made a big deal of the deaths of JPII and Sr. Lucia, and they both died within 2 months of each other 4 years ago, then Papa Benedict was elected.I think that most of these prophecies really just refer to the unprecedented assault on the Church that was the Twentieth Century–predicted by Pope Leo XXIII’s famous vision–and that JPII was right on the “new springtime” thing.OTOH, if the more salubrious reading of the apparitions is valid, I say, “Bring it on!” 🙂
End of an era – one which has at least some years left to really finish ‘ending’ (writhing of the snake’s tail after it has already been cut off)? Sure.End of the world? No. Yet what revelation states is that the anti-christ appears not before Christ’s final coming, but before the era of peace. Then after the era of peace comes gog and magog.I think there is a great deal of merit to what you say about the projection of our fears onto the culture and the world in general around us. And yes, what Sister Mary Lucy said; there lies our real hope!But I think there is one legitimate ‘fear’ with regards to things apocalyptic (and “apocalyptic” can and does include a passing era and not just the world’s final end), and it is the fear of being deceived; of having lapsed in vigilance, rendering one suspectible to whatever very cunning snares the enemy has in store; snares which we cannot really imagine since we do not know what sort of context they will be sprung in.Maybe mixed in with our fear of death is attrition, fear of hell.But of course one must remember Denethor.
As the 21st century begins to unfold, I see no real reason to think that it looks any milder for the Church than the 20th did in 1909. The glorification of flagrant sin is as bad now as it was then, and I am concerned that it has seeped into the lives of a much larger portion of the population this time.I think what we are seeing is the run-up to the emergence of yet another small-“a” antichrist, together with the loss of many things that are not guaranteed to last. Hitler was not THE Antichrist, but that fact did little good to those who suffered under him. Ditto for Stalin. This doesn’t have to be the end of the world to be the end of the world as we know it.
I do think we are on the cusp of something. Sometimes that is scarier than the real end, in my opinion. I had an odd security in my mind when I was an evangelical, because I “knew” what would happen. Now that I’m becoming Catholic, I don’t know the end plan for the world now…that makes me feel less secure. Oh well, I know eventually I’ll end up with God–and that’s all I really need to know.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.This could have been written by Benedict XVI today. (except Benedict’s would probably sound a bit more “scholarly”)http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_21041878_inscrutabili-dei-consilio_en.html