Category Archives: End Times

Are We Alone in the Universe?

Angels, End Times, Redemption, Science, , , ,

There was a time, not too long ago, when mentioning Area 51 or aliens, invited ridicule as a conspiracy theorist.  But the difference between a conspiracy theory and reality is currently measuring about four years so that many Americans (2/3 according to a 2021 Pew Research study) now believe that extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI) exists.  Interestingly enough, American Catholics believe at a slightly higher rate than Americans as a whole.  One can only speculate why that might be, but the Church has not spoken definitively on the subject leaving Catholics somewhat free to follow the evidence.  It is the qualifier “somewhat” that I would like to use as the launching pad for a discussion of ETI given that Divine Revelation gives us some guardrails for investigation as to both the possibility and the likelihood.

It is worth mentioning at least at the outset that we already have proof that we are not alone in the universe.  Angels and their fallen counterparts are constantly acting within material creation, even in visible ways.  It is certainly possible that the UFO sightings and even the discovery of “non-human biologics” are simply diabolical manifestations.  But it is contemptuous to insist upon this as the only possible explanation.

Setting Up the Guardrails

The temptation when dealing with the question is to leave it to “science” to determine the possibility and likelihood of intelligent life.  This approach neglects the fact that theology is also a science.  Because its first principles come from God Who can neither deceive nor be deceived, it is the highest of the sciences. 

By looking to theology, we are able to eliminate some possibilities.  The ETI must be of a completely different race from mankind in that they have a different line of descent.  The Church has condemned polygenism and so there must be more than mere accidental differences between human and the other race of ETIs.  They must be a different substance altogether.  In other words, they would have to be biologically distinct humanoids with a rational soul.  Scripture and the Magisterium both describe the “human race” as descended from Adam so that it at least seems possible (an argument from silence) that there could be another race or races in the universe.

Once we allow at least for the possibility, then we must examine the ETIs relationship to Christ.  For everything that exists, exists in relationship to Christ Who “is the center of the universe and of history” (Pope St. John Paul II,Redemptoris Hominis, 1 ).  St Paul tells the Colossians that “in Him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through Him and for Him” (Col 1:16-20).  This point is vital not only in considering ETI, but in understanding reality as a whole.  Everything that exists, does so for His sake (not only for His sake but primarily).  Fig trees were created for Him to curse, trees for crosses and water for baptism.  Most importantly, human nature exists for His sake so that He might take on human flesh.

The fact that Christ took on human flesh gives to the human race a special dignity such that “all material creatures[exist] for the good of the human race” (CCC 353).  This would include ETI who, even if rational beings existing for their own sake, would exist in a similar manner to the angels, acting in service to the race of Adam.  This might be an argument against the existence of ETI in that we appear not to have received any benefit from them.  This is likely an argument St Thomas would have made in light of his contention that to speak of a universe in any meaningful way is to assume that the elements must form an ordered an interactive whole.  If there were no communication among the citizens, then the civil good could not be perfected (c.f ST I q.47, a.3).  Communication could still come later, but it is hard to imagine why it would be so delayed.

Building on the principle that the ETI must be related to Christ, then we can examine the relation of the race itself.  First, we would posit that they were, like the angels and mankind, created in a probationary state of grace.  As St. Thomas says, “It pertains to divine freedom to infuse grace into all who are capable of grace, unless something resisting is found in them, much more than he gives natural form to any disposed matter” (Commentary Sentences, 4, q.1 art.3).  The question would then be what the outcome of their testing was.

Fallen or Unfallen?

One thing that becomes immediately clear in reading the New Testament is that in the act of redemption, God willed a correspondence between the fallen and the Redeemer “since the children share the same blood and flesh, he too shared equally in it, so that by his death he could…set free those who had been held in slavery all their lives by fear of death” (Heb. 2:14).  This means that if the ETI were fallen, they would need a separate incarnation.  A second incarnation however would be incompatible with the Faith according to an infallible teaching found in Dominus Iesus: “Therefore, the theory which would attribute, after the incarnation as well, a salvific activity to the Logos as such in his divinity, exercised ‘in addition to’‌ or ‘beyond’‌ the humanity of Christ, is not compatible with the Catholic faith” (DI, 10).  The Son’s sole redemptive act is through His human nature.  Therefore, there can be no other fallen race in existence.

This leaves open only one possibility; that there is a heretofore unknown, unfallen race of intelligent creatures in the universe.  Like the Angels, Christ would be their Lord and Head, but not their Redeemer.  In His human nature Christ is “the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:12-13).

St Thomas says that if Adam had not fallen then he would immediately attain “that happy state of seeing God in His Essence, he would have become spiritual in soul and body; and his animal life would have ceased, wherein alone there is generation” (ST I q.100, a.2).  Likewise, because they would have passed their probationary period, the ETI would have spiritual bodies (which might help to explain the manner in which UFOs seem to move) and would not reproduce.  Of course one could also ask why, if they have passed their probationary period, they don’t immediately receive their reward in the beatific vision. 

According to Paul Thigpen in his book Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Catholic Faith, St Padre Pio once told a reporter that “The Lord certainly did not limit his glory to this small Earth. On other planets other beings exist who did not sin and fall as we did.”  Despite this saintly endorsement, I think another saint provides the logic for why they do not exist.  When speaking of how Providence guides even our sins, St Thomas says that because the angels contain a higher perfection than men, a far fewer number of them fell as compared to mankind (Sentences I D.39 q.2 A.2).  It would seem that if there were a race of men that did not fall, this test of proportionality would fail and the ladder of perfection of the universe upended.  It is for this reason that I ultimately find the existence of ETI very unlikely. 

Before closing, I want to mention another resource that I found very helpful in addressing the existence of ETI; Marie George’s Christianity and Extraterrestrials.  Part of the challenge in thinking theologically about this issue is being able to formulate the questions correctly and frame it from the perspective of Divine Providence.  She does both.  I might weigh her conclusions differently than she did, but her framing of the issue is invaluable for anyone who wants to approach the issue from a Catholic perspective.

Living Purgatory Now

Apologetics, End Times, Last Things, Sin, Suffering, , , ,

The contested doctrines are almost always some of the hardest to live by.  This is not because they are difficult, but because they are contested.  When a doctrine falls into the contested realm and Catholics are forced to defend it, there is an almost innate tendency to treat the doctrine as an intellectual problem and not as a saving truth.  One example of this comes to mind and is particularly apropos for the season—Purgatory.  Since Luther’s revolt, Catholics have spent so much time on their heels defending its existence, that they haven’t always lived as if it does.  There are two main reasons for this.

The first is that we have not spent enough time meditating upon death.  Memento mori the desert fathers and early Christians were fond of saying, not just as a mere platitude, but because death is a fact of life.  Meditating on our own death is of course fruitful, but when it comes to living as if Purgatory exists it may be best to focus on those we know who have died.  All too often we are quick to canonize the dead and thus ignore the reality that if they were saved then they needed purgatorial purification to get there. 

Praying in Faith, Hope and Love

To speculate on the destiny of loved ones who have died is not being “judgmental”.  But it is presumptuous not to.  In the majority of cases, we will have known the person well enough to know (at best) that they weren’t yet perfected.  It is uncomfortable to think this way, but it is necessary because Purgatory then becomes the realistic basis for our hope that they were saved. 

And it is hope that can animate our prayers for them.  CS Lewis in A Grief Observed said he never really, really believed in Purgatory until his wife died.  Then he prayed with fervent hope that she would be purified so as to come quickly into the presence of God.  His belief in Purgatory took flesh because he realized his beloved still needed his help through prayers and penances. 

Meditating on the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory and being able to put faces on those otherwise general mass of suffering souls makes Purgatory a real doctrine.  Our prayer comes alive and with it, our faith in the doctrine itself.  Praying in faith, strengthens our faith.  Praying for suffering people increases our charity.  Knowing that they are approaching perfection increases our hope.  Those faces don’t need to be someone we know.  They can also be aimed at people in specific circumstances: “I pray for the soul that has entered Purgatory most recently”, “I pray for the soul who most loved Our Lord in the Eucharist”, “I pray for the soul who is most abandoned”, etc.  We might not know them personally now, but we will have gained a friend in eternity.

Undergoing Purgatorial Purification?

I mentioned above that we can be sure that our loved ones undergo purgatorial purification.  That is because, short of the Virgin Mary, everyone, even canonized saints underwent purgatorial purification.  Many of them underwent them in this life rather than in the next.  And herein lies the other way in which we might come to true faith in the doctrine of Purgatory: ask to undergo those sufferings now.

This begins by once again meditating upon the sufferings of Purgatory.  The pains of Purgatory are very similar to those of hell.  Although the person is completely in love with God, they experience a pain of loss in the knowledge that their sins and their momentary delight was traded for time with the Beloved.  Likewise they experience a pain of sense in that they are “saved through fire” (1Cor 3:11).  Cut off from uniting their suffering to the merits of Christ, they must suffer “alone” to heal the stains of their forgiven sins.  Now the face we put on it must be our own.  We must imagine how great the suffering is.

After doing this, we trade that suffering for suffering now.  The suffering now is different in that the pain of loss is felt less severely because it is in a certain sense natural.  Likewise the pain of sense is less because our sufferings can be united to those of Christ.  The obstacle of course is that we lack the courage to make this bargain.  It feels really scary to give God carte-blanche over our sufferings.  But we must remember that God is not a masochist but a Father Who disciplines in the wise and gentle way.  Our sufferings now, especially those dealt by Providence, are the most wise and gentle sufferings, hand-chosen by God in order to purify us.  Jesus told St. Faustina that He rather there not be Purgatory because He will send enough suffering, that united to His, will purify us, without the need for Purgatory.

But there is another aspect of this that we all too often forget.  The holy souls in Purgatory are suffering greatly, but they are also filled with joy.  This is important for us to remember because the reason we are hesitant to give this to God is because we are focused only on the suffering part.  But the suffering is just a means to the end of closer union with God.  Suffering is the gravity that thrusts us into the Heart of God.  It takes away all of the impediments to drawing closer to Him provided we will to suffer the things He sends through His Providence.  St. Catherine of Genoa speaks of how the pains in Purgatory is occasioned by love delayed.  By allowing our purification to happen now, that love will be less delayed.

The Religion of the Antichrist

Abortion, Church, Church and State, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Devils, End Times, Marxism, Spiritual Warfare, , , , , , , , ,

When the wall separating east from west in Berlin fell, millions of people were freed from the shackles of Communism in Eastern Europe and Russia.  The man who was instrumental in this happening, St. John Paul II, saw it as part of his divine mandate to facilitate this monumental event.  But as a Catholic who had a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, he knew that was not the end of the story.  Russia had spread her errors practically unabated for 75 years; reaching even into our own country.  These errors were not Communism itself, but instead the ideology that underlies it—Marxism.  Marxism is alive and well and is poised to become a global religion through the likes of not just China’s hegemonic aspirations, but the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, WHO’s universal healthcare plan (led by Marxist Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus), Black Lives Matter and a whole host of other organizations.

A Global Religion?

To call Marxism a global religion, may, at first glance, seem to be an exaggeration.  Of course, properly speaking, it is not a religion at all.  Religion is always ordered to God which means that there can be only one true global religion.  It is the one founded by God Himself in the Catholic Church.  But the Devil is always on the prowl to ape Christ including by forming his own global religion.  Marxism is the “religion” of choice and should properly be seen as the religion of the Antichrist.

That Marx himself was under demonic influence can hardly be disputed.  Several of his biographers, many of whom are sympathetic to his cause, have mentioned this.  Paul Kengor, in his new book The Devil and Karl Marx, does a thorough job of compiling the case for Marx’s diabolical connections.  Viewed in this way, it also helps to understand the beguiling effect that Marxism has on a lot of people because of its inherent power of mass Demonic Oppression.  The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council were aware of this as they included several schemas on “The Care of Souls with Regard to Christians Infected with Communism” in their preparatory documents.  Unfortunately, these schemas never saw the light of day and would have been a great aid in fighting an “invention so full of errors and delusions.”

The Great Imitation

Besides the global aspirations of Marxism, there are other, more insidious ways in which it will imitate the true religion.  In taking on human flesh in the Incarnation, Christ sought to both repair and elevate human nature making it capable of sharing in the Divine Nature.  In simplest terms, Marxism is an attempt to fundamentally transform human nature through the instruments of politics and culture.  It may have failed to control economics, but that was not the end of it.  Using the Sexual Revolution, Cultural Marxists have been wildly successful in “transforming” human nature in the sexual realm.  No longer does human nature thrive through monogamous marriage, the family, and private property.  Parents are not uniquely suited to mold their children according to their nature, but instead human nature is malleable and should be molded into the image deemed useful by the State.  Free will, the mark of the Divine image in man (c.f. CCC 1704-1705), is an illusion and replaced through conditioning according to their social structure (or through the correction of “Unconscious Bias” as the remains from obsolete social structures and implemented through “Corporate Training”). 

Christianity worships Christ Who made Himself a victim for our sins (c.f. 2 Cor 5:21) while Marxism worships the Victim Class.  Man’s nature is not social and marked by complementarity but instead is competitive.  It is to be informed by the narrative of oppressor versus oppressed.  There is a never-ending search of the new victim class in order to keep the worship going.  Virtuous men and women, those who are most like God are scorned and those who have been intersected by the most “axes of oppression” are exalted. 

Finally, just as Catholics offer the blood of the Innocent Lamb of God to the Father, Marxists offer the blood of innocent children through abortion to the Devil.  Marxism and abortion are always a package deal because Marxism, like all religions, needs to offer sacrifice.  The Devil throughout history has always demanded the blood of the innocent in sacrifice.  Marxism in all its instantiations always includes abortion.  It was Russia that became the first country to legalize abortion in 1920 and thanks to the Marxist feminists of the 1960s, the United States followed suit.  You can often identify a Marxist by how insistent they are that abortion is a “right”.

The Spirit of Christ animates the Christian religion and so the spirit of the antichrist animates the religion of Marxism.  The globalists who seek a One World Order are Marxists at heart.  Once a critical mass is met, then the world will be ready for the antichrist.  This is not an inevitability however and so Catholics must fight against Marxism in all its manifestations.  The Church was once instrumental in fighting Communism, but now it too has been infected with Marxists.  We need to pray that Christ will once again cleanse the Temple by setting his sights not on the money changers but the Marxists.  We have Our Lady of Fatima on our side and we can fight its spread through the First Saturday Devotion.  We can also zealously combat the errors where we see them and educate ourselves on this most pernicious enemy because there is one other thing the religion of the antichrist does—seeks to wipe out the believers of the True Faith.

Our Lady’s Army

Communion of Saints, End Times, Mary, , , , , , , , , ,

Given the present turmoil, devout Christians can’t help but wonder whether the End is near.  We are probably not alone in this consideration as history is replete with Saints and Sages who thought the same thing.  Our Lord, on the other hand, sought to curb such speculation when he declared that “of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone” (Mt 24:36).  The speculation is not without its fruit however.  Wondering can lead to wakefulness—”Watch ye therefore, because ye know not what hour your Lord will come” (Mt 24:42).  While we should close the door on conjecture, Our Lord wants us to always live as if the End is right around the corner. 

Like the Apostles in the Garden, our battle is to stay awake.  The Satanic Sandman wants to lull us to sleep.  His battleplan is to make us woke so that we won’t be awake.  Knowing how he does this will enable us to enter the fray with eyes wide open.

Staying Awake

In a very real sense we could say that it is of the nature of Man to be a warrior.  When the Enemy entered the Garden and caused the Fall of Adam and Eve, the battle was begun.  It may have been the Fall of Man but it also marked the battle lines by which Satan’s downfall would occur.  Turning first to the Serpent, God said “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed” (Gn 3:15, DR translation).  Just as God in creation separated the light and the dark, He made a permanent enmity between the Serpent and his offspring and the Woman and hers.  The Woman of course is not the Eve of the Old Creation, but the Eve of the New Creation, Mary (c.f. John 2:4, 19:26-27 and this entry).  Once having set the commanders in the two armies, God set forth the foot soldiers—Satan’s demonic and human minions and the blessed angels and Jesus’ beloved disciples. 

In his True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis de Montfort offers and important reflection on what this enmity.  He says it is the only enmity that God has made; He did not merely permit it, but positively created it.  It would be total, indomitable and eternal.  The great Marian Saint says:

God has never made or formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and develop even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil—between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and instruments of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies which God has set up against the devil is His holy Mother, Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly Paradise, though she existed then only in His idea, with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much industry in unveiling the malice of that old serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow, and to crush that proud impious rebel, that he fears her not only more than all Angels and men, but in some sense more than God Himself. It is not that the anger, the hatred, and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, for the perfections of Mary are limited, but it is, first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the Divine power; and, secondly, because God has given Mary such a great power against the devils, that, as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed, they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the Saints, and one of her menaces against them more than all other torments.   

This battle isn’t just between Mary and the Devil, “but between the race of the holy Virgin and the race of the devil; that is to say, God has set enmities, antipathies, and secret hatreds between the true children and the servants of Mary, and the children and servants of the devil. They do not love each other mutually. They have no inward correspondence with each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing), have always up to this time persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will in future persecute them more than ever…”

If we are to battle on God’s side, under the Standard of the Cross, we must submit to Christ and His Battle Commander.  We must join Our Lady’s army, and because the war is total, we must do so through a total consecration.  That is the only way because God has declared it as such.  When John describes the War in Heaven (Rev 12), Our Lady once again leads her offspring into battle.  For St. Louis de Montfort, this enrollment, especially in the End Times becomes crucial.  These Apostles of the End Times will be the only ones who are able to remain faithful because “the devil, knowing that he has but little time, and now less than ever, to destroy souls, will every day redouble his efforts and his combats. He will presently raise up new persecutions, and will put terrible snares before the faithful servants and true children of Mary, whom it gives him more trouble to surmount than it does to conquer others.”

Living as if the End is Near

If we are to live then as Our Lord commanded, that is, as if the End is near, then we should live consecrated to Our Lady as part of her army.  This consecration also enables us to see the weapons that Satan uses.  Once we realize that this enmity is total, the war absolute, we realize that there can be no compromise between the two armies.  We may actively pursue defectors from the Enemy’s camp, but they must come on Our Lady’s terms.  We can make no compromises with the world or provision with the flesh (Romans 13:13-14) because those are the Enemy’s landmines.  We must take upon ourselves the yoke of Our Lord from the hands of Our Lady.

The Devil’s battleplan is always the same and we would do well to know the diabolical rhythm.  Before he unleashes hell on believers in total persecution, he denies the ontological character of the enmity.  He creates structures and systems that promise a false peace; always false because it goes against reality as God has constructed it.  “Peace” that consists in compromise with the devil, the world and the flesh.  But “Christ must be all in all”  and until His reign is complete we must continue the fight.  We must reject the false messianic hopes of things like Marxism, One World Orders, and technocracy because they are diabolical landmines.  This is his chosen tactic for now, that if we yield, will lead to total persecution.  Those in Our Lady’s Army can never compromise.  It is Our Lady sitting at Our Lord’s right hand (Ps 45:9) that will protect us and obtain for her children true wisdom that never yields to false promises. 

Why We Shouldn’t Dare to Hope

Apologetics, Church, Church Authority, Church Fathers, Devils, End Times, Last Things, Magisterium, , , , , , , ,

In a previous post, a theological and anthropological defense of the permanence of hell was offered.  A brief mention was made of the need to avoid hell in the right way—not by means of an infernal gymnastics, one that stretches the imagination and explains it away.  But the denial of hell’s everlastingness is only one of its manifestations.  There is another, perhaps more popular, strategy that could be called the “Dare We Hope” approach.  First put forward by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar in the 1980s, Bishop Robert Barron has taken the baton and run with.  According to the Bishop, this approach posits two things:

  1. Given what God has accomplished in Christ through the power of the cross, we may reasonably hope that all people will be saved.
  2. The Church has never claimed to know if any humans are in hell, which leaves open the theoretical possibility of universal salvation.

We will deal with each of the two points and then discuss why, ultimately, to adopt does great harm to the Church’s salvific mission.

Hope or Optimism?

At first glance, there is nothing objectionable to the first point.  Nevertheless, it doesn’t exactly pass the Catholic smell test, especially when it is combined with the second.  That is because it suffers, like most modern theological statements, under the veil of ambiguity.  By using the theologically charged word “hope” it lends itself to being easily misunderstood and therefore misapplied.  Theological hope is something that is virtually certain based upon the merits of Christ and is not conditional in any way upon human response.  In his book, Balthasar says that there are only two responses to the question of whether there will be some men who refuse God’s gift of salvation. 

“To this there are two possible answers: the first says simply ‘Yes.’  It is the answer of the infernalists.  The second says: I do not know, But I think it is permissible to hope (on the basis of the first series of statements from Scripture) that the light of divine love will ultimately be able to penetrate every human darkness and refusal.” 

Dare We Hope, p.178

Notice that the hope that Balthasar is describing is dependent in no way upon human actions, but instead upon the power of God.  Under this viewpoint any soul that is lost is a failure on God’s part and so it must be certain rather than a mere desire for all men to be saved.

To be fair, Bishop Barron does take the time to define how he is using the term hope in the FAQs on his website: “we should recognize hope to mean a deep desire and longing, tied to love, for the salvation of all people, but without knowing all will be saved, thinking all will be saved, or even expecting all will be saved.”  Bishop Barron says he is using the term in the human sense meaning merely as desire.  It is puzzling why, if the Bishop simply means that out of love for God and neighbor he desires that all individual men be saved then why he doesn’t just say that.  It seems that he brings a whole lot of extra baggage into the discussion by uniting it with von Balthasar.  Because Balthasar appears to be using the term in the deep theological sense, Bishop Barron is wedding himself to the Balthasarian position.  He is indissolubility united to Balthasarian hope.  He says as much later on in the FAQs when he says that von Balthasar’s position reflects his own (“he does agree with Balthasar’s main thesis, affirmed by the Catechism, that we can pray and hope hell is empty of people.”). 

Part of the reason why Balthasar muddies the waters of salvation is because he rejects the classic distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will.  He reads 1 Tim 2:4, “God our savior who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” as an absolute statement that does not depend upon a human response.  The Church has long made the distinction between the fact that God wills all men be saved (called His antecedent will) and His consequent will which comes about because He also willed men to have free will that could choose something other than saving grace.  This viewpoint is based upon Scripture (c.f. Sirach 15:14-17, “God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice.  If you choose, you can keep the commandments; loyalty is doing the will of God.  Set before you are fire and water; to whatever you choose, stretch out your hand.  Before everyone are life and death, whichever they choose will be given them.”) and leads directly to the Church’s belief that, despite the objective power of the Cross to save all men, not all men will receive it.  A summary view was presented by the Council of Trent:

“But, though He died for all, yet do not all receive the benefit of His death, but those only unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated. For as in truth men, if they were not born propagated of the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust,-seeing that, by that propagation, they contract through him, when they are conceived, injustice as their own,-so, if they were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified; seeing that, in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just.” 

Session 6, Ch. III

The Theoretical Possibility of an Empty Hell

This leads naturally to the second proposition, namely that, because the Church has never claimed to know if any humans are in hell, universal salvation remains a theoretical possibility.  The problem is that the Church has consistently believed that there will be at least two human beings in hell.  The first is the Antichrist who is described in Revelation 20:10 as being “tormented day and night forever and ever.”  One could also reasonably assume, given the principle of biblical typology, that all of the Antichrists described by St. John in his first letter as well as those who have been historically considered types of the Antichrist also suffered a similar fate.   

The other example is Judas.  Although the Church is not in the habit of declaring reverse canonizations, the witness of Scripture offers no other interpretation than that Judas ended up in hell.  In Matthew 26:24, Our Lord declares that “would be better for that man[that betrayed Him] if he had never been born.”  In John 6:70 he calls Judas “a devil” and in 17:2 He says that “none of them was lost except the son of destruction.”  None of these could be true if Judas was counted among the Blessed.    

In his FAQs, Bishop Barron says that “The Church has made no authoritative declaration, based on this passage or any other, that any person whatsoever is in hell.”  This statement again is highly misleading.  The Church may never have solemnly declared that Judas is in hell, but solemn declarations are not the only way in which Catholics determine whether something is to be definitively held.  There is a consensus among the Fathers of the Church that Judas is in hell.  In a 5th Century homily, Leo the Great placed the “Son of Perdition” in hell saying,

“The traitor Judas did not attain to this mercy, for the son of perdition (Jn. 17:12), at whose right hand the devil had stood (Ps. 108:6), had before this died in despair; even while Christ was fulfilling the mystery of the general redemption… The godless betrayer, shutting his mind to all these things, turned upon himself, not with a mind to repent, but in the madness of self-destruction: so that this man who had sold the Author of life to the executioners of His death, even in the act of dying sinned unto the increase of his own eternal punishment.” Sermon 62, On the Passion of the Lord

St. Ephrem (4th Century) and St. Augustine (5th Century) say the same thing.  St. Thomas, writing 8 centuries later also sees Judas in hell as well as St. Catherine of Siena.  

As a side note both Balthasar and Barron claim that St. Catherine of Siena share their position.  This is very difficult to reconcile with her Dialogue where the Father tells her that Judas was “punished with the devils, and eternally tortured with them” (Dialogue, 37).  This would call into question the authenticity of her entire Dialogue, something I am not sure they would be willing to do.

Adding to the witness of Scripture and to Tradition is the law of the liturgy, ­lex orandi.  In the liturgy for Good Friday the Church’s Collect traditionally portrayed Judas as receiving eternal punishment.

“O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession: grant unto us the full fruit of Thy clemency; that even as in His Passion our Lord Jesus Christ gave to each retribution according to his merits, so having cleared away our former guilt, he may bestow on us the grace of His resurrection: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth.” 

Traditional Roman Missal

Why We Must Get this Right

Beliefs, like the ideas underlying them, always have consequences.  Balthasar (and presumably Bishop Barron) was concerned that the traditional view of hell as heavily populated ultimately drove people away from God.  He said that, “One really has to ask oneself how, given an eternally valid bifurcation of mankind like this, simple human love of one’s neighbor, or even love of one’s enemy in Christ’s sense could still be possible.”  This reeks of the false spirit of Vatican II in which a pastoral concern, namely a zeal for souls such that we truly desire that each person we meet be saved, demands a obfuscation of doctrine.  Clarity especially about the Last Things is a vital necessity for true zeal.  The fact that hell remains a real and likely possibility for each and every one of us ought to spur each one of us to work not just for our own salvation but the salvation of everyone we meet.  The Dare We Hope approach destroys zeal for souls by making evangelization seem completely unnecessary.

Taking Down the Firewall

Apologetics, Church Authority, Communion of Saints, End Times, Last Things, Protestantism, Purgatory, Scripture, , , ,

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Cathedral, the Augustinian priest ignited a firewall that continues to separate Catholics and Protestants down to this day.  At the heart of his question was the abuse of indulgences, but he ultimately attacked the firewall upon which the doctrine was built—Purgatory—in order to make his point.  Unfortunately, the debate still rages today, not necessarily because of Purgatory itself but because of all of the ancillary issues attached to it: Atonement, Penance, Tradition, Development of Doctrine, and Authority.  In an age of exaggerated ecumenism, we tend to ignore those doctrines like Purgatory that ultimately lead to division.  Ignoring the truth is never a good idea, especially when the truth is a practical one.  Purgatory is perhaps the most practical of doctrines; many of those who don’t believe in it now will experience it first-hand in the not too distant future.  But it also is important to have a ready explanation for it because it is also a “head-pin” doctrine; knock it down and many of the aforementioned obstacles will fall with it.

The most common argument against it is that it is not Scriptural.  We have spoken any number of times in the past about the rule of faith being implicit within Sacred Scripture and the need for Tradition to make it explicit.  In other words, doctrines like Purgatory need not be explicit in Scripture only implicit.  We will not traverse that well-worn path yet again.  It is mentioned because we need not necessarily have this discussion regarding Purgatory.  If we dig a little deeper into Scripture then we will find that Purgatory is a common theme, so much so that we can offer a strictly Scriptural defense of it.

St. Thomas said that, when arguing with an opponent, we should always argue using terms and sources of authority that they agree with.  For example, when discussing some aspect of morality with a non-Christian, we should not cite the Bible but instead Natural Law.  We can certainly show how the Bible agree with that source of authority, but to obstinately stick to the Bible when they think it mythical is foolish.  A similar thing happens with Catholics and the doctrine of Purgatory.  Second Maccabees (2 Maccabees 12:39-46) clearly points to a belief in Purgatory.  The problem is that Protestants don’t accept that book as inspired.  By referencing them it seems to only prove their point that Purgatory is a Catholic fabrication, yet it still remains the go-to texts from the Old Testament.

St. Francis de Sales and the Argument from Scripture

Throughout post-Reformation history, there is perhaps no one better than St. Francis de Sales at converting Protestants.  Some estimate that he was responsible for over 70,000 conversions in his lifetime.  It is therefore instructive to look at how he presented this divisive doctrine.  He did not argue from Tradition or even mention 2Maccabees, but instead gave a strict Biblical defense using Protestant accepted texts.  Given his success rate and the fact that most of these texts are rarely cited, it is educative to review what he said (Catholic Controversy, Appendix II).

It without saying that Catholics and Protestants both agree that Christ’s Blood is the true purgatory.  But the question still remains how and when that purgation is applied.    For the saintly Bishop of Geneva and the thousands he converted there was a simple reasoning process: if there are passages which speak of purgation after death then there must be a place (call it Purgatory since the name is never given us) where this purgation occurs for purgation can happen neither in hell (where “the worm does not die” Mk 9:48) or in heaven (where “nothing unclean may enter it” Rev 21:27). 

St. Francis begins where many of the Fathers of the Church, those who spoke the great Amen to God’s Revelation, began, in Psalm 66.  There the Psalmist speaks of being led out into the spacious place by passing through fire (Ps 66:12).  Likewise, Isaiah 4:4 speaks of being cleansed by a spirit of burning. 

St. Francis also refers to Christ’s teaching on the Sermon of the Mount where he cautions about the punishments attached to anger (Mt 5:22-26).  Our Lord suggests different levels of punishment, with only the latter meriting hell.  For the other two, Jesus speaks of a prison of sorts that one can leave saying, “truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny” (5:26).  Building on this theme, St. Paul refers to a man who is saved “as through fire”  (1 Cor 3:11-15).

Praying for the Dead

All of this points to a time and place of purgation, but, absent a connection to Tradition, one could argue that this purgation occurs in this life.  The problem with that interpretation however is the abundance of Scriptural examples of people praying for the dead.  St. Francis begins by referring to David’s prayer and fasting for Saul and Jonathan after their deaths—”And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword” (2 Sam 1:12).  Likewise, we find St. Paul praying for his departed friend Onesiphorous (1 Tim 1:16-18).

He also explains two other often problematic texts by referring to Purgatory.  The Mormons often justify their habit of literally vicariously baptizing the dead by referring to Paul’s text in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians (1 Cor 15:29).  St. Francis says that when Paul speaks of being baptized for the dead he does not mean it in the literal sense, but as an exhortation to offer sufferings for the dead.  He says that St. Paul is using Baptism in the same manner as Christ did when He speaks of His baptism of afflictions and penances undertaken in Luke 12:49-50—I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!  There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!”.  Notice how Our Lord references to a fire in this rather clear passage.

Perhaps his most convincing passage prooftext is the last one he refers to: Philippians 2:10.  St. Paul says that that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth”.   In particular, St. Francis is concerned with a proper interpretation of those “under the earth”.  To assume that refers to those in hell would contradict Scripture— ”For there is no one in death, that is mindful of thee: and who shall confess to thee in hell?” (Ps 6:5, c.f. Isaiah 38:18).  Instead those “under the earth” refers to “holy souls in Purgatory”, that is the Church Suffering.  St. Paul’s hymn is making reference to the Church in all her members in heaven, on the earth and in Purgatory.  Ultimately then, there is no firewall between the Church’s members nor should there be between Catholics and Protestants.

What About the Jews?

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Pope Francis has been particularly vocal, especially as of late, in condemning anti-Semitism.  This comes on the heels of a concerted effort by the Church since the Second Vatican Council to improve relations with the Jewish people.  Motivated not only by humanitarian reasons, this renewed interest stems from theological convictions.  In particular, the Church’s condemnation of anti-Semitism is undergirded by her understanding of the Jews as the “Chosen People” so that Pope Francis can truthfully say that “engaging in any form of anti-Semitism is a direct contradiction with the Christian faith.”  But because this nuanced understanding of the Jews is commonly mistaken, it is helpful for us to articulate it clearly.

The Chosen People

Since the Church’s understanding of the Jews as the Chosen People forms the foundation of Jewish-Catholic relations, what exactly were they chosen for?  God chose them to be a people “peculiarly His own”  (c.f. Dt 26:18) for no other reason than that the Messiah was to come into the world through them.  So that the world was never without hope of redemption, God told Adam and Eve about His plan of redemption (c.f. Gn 3:15) and then set out to form a people through which the Redeemer would come.  We might be tempted to assume that once the Redeemer comes, the mission of the Chosen People would come to an end.  They would then need to move with the economy of salvation or be left behind with the pagans.  They might even be viewed as somehow worse than the Gentiles because they openly rejected God’s Anointed One , killing Him on the Cross.  It was this line of reasoning, founded upon its roots in the Marcionist heresy of the 2nd Century, that has fueled fire of Christian anti-Semitism throughout history.

In response to any heresy, the tendency is to overcorrect.  Rather than subscribing to a theory of total repudiation, there are those who propose that the Jews are operating under a parallel covenant.   Christianity is for the Gentiles and Judaism for the Jew.  Those who subscribe to this view reason that God is faith and His “chosen-ness”  cannot be undone.  The Jews remain a (as opposed to the) Chosen People and therefore any effort at evangelization is unnecessary and, quite frankly, rude and uncharitable.  In an age of religious relativism, especially in the face of widespread anti-Semitism, we should expect to see, and, in fact do see, a rise in the popularity of this view.  But this viewpoint is just as erroneous as the first.

Still Chosen?

In order to understand the proper Christian stance towards the Jewish people, it is necessary to ask an important, although often overlooked question.  If the Jewish people are no longer God’s Chosen People, then how can we explain the fact that they remain a people.  Given their history of suffering and persecution throughout recent history it is nothing short of miraculous that they are still a recognizable people.  This is because, in a very real sense they remain a People favored by God.  This is for three reasons, summarized by St. Paul in Romans 9 and 11, and can be summarized as past, present and future.

First, the Jewish people remain beloved to God because of the great dignity attached to their spiritual patrimony (c.f. Rom 11:28).  Their beloved patriarchs, from Abraham, to Jacob to Moses to David and from “whom according to the flesh is the Christ” (Rom 9:4) came, were faithful to God and His covenant.  Likewise, God is also faithful to His promise for the “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).  So that while the Old Covenant may have passed away, it remains for God to be faithful to those with whom He made the covenant .

Secondly, the Jews remain as a “motive of credibility” to the truth of the Old Testament.  The people that was founded upon the miraculous redemption of the Exodus remains a people even to this day.  This miraculous endurance lends credibility to the miraculous revelation contained in the Old Testament.  The Jews will always remain distinct from the Gentiles because the revelation upon which their faith is built is true.  It may be incomplete, but that makes it no less true.  Their continued presence in the world today testifies to this very important truth.

Finally, there is the future.  The Jews as a people still have a pivotal role to play in salvation history.  They not only testify to the truth of the Second Coming, but also play a role in signaling that coming.  Although “a hardening has come upon Israel in part,“(Rom 11:25) this hardening will not be forever.  One of the signal events of the End Times is the mass conversion of the Jews.  When the anti-Christ is revealed to be the fraud that he is by the two witnesses (c.f. Rev 11:1-14), the Jews will join the ranks of the true Israel.  This eschatological reality will not only affect the Jews, but will, according to St. Thomas, be a sign to the Gentiles that have fallen away from the Faith.  For them we can properly say that “salvation is from the Jews.”

Cardinal Charles Journet, drawing on Romans 9, makes a very helpful distinction that will help us to adopt the proper stance towards the Jews.  This distinction is between “Israel in the flesh” and Israel in the spirit”.  The goal must always be for all men to be incorporated into “Israel in the spirit” because it is only in belonging to this body that a man can be saved.  In St. Paul’s time, as in our own, the goal was conversion of “Israel in the flesh” to “Israel of the spirit.”  But knowing their eschatological purpose when this doesn’t occur through the plans of Divine Providence, Christians must consider “Israel of the flesh” to be a special people worthy of both our respect and our protection.

Preparing for Martyrdom

Church, Culture of Life, Dialogue, End Times, Islam, Martyrdom, Mary, Passion of Christ, Saints, , , ,

Very few men have changed the world as much as Francesco di Bernadone did.  While in prayer one day in a run down chapel in Assisi, Italy, he received a Divine mandate to “rebuild my Church.”    After a false start by literally rebuilding the church he was standing in, he set out to reform the crumbling Church.  In the process, St. Francis as he is better known, became one of the most beloved saints for his radical commitment to Christ and His Church.  But the rebuilding of the Portiuncula was not his only “blunder”.  He also thought he could win the martyr’s crown once by visiting the Sultan and trying to get him to convert.  He failed on both accounts, winning the Sultan’s esteem but not his soul.  Francis may have been called to be a great saint, but not a martyr, mainly because he misunderstood martyrdom.

When pressed, most of us would say that martyrdom consists in dying for the faith.  That of course is part of it, but it is not really the primary part.  The primary part is in the literal meaning of the term martyr.  A martyr is a witness.  And not just any witness, but is a certain type of witness that may end in death, but it need not per se.  That is why we refer to Our Lady as Queen of Martyrs and her spiritual son St. John the Evangelist as martyrs even though they did not die by the sword.  They both attest to the fact that death is not the end or the goal, but a means by which the martyr witnesses to Christ.  Otherwise we would not be able to differentiate it with dying for a cause.  As noble as that might be, it is not the same thing as Christian martyrdom.

Martyrs as Witnesses to What?

The key in grasping the distinction is understanding what it is that a martyr is witnessing to.  He is witnessing to the truth of the Resurrection of Christ and his own personal share in it.  His Master too was once put to death, but by His own power He destroyed death’s hold over Him and all those who are in Him.  “O death where is your victory.  O death where is your sting” (1Cor 15:55).  The Christian martyr may fear the pain leading up to death, but has no fear of death itself.  In fact, her eyes are fixed on the prize, so much so that she is willing to undergo any amount of pain to obtain it.

The hagiography of the martyrs is full of stories of incredibly painful deaths that the martyrs suffered at the hands of their persecutors.  But hardly a single story describes the pain, only the joy.  We might be tempted to think it is merely omitted for the sake of the reader.  Tempted, that is, until we realize that the descriptions of their countenance seems to suggest the exact opposite.  They seem to feel nothing.  They don’t sweat while they are being boiled alive (St. Cecilia), their bodies are riddled with arrows and spears while they continue preaching (St. Edmond), they sing Psalms for 15 days in a starvation bunker (St. Maximilian Kolbe) and they joke while being roasted alive (St. Lawrence).  You might think they felt no pain at all based on the descriptions. 

And herein lies the important truth of martyrdom—they most probably didn’t feel pain.  Or at least, if they did, it was way out of proportion to what was actually happening.  And that is because martyrdom is a gift from God so that the merits of witnessing even to the point of death are given to the martyr.  They are witnessing not to their faith in the Resurrection, but to God’s power that was made manifest through the Resurrection.  The martyr is tried so far beyond human capacities that it becomes so blatantly obvious that it is only by the power of God that a human being could endure these things.  The martyr then is both a witness and an instrument.  Martyrdom is not really about the martyr at all but about God.  It is a very public witness to His power over death as shown by how hard it is to actually kill the martyr.  The witnesses to the martyrdom are left without a doubt that something supernatural has happened, even if they later choose to deny it.

Why St. Francis was Wrong…and Right

St. Francis wasn’t wrong in thinking that martyrdom would fulfill his vocation to rebuild the Church.  He was wrong by not seeing it as the means God had chosen for him to do it.  It was a gift that he tried to seize.  But he was absolutely right in his assessment that it would rebuild the Church.  This is why Tertullian uttered his famous dictum that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” 

God never gives up on man so that when the world goes deaf, He simply speaks in sign language using martyrs.  Trapped in paganism and hedonism, Rome was transformed by the Christian martyrs who witnessed to the power of their God over death (no other god had that) and no fear of pain and suffering.  Roman soldiers thought they were brave until they watched a young girl march to her death with a smile on her face.  After trying to kill her they knew something Divine was happening.  They saw a way out of the maze of their Godless existence.  And the Church grew at 40% per decade into the middle of the fourth century on the preaching of the martyrs.

Martyrs have been and will remain an integral part of the preaching of the Church.  In some times and places they used only words to preach and in other ages, especially those in which the world grew tone deaf to Divine invitations, the preachers were the martyrs. 

One can’t help but see the parallels between our own decadent society and the decadence of Rome that is leading to widescale deafness.  The public witness of many Catholics is falling upon deaf ears so we should expect that God will raise up a generation of martyrs soon.  Our role is to prepare ourselves and the next generation for this eventuality.  Like in all the previous persecution it will come with little warning and those who have prepared well for it will be able to respond to the gift.  Those who haven’t won’t.  But either way, we should expect that they will be coming soon.

The End Times and the Anti-Mary

Advent, Devils, End Times, Family, Mary, Spiritual Warfare, The Life of Jesus, , , , ,

Christians of every age have wondered whether they were living in the End Times.  Each of these ages had their own reasons to believe that Our Lord’s return was imminent.  In that regard our own age is no different.  But our times are unique in a very specific way, one that is not often spoken of.  The Second Coming of Christ will be like a negative photographic image of the first.  He came in weakness, He will come in power.  He came in silence, He will come with trumpet blasts.  He came as Redeemer, He will come as Judge.  He came as Lamb, He will return as Lion.  Just as this principle of photographic negative applies to the New Adam, it also applies to the role the New Eve will play as well.  And in this, we find signs that the end is near.

Mary’s First Coming

The future Queen of Heaven and Earth was the Queen of the Hidden Life during her earthly sojourn.  She “kept all these things in her heart” rather than shouting them to the housetops.  The only time she “let loose” of both her mission and her Son’s was in the privacy of her cousin Elizabeth’s home.  And even after the Resurrection she remained in prayer, preferring not to speak and to avoid any chance that a cult were to rise up around the Mother of God.  She who was a true wonder of the world, lived in the temple of her heart in ancient Ephesus while the pagans streamed to the Temple of the virgin goddess Diana in that same city.  She was not only humble, but silent with only a single spiritual counsel—“do whatever He tells you.”

As Queen and Universal Mother she has not abandoned her children.  Throughout the ages she has left her throne in Heaven and appeared to her children to give them an urgent message.  These apparitions have been a regular part of the life of the Church over the past millennium.  In the last few centuries however, they have grown in both frequency and publicity. She is no longer the silent maiden, but the regal Mother voicing her concern for her children.  When we view this in light of the “photographic negative” principle, this makes sense.  If she played a primary, albeit silent, role in the First Coming, we should only expect that she play a more visible and vocal role in the Second Coming.  And the messages of her apparitions seem to suggest that the time is short.  We may not know how short is short, but it is safe to say that she is clearing the way for His second Advent.

Reading the signs of the times and seeing the Marian apparitions in this light means we should treat the messages, especially at Fatima where the most visible public miracle ever occurred, with the utmost seriousness.  But there is another sign that is related to this that ought to give us pause.

The Spirit of the Anti-Mary

We know that one of the signs of the Second Coming is the reign of the Antichrist.  We aren’t told when but we are told how long he will reign (42 months).  Throughout history there have been types of the Antichrist that gave us a glimpse of just how dark those days will be.  But they have all passed.  Eventually the true antichrist will rise and I would like to suggest that this eventuality is closer than we may think.

The Devil is the great ape of God, trying to “be like god” and mimic what He does.  The Antichrist will be his greatest facsimile of the true Christ, for he will dupe many people into thinking he is the real thing.  But being the great counterfeiter, we should expect that he will try to replicate the life of the true Christ is every way, but especially in a specific way—by having the anti-Mary precede him.

Who can doubt that the spirit of the anti-Mary is already rearing its ugly head among us under the guise of feminism?  But only Mary is the true feminist, receptive in everything God has to give.  Feminists reject femininity as receptivity and try to seize everything for themselves, including masculinity.  The “handmaiden of the Lord” was the most liberated woman who ever lived, finding freedom in living out her feminine calling.  The anti-Mary must liberate herself from even her own feminine nature, ending in absolute slavery.  Mary modestly hid her beauty behind a mantle and veil, anti-Mary wears little except a pink cat hat on her head.  Mary humbly “ate the bread of dependence” provided by Joseph at Nazareth and was filled, anti-Mary is gluten free and looks out only for number one.  Mary loved God and submitted to Him in her Jewish religion, anti-Mary hates God for making them a woman and sees religion only as a weapon in the hands of oppressors.  Mary prophetically whispered, “this is my body given for You,” anti-Mary shouts “my body, my choice.”  They speak only of women’s rights, but Mary speaks of a woman’s unique duties.

The diabolical fraud has been perpetrated, clearing the way for the reign of the anti-Mary.  And this is what makes our times utterly unparalleled.  Other times may have had their shadows of the Antichrist, only our age is animated by the spirit of the anti-Mary.  It is this uniqueness that suggests we may be entering into the time of the final battle.  There is a great battle being waged between Mary and the anti-Mary and we must fly to the foxhole of her mantle.  It was with this in mind that St. Louis de Montfort spoke of the Apostles of the End Times as having a particularly Marian spirit and devotion.  It is also why Our Lady has reminded us that even though the anti-Mary is seemingly everywhere, that, in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph.

The Currency of Eternity

End Times, Faith and Reason, God's Love, Grace, Heaven, Last Things, Mercy, Spiritual Life, , , ,

“This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town and beats high mountain down.”  What is it?  Fans of The Hobbit will recognize this riddle as the last riddle that Gollum asked Bilbo during their inquisitorial skirmish in the dark.  The riddle is met with panic on Bilbo’s part because he has no clue as to the answer and his opponent is growing increasingly impatient and hungry.  In an effort to delay the inevitable, Bilbo blurts out “time!” Gollum is furious because time is the right answer.  Bilbo eventually escapes from his ravenous captor but the readers are left with the inescapable fact that time is not just the answer to the riddle, but a riddle in itself.  St. Augustine once waxed philosophic when he asked, “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know” (Confessions, XI).  But the fact that he included the question within his great spiritual biography shows that this question is more than just a philosophical question.  It has practical applications.

Like Augustine then we must grapple with what time is before we look at how we should best spend it.  Aristotle had what is probably the most succinct definition when he said that time is “the numbering of motion according to before and after.”  His definition captures three important elements.  First, time is a measure of change or motion.  Where there is no change, there is no time.  Second, because it is a “numbering” it must be measured relative to some standard.  We use the movement of the sun as the standard.  But it is the third element, “according to before and after” that merits the most attention.

Before and After

“Before and after” do not exist in external reality.  All that exists is the present moment.  But time refers not just to the present moment, but also past and future.  Past and future, or before and after to use Aristotle’s classification only exist within some measuring consciousness.  In fact, it is only this measuring consciousness that is able to hold time together in a unified whole.  Time then is founded in reality, but only exists formally in the mind.

This helps us to grasp why two people can experience the passage of an hour very differently.  It is a relative measure to their consciousness of time that enables it to slow down or speed up.  Our psychological attention span is made up of the immediate past that is held in memory, the present moment passing before us and our psychic projection of the anticipated next moment.  This explanation of time also clarifies why time speeds up as we get older.  As our vivid memory of past events “thickens” our experience of time is more past-centric causing us to focus more on time past rather than the present and future.  Time then seems to be moving faster because the perspective is of looking back.  For children the experience is the exact opposite as their perspective is more future oriented and time appears to move more slowly.

All that being said, and admittedly only skimming the philosophical surface, we can begin to examine how this definition of time helps us to better spend our time.  “Spend our time” is more than a mere colloquialism—it reveals an important truth.  Time is the currency in which we buy our eternal destiny.  It is the talent that the demanding landowner bestows upon us and then asks for an account of our return of investment (c.f Mt 25:14-30).  Unless we stir up this sense of urgency no amount of philosophical musing is going to help us.  The great mystery confronting our modern culture is that no one seems to have any time anymore.  It is as if time is disappearing.  The truth however is that we are living in a culture that is particularly adept at wasting time and so it is easy to get caught up in it.  We surround ourselves with diversions that steal from us our eternal currency.

Spending Time

Time—past, present and future—is meant to prepare us for eternity when all three elements blend into one.  The past and the future will give way to the eternal present.  The past will be a blur of mercy.  Mercy in the sins forgiven and sins avoided.  Mercy in the unmerited gifts given and for the Divine friendship that elevated us.  The past simply becomes a measure of mercies received.  By way of anticipation then our past “now” should be measured through the lens of mercy. This is time well spent—in contrition and in gratitude.

Likewise the future which should be spent in hope.  Hope is the virtue that enables us to steadfastly cling to the promises of God.  We should spend our time setting our eyes on the prize and stirring up our desire for it.  A strong hope resists the time thieves and keeps account of time spent.  If you think time is moving too fast, fix your eyes on Heaven.  That is almost certainly going to slow time down to a crawl.

Mercy and hope both pass with the passage of time (but not their memory and effects).  But the one thing that will remain—charity.  And that is what we must do in the present moment.  Charity, that is the love of God and the love of neighbor for God’s sake, is the only way in which we may profit by the time.  At each moment we can gather eternal treasures by giving that moment to God.  Never put off an act of charity for later—do it now.  If what you are doing can’t be offered to God—stop.  Started something without offering it to God?  Offer it now.  Waiting in line?  Offer acts of love and praise to God.

Time may devour all things, but only when it is not well spent.  Let us learn from St. Alphonsus Liguori, the great moral Doctor of the Church, who once asked for the grace to never waste a moment’s time and then pledged never to do so. “Son, observe the time” (Eccl 4:23).

A Death Like His

Culture of Life, End Times, Last Things, Martyrdom, Sacraments, Scripture, Suffering, , ,

For those who have spent any time in school, it is a universal experience.  On the cusp of final exams, you perform the “what’s the worst I can do and still get an A?” calculation.  Or if you don’t have an A, you’ll ask “what will my grade be if I get 100%?”.   Crunching the numbers, the study plan develops accordingly.  Outside of the academic arena this approach can get us in trouble—especially when we apply a similar pattern of thinking to life’s final exam, death.  We assume that if we have performed well during the semester of life, then death will be a breeze.  Not only does this attitude ignore the tremendous temptations that await us, but it fails to discern the truly Christian meaning of death, or more to the point, the meaning of life.  For a Christian the meaning of life is dying well.

When St. Paul was being held captive in Rome, he penned his great opus on joy to the Church in Philippi.  Written during his first imprisonment in Babylon (c.f. 1 Pt 5:13), the Apostle reflected upon his own approach to death.  But rather than performing the “end of semester calculus” he “forgets what lies behind straining forward to what lies ahead” (Phil 3:14).  In other words, St. Paul eschews the cruise control and sprints all the way through the finish line.

This attitude is antithetical to the spirit of the world which confronts death in one of two ways.  First there is the mode of distraction.  It looms in the back of our minds, but as something we will deal with later.  Meanwhile we come up with creative ways to avoid thinking about it.  As Pascal maintains, “we run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it.”  We know it is inevitable, but we hope it catches us by surprise and “peacefully”.  Second there is the wisdom of pop-psychology which summons us to “accept it.”  Paradoxically this type of acceptance is a denial.  Like its proverbial doppelganger, taxes, we simply treat it as something to be planned around and cheated.

Planning for Death

Scripture on the other hand tells us to plan for death.  As the Book of Sirach tells us, “Remember the Last Things and you will never sin” (Sir 7:36).  Biblically speaking, to remember is not simply to keep it in the back of our mind or to “accept it” but to make it a present reality.  Knowing you are going to die is one thing, knowing how you will die is quite another.  Very likely we have no knowledge of the external circumstances but we can rehearse the interior dispositions that will accompany our deaths.  Just as we plan fiscally for our deaths with life insurance and a will, we should plan physically by preparing our souls, making death a testament.

In order to hit the target, we must first distinguish what we are aiming at.  The goal is, as St. Paul tells the Romans, to be united to Christ in a “death like His” (Rom 6:5).  Our own death, not surprisingly, finds meaning in His Passion.  Like a lamb being led to slaughter, Our Lord was silent in His sufferings.  The only time that Christ lets out a cry of anguish during His Passion is at the moment of His death.  The agony of His death is so keen that He could not remain silent.  The cry of anguish was proceeded by His last words—“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  That is, Christ the Priest, has made a definitive offering of the pain of death to the Father.  A “death like His” is one that has been offered to the Father.

Life is not really pass/fail.  We run through the finish line because in death we have something, perhaps our greatest something, to offer to the Father.  Death ceases to be a punishment and becomes a true offering of our lives to God.  Death, when offered in union with Christ, becomes the pathway to Life.  It is when we receive the fullest share in the priesthood of Christ and in turn conform ourselves more fully to Him as victim.  It is only at death that we can truly offer our life to God—no other person, even Christ Himself, can do that for us.

A Priestly Annointing for Death

To prepare us for the greatest of our priestly tasks, the Church “completes the holy anointings that mark the whole Christian life…completing our conformity to the death and Resurrection of Christ, just as Baptism began it” (CCC 1523) in the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  This Sacrament, even though it is often touted as a Sacrament of Healing, is first and foremost a priestly anointing so that “the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ’s Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior’s redemptive Passion. Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus” (CCC 1521).

A proper understanding of death as primarily a priestly occupation, enables the Christian, even when facing great bodily pains surrounding death, can remain spiritually joyful.  God loves a cheerful giver.  Unfortunately this aspect of death as a definitive offering has been lost to the prevailing culture.  We collectively accept the wine and myrrh thinking we can anesthetize death, depriving the person of their opportunity to give their life to God.  This is also why euthanasia is the very opposite of mercy, robbing the person of the only true gift they have to offer to God.

Seeing the Sacrament of the Anointing as an anointing for a good death also helps bring out another important facet of death.  The dying person often sees himself as a burden upon other people, especially his loved ones.  But the Church says that there is an Ecclesial grace attached to the Sacrament such that the “sick who receive this sacrament, ‘by freely uniting themselves to the passion and death of Christ,’ ‘contribute to the good of the People of God.’  By celebrating this sacrament the Church, in the communion of saints, intercedes for the benefit of the sick person, and he, for his part, though the grace of this sacrament, contributes to the sanctification of the Church and to the good of all men for whom the Church suffers and offers herself through Christ to God the Father” (CCC 1522).  By uniting themselves to Christ in a “death like His,” the sick man finds joy, able to say with St. Paul, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church…” (Col 1:24).  Far from being a burden, the sick actually lighten the burden on the other members of Christ body.

The great spiritual masters of the Church all speak of the art of dying well.  Like any art, it can only be done well when it is practiced and prepared for.  Remember death and you will do well in life.

Apostles of the End Times

Church, End Times, Last Things, Mary, Mercy, , ,

As the liturgical year comes to a close, the Church’s readings focus almost exclusively on the end times and the return of Christ in power and might, revealing Himself as Christ the King.  With Advent on the heels of the Solemnity of Christ the King, many of us will flip a switch and turns our eyes to His first coming, when He mounted the throne of the Cross to reign from the Tabernacle.  But rather than hitting the reset button, we should see a principle of continuity between the two seasons, especially if we subscribe to the beliefs of the greatest prophet of the 20th Century, St. John Paul II.  A recurring theme during his pontificate, one that he emphasized in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis, was that we are in a season of “a new Advent.”  This new Advent means “to accept with keen conviction the words of her [the Church’s] victorious Redeemer: ‘Remember I am coming soon’ (Rev 22:12).” (John Paul II, ad Limina Address to the Bishops of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, April 25, 1988).  Without succumbing to any distorted millennialism or fatalism, the saintly Pontiff nevertheless expressed a sober certitude that “We are living in the Advent of the last days of history, and trying to prepare for the coming of Christ…”(Angelus Address for World Youth Day, August 19, 1993).

While it remains always true that “you know not the day nor the hour,” the office of Supreme Pontiff carries with it a prophetic charism that invites us in a particular way to keep watch during our own time (c.f. Mt 25:13).  The Pope had a good reason for thinking that our own times were ripe for the return of Christ, one that he hints at in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater:

“For, if as Virgin and Mother she was singularly united with him in his first coming, so through her continued collaboration with him she will also be united with him in expectation of the second; ‘redeemed in an especially sublime manner by reason of the merits of her Son,’ she also has that specifically maternal role of mediatrix of mercy at his final coming, when all those who belong to Christ ‘shall be made alive,’ when ‘the last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor. 15:26).”

The great Marian pope reasons that because Mary played such a key role in the first coming, she would likewise play an integral role in the second.  This is a principle that he borrowed from St. Louis de Montfort, a saint whom John Paul II admitted to having a particularly strong devotion.

Mary’s Role in the End Times

The words of the Polish saint echo St. Louis’ who, in his book True Devotion to Mary, says that

“The salvation of the world began through Mary and through her it must be accomplished. Mary scarcely appeared in the first coming of Jesus Christ so that men, as yet insufficiently instructed and enlightened concerning the person of her Son, might not wander from the truth by becoming too strongly attached to her…As she was the way by which Jesus first came to us, she will again be the way by which he will come to us the second time though not in the same manner” (True Devotion to Mary, 49, 50).

Mary’s greatness remained hidden at the first coming so as to cause no confusion as to the reason for her greatness—the Son of God come in the flesh.  Once the true nature of Christ was sufficiently known, the Holy Spirit wished that we come to know her more fully so that, made perfectly prepared for the first coming, she might prepare the world for the Second Coming.  Just as through her, He came, so through her, even if in a different manner, will He come again.  It is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Revelation 12 in which the Queen gives birth and the child is caught up to God and to His throne.  She returns to her place prepared by God and the devil takes out his wrath on her children.

Reading the signs of the times through a Montfortian lens, St. John Paul II likely interpreted the proliferation of Marian apparitions as a sign that the end is near.  Again, we do not know how near is near, but nevertheless Our Lady’s messages in each of the apparitions are marked by a spirit of urgency.  The “Fatima Pope,” deeply formed by these messages, invited the Church to a renewed vigilance in this “new Advent.”

Those consecrated to Jesus through Mary are, what St. Louis de Montfort, calls Apostles of the End Times (TD 58).  In describing these apostles, the 17th Century French Saint provides us with a blueprint for navigating this new Advent.  At the dawn of the Final Battle,

“Almighty God and his holy Mother are to raise up great saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs…These great souls filled with grace and zeal will be chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides. They will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light, strengthened by her food, guided by her spirit, supported by her arm, sheltered under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other. With one hand they will give battle, overthrowing and crushing heretics and their heresies, schismatics and their schisms, idolaters and their idolatries, sinners and their wickedness. With the other hand they will build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, namely, the Blessed Virgin, who is called by the Fathers of the Church the Temple of Solomon and the City of God . By word and example they will draw all men to a true devotion to her and though this will make many enemies, it will also bring about many victories and much glory to God alone.”

Becoming Apostles of the End Times

In short, these apostles will be identified by three particular marks—a love of the Cross, Apostolic Zeal, and a great Marian devotion.

These great souls, because they “carry the gold of love in their heart and the incense of prayer in their spirit” will love the Cross; a love shown by “carrying the myrrh of mortification in their bodies.”  They will, as Our Lady requested at Fatima, practice penance with great regularity.  In preaching devotion to Mary they “will make many enemies” (TD 48) and serving as Our Lady’s heel by which she will crush the head of the serpent, they will be “down-trodden and crushed” (TD 54) by all the children of the devil and of the world.

Not only will the Apostles of the End Times suffer for a love of God, but also they will be driven by an unquenchable apostolic zeal to save souls.  “Flaming fires” (TD 56) these apostles will spread the “the fire of divine love” everywhere.  Our Lady will use them like sharp arrows in her powerful hands and they will not only reform the Church, but will be instrumental in extending the truth of the Gospel to “the idolators and Muslims” (TD 59).

St. Louis says that “these great souls . . . will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light, nourished at her breast, guided by her spirit, supported by her arm, sheltered under her protection” (TD 48, 55).  They will be marked by a profound humility which enables them to act as her heel that crushes the head of serpent.  Their militant spirit will imitate the spirit of Our Lady of Mercy, always willing to suffer to win souls from the clutches of the evil one. “They will have the two-edged sword of the word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole behavior” (TD, 59).

Are we living in the end times?  Most assuredly, yes.  But we may still be separated by many years from the return of Christ.  Nevertheless, the Church needs to set the wheels in motion so that the Apostles of the End Times are fully formed when the time comes.  It is hard to imagine a better way to live in the “new Advent”, then by spending this Advent by becoming an Apostle of the End Times.  This Wednesday, November 29th offers yet another opportunity to spend the next 33 days preparing for a consecration to Jesus through Mary on January 1st.

On the End of the World

End Times

Having put off yard work all week, I was disappointed when I heard a Christian numerologist backed off his claims that the world would end today.  Hedging his bets however he still claims that some cataclysmic event will occur that will usher in the end of the world.   Whatever date he actually decides upon, Mr. Meade will have the rather dubious distinction of joining the illustrious ranks of Pat Robertson, Edgar Cayce, Jeane Dixon, Grigori Rasputin, Tim LaHaye, Nostradamus, and Isaac Newton as failed Doomsday prophets.  Despite the hundreds, if not thousands, of famous apocalyptic forecasts, each new prediction ignites the interest of the Christian and non-Christian alike.  The question as to when the world will end is an important one, but one that Christian would be better served setting aside.  While the reasoning employed by these would be soothsayers is often entertaining, we should resist paying giving them any attention.

To be fair, this is a question that drew great interest even among the disciples of Our Lord.  When preaching about the End Times, Our Lord told them “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Mt24:36).  When He says “no one” He really means it and wants this question to be one that is off the table, so to speak.  Any investigation into the question will prove fruitless and so any answers that we give will surely be wrong.  Instead Our Lord wants His disciples to be vigilant, treating each day as if it were the Day of Visitation.  Given that every Christian will have a last day and for only a tiny proportion of them it will be the Last Day, this is sage advice indeed, especially considering for most of us the end is no longer than 80 years or so away.

What Our Lord Knew

It is worth discussing the meaning of Our Lord’s words in detail because there have been and still are many heterodox theologians and priests who have twisted them.  Christ, because He has two natures has two ways of knowing—divine and human.  As God, He of course knows when the end of the world is.  It is not as if the Father somehow has kept it as a secret from Him.  As man He was limited to true ways of human knowing.  But still as a Divine Person He knew all things.  What He meant in this situation is that this is knowledge that only God could know, that is, it is knowledge that must remain within the divine realm.  This is not a recent opinion but belongs to the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church, going back to the 6th Century: “If anyone says that the one Jesus Christ who is both true Son of God and true Son of man did not know the future or the day of the Last Judgment and that he could know only as much as the divinity, dwelling in him as in another, revealed to him, anathema sit.” (Pope Vigilius, Constitutum I of 14 May 553).   Augustine said that although Christ had full knowledge of all things, there were two types: communicable knowledge which is related to His mission as Redeemer and noncommunicable.  The question as to the end, because it is not tied to His mission as Redeemer is noncommunicable.

Despite not be able to predict the hour, Our Lord still provides a list of signs to watch out for.  These signs are useful for putting down the false prophets but they also are meant to encourage our vigilance and, for those who are facing the trials of the last days, perseverance. The signs can be broadly grouped into five categories:

  • Preaching of the Gospel to the Whole World
  • The Conversion of the Jews
  • The Great Apostasy
  • The Appearance of the Antichrist
  • Meteorological Phenomenon

Before the end of the world, the Gospel will have been preached to the entire world (c.f. Mk 13:10).  The Gospel will first have to spread, that is, all the peoples of the world will have had heard the true Gospel and had an opportunity to respond.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes of the conversion of the Jews saying that only after the Gospel has spread will tall Israel come to Christ, saying “I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise [in] your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and thus all Israel will be saved…”(Rom 11:25-28).  Most of the Church Fathers teach that the Jews will first think the Antichrist the true Messiah, but through the preaching of the two witnesses (c.f. Rev 11:3-12—which points possibly to Elijah and Enoch) they will come to the fullness of the truth.  This obviously does not mean that every single Jewish person will come to Christ, but means all in the moral sense.

The third event to watch for is what is called the Great Apostasy (c.f Mt 24:9-12).  Apostasy is “the total rejection by a baptized person of the Christian faith he once professed” and is present in the Church in every age.  The Great Apostasy will be a time in which entire Christian nations will apostasize and it will spread throughout the universal Church, perhaps even reaching the hierarchy.

The fourth event is the appearance of the Antichrist.  While we do not know a lot of specifics, Scripture and Tradition does give us enough to form a vague outline of the man.  First, he is just a man and not the Devil incarnate.  Still he will be under the control of the devil to such a degree that he will perform many signs and wonders.  His reign will last for 42 months (Rev 11:2), coming to power with a show of mildness, soberness and benevolence.  This will beguile many (especially the Jews who will think he is the expected Christ) by his lying signs and wonders of his “magical deceit,” but afterwards he will be characterized by all kinds of crimes of inhumanity and cruelty, especially towards the elect, that will make the worst tyrants of history look mild.  He will eventually be killed by Christ, the earth swallowing him whole.

Where the false prophets go wrong is usually because they misunderstand the last one.  Christ says the meteorological signs will occur “immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Mt 24:29).  Most place these phenomena at the beginning of the process or skip the other signs.  Wars, earthquakes, famines and the like “must take place, but the end is not yet” (Mk 13:7-8).

Is the End Near?

No matter what astronomical events occur today or in the coming days, we can say that it is not the end of the world because all the other four things have not yet occurred.  There are two that we might wonder about.  We are living in a time of mass apostasy, but it is not clear that this is the Great Apostasy that Our Lord prophesized.  Likewise with the preaching of the Gospel to the whole world; St. John Paul II thought not—“…there remain vast regions still to be evangelized. In many nations entire peoples and cultural areas of great importance have not yet been reached by the proclamation of the Gospel and the presence of the local church.  Even in traditionally Christian countries there are regions that are under the special structures of the mission ad gentes, with groups and areas not yet evangelized” (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio,37).  Either way we can say with certainty that neither the conversion of the Jews nor the rise of the Antichrist has occurred.  Best we can say at this point is that we are at least 42 months from the end of the world.

The fact that the predictions are obviously false is good enough reason to ignore them, but there are two additional reasons as well.  First, it only encourages others to join in the prognostication party.  Thanks to viral quality of Social Media, everyone’s 15 minutes of fame has been extended to 30 minutes.  If it is sure to garner attention and “likes” then people will throw it out there, even if it is just a picture of it spelled out in their Chef Boyardee Numbers and Letters Pasta.

The second reason is related to this and that is that it only further serves to make Christians look ridiculous.  The world may not recognize that we are trying to predict something we were explicitly told not to waste our time on, but they will know and remember when we are wrong.  Christians are supposed to be a prophetic voice to the world, but when they make more noise being false prophets then it muffles the true prophetic voice we are given at Baptism.  We need to quickly call out these false prophets for what they are; ignoring them when the world is not does us no good.

Prophecy and the Third Part of the Secret of Fatima

Bible, End Times, Mary, , ,

Tomorrow marks the 100th Anniversary of the third appearance by Our Lady to the children in Fatima, Portugal.  It was during this visit that Our Lady disclosed to the children what has become known as the “Three Secrets.”  The first two of these secrets included a vision into hell, a prediction of World War II and the spread of Communism.  The third secret remained hidden and was not disclosed until the year 2000.  At the end of the Mass of Beatification for two of the visionaries, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, Cardinal Angelo Sodano announced its release.  He mentioned that the time was ripe partly because “the events to which the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima now seem part of the past.”  This has not stopped many people from claiming otherwise, insisting on all kinds of apocalyptic interpretations and creating much controversy.

Shortly after Cardinal Sodano’s statement, the then Head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued a Theological Commentary on the Message of Fatima  hoping to shine some light upon the third vision the children saw.  The Cardinal began by affirming Cardinal Sodano’s assertion saying,

“[I]nsofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.”

Despite such a lucid statement, many still insist that the vision is pointing to something yet to happen even going so far as to insist that the Church is hiding something.  There are certainly a number of psychological reasons why a person might do this, but there are those whose insistence comes from a misunderstanding about the nature of prophecy.  Cardinal Ratzinger anticipated this aspect of it and spoke briefly about prophecy in hopes that some of the mistaken views could be put to rest and the focus could be placed on the message itself.  It is in this spirit that we should examine what the future Pope Benedict XVI had to say and supplement it with St. Thomas Aquinas’ explanation of prophecy.

St. Thomas Aquinas and Prophecy

In addressing the charism of prophecy in the Summa (ST II-II, q.173, art. 2), St. Thomas speaks of three different ways in which a prophetic vision is conveyed.  There is the ordinary vision in which something is presented to the exterior senses.  Second, there is an interior perception.  Finally there is a mystical vision that occurs without images.  Regardless of the means by which the vision is conveyed, there is always a subjective element to it. St. Thomas says that “whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver” (ST IA q.75, a5).  What he means by this is that although a person may receive light from on high, how they receive it and how they explain it is based upon their own capacity and experience.

Applying this to what we know of Fatima we can say that the vision was neither the first (only the children could see it) nor could the third (because Sr. Lucia describes it using images).  Through process of elimination we can conclude that the prophetic vision the children received would have been through an interior perception.  What this means is that the vision as Sr. Lucia describes it, even though it is authentic, uses images drawn from her imagination and memory.  This, by the way, is similar to what we see with St. John in the Book of Revelation.  Many of the images as he describes them are based on images that were familiar to him, especially things he had seen on Patmos (like the sea of glass).  In any regard, Sr. Lucia received an impulse from above that is then translated by her interior senses so that she can receive the message.

A thought experiment will make this more understandable.  When I say to you the word “telephone,” you cannot think of a telephone without drawing up an image in your imagination.  This telephone is likely drawn from something in your own memory.  In that way it is completely unique to you and if you began to describe it, it would like be very different from the image I had in mind when I said the word.   In this way, the vision as Sr. Lucia describes it describes is the product of her own imagination and memory.  Again, this is not to suggest that it is made up, only that the images themselves are drawn from her imagination.

Any interpretation has to factor how the prophetic light is received in because it is not like she has seen something on TV or a picture on a wall.  She has received a light and her imagination has attempted to match the light she received.  Of course, it is a prophetic light that is always beyond our natural capacity to know (St. Thomas says of prophecy that it  “first and chiefly consists in knowledge, because, to wit, prophets know things that are far removed from man’s knowledge” (ST II-II, q.171, a.1)) and thus much more complicated than my simple telephone example.  In other words, it is not the vision that matters so much as the interpretation, that is the explanation of what the actual light that was received consisted in.  This is why when asked by Cardinal Sodano whether the interpretation of the vision was correct, Sr. Lucia said she had been given the vision but not the interpretation.  She said it was up to the Church to interpret it, but once she was shown the interpretation she thought it corresponded with what she had seen.

Not only do we tend to focus too much on the vision itself, but we forget another important aspect of a truly Catholic understanding of prophecy.  Most tend to think of prophecy as a foretelling of future events, but the Catholic understanding of prophecy is broader than this. As Cardinal Ratzinger says in his commentary, “prophecy in the biblical sense does not mean to predict the future but to explain the will of God for the present, and therefore show the right path to take for the future.”  By overly focusing on the “prediction” piece of the vision, we can miss the message.

The Vision

With these principles in mind, we can turn to Sr. Lucia directly in her explanation of what she saw in the vision.  Just after seeing an angel with a flaming sword crying out “Penance, penance, penance!” at which point Sr. Lucia saw

“an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. ‘Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.’”

 

Cardinal Ratzinger offers the following points of interpretation based on similar Biblical images:

  • The angel with the flaming sword on the left of Mary represents the threat of judgment looming over the world, just as we see in Book of Revelation—a particularly apt image as today man “himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword.” The image shows the power that stands opposed to the force of destruction—the Mother of God and the seriousness with which we ought to respond to the call to penance
  • The mountain and city symbolize the arena of human history and how man is in great peril of bringing about his own destruction—the cross transforms destruction into salvation
  • Time is presented (the entire century is represented) in a compressed form, just as history is directed towards the Cross. It would be a century of a great suffering for Christians. Martyrs and even the Pope himself (“The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.”  It is as Ratzinger says a “Via Crucis of an entire century”

Viewed through a wider-angled lens, prophecy is meant not primarily to clear up the incurable human blindness of the future, but the curable blindness of the present time.  This is why it is so important not to get caught up in controversies surrounding the secrets and lose focus on the prophetic message of Fatima.  While it is clear that the events depicted have come to pass, the prophetic nature of the message has not passed.  The events were signs pointing to both the events themselves, but also, and primarily to the overall message of Fatima which is to become a people of both profound penance and dedication to the will of God through an imitation of Mary’s spirit of fiat (that is the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart).  The events not only add credibility to the authenticity of the message, but also are signs through the suffering of the martyrs (the extreme form of Penance) and the Bishop dressed in white who cheated death through his dedication to the Immaculate Heart—his spirit of fiat exemplified through his episcopal motto, Totus tuus.  As we recall this important Centenary, we can echo the thoughts of Pope Benedict that the events have passed while also saying “we would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.”   Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

 

 

The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart

End Times, Mary, Sacred Heart of Jesus,

With the celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance to the visionaries in Fatima, there has been a renewed interest in meaning of her visit.  There has been much ink spilled, especially since the release of “Third Secret” in 2000, interpreting all that she did and said.  At the heart of all the visions, miracles and “secrets” is the perennial call to pray and do penance.  But there is one aspect that has, for the most part, remained a mystery.  What did Our Lady mean when she told the visionaries that “in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph”?

To understand what Our Lady meant when she told the visionaries of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart we have to examine a most fundamental truth.  It is the Immaculate Heart that paves the way for the Sacred Heart.  This is not based on some pretended religiosity and obscure connection but the most basic truth that in the fullness of time, it was the Immaculate Heart, a heart completely open to God’s will that led to the creation of the Sacred Heart.  Not only does the Immaculate Heart pave the way in the fullness of time, but also at the end of time.  That is it was the Immaculate Heart that brought about the Incarnation and thus we should expect that it would be instrumental in His return.  Just was we know that it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is Our Lord both in His Divinity and His humanity that will reign in the end, we can also know that Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will reign as well.

The Immaculate Heart

In his theological commentary on the Third Secret of Fatima, the future Pope Benedict XVI explained what it meant to have a devotion to the Immaculate Heart.  He said, in “biblical language, the “heart” indicates the center of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior orientation. According to Matthew 5:8, the ‘immaculate heart’ is a heart which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore ‘sees God’. To be ‘devoted’ to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat—‘your will be done’—the defining center of one’s whole life.”  His point is that the Immaculate Heart reigns in our hearts when we allow our own hearts to be cultivated after hers.

Mary’s heart is one that is one that does not grow weary because she is always expecting God to act personally in her life.  Evidence her reaction to the appearance of St. Gabriel.  Throughout the Old Testament record, the appearance of an angel always elicits great fear in the visionary.  The first words spoken by the angel is “do not be afraid.”  But Mary seems to expect the angel and is clearly not shaken by his appearance; even if his manner of greeting her is troubling. Most of the artistic renderings of the Annunciation show her at prayer, but there is little proof of this other than pious tradition.  She was just as likely working as sitting in contemplation.  She knew God can and does come in either situation.  She travels to the Hill Country to visit Elizabeth “in haste” because she is excited to see the mighty power of God at work.  She believes and professes that nothing is impossible for God.  Her response to St. Gabriel’s proposal is “let it be done to me according to thy word.”  Later when she arrives at the home of her cousin Elizabeth she proclaims the “great things that God has done for me.”  It is this change in preposition that shows how deep her trust in God truly is.  A living faith like that of Our Lady is one that sees those things that God does to us, ultimately are for us.  But this is a radical trust that must come from the heart and be filled with fiat.

How the Immaculate Heart Triumphs

How is it that the Immaculate Heart will triumph?  Building on Cardinal Ratzinger’s commentary we can say that the reign of the Immaculate Heart is not so much about the reign of Mary as Queen per se, but a devotion to her spirit.  It is by the wholesale adoption of this spirit of the Immaculate Heart.  The Kingdom comes when “Thy will is done on earth as it is in heaven.”  It is only this spirit of fiat, that is, the spirit of wanting nothing more than God’s will that will bring about the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

We might see how this is done individually, but how can an entire culture adopt this stance?  This is why Our Lady so vehemently desires the First Saturday devotion.  It is the Communion of Reparation that will bring about this reign.  When all the children begin to act like Mommy and willingly go to the foot of the Cross and stay with Jesus.  This is no symbolic gesture but instead a literal one.  We go to the foot of the Cross each time we go to Mass and on First Saturdays we go with Our Lady in reparation for the offenses against her Immaculate Heart—not because she is overly sensitive, but because without reparation by those children that love her, her spirit of fiat will never spread.  There are two things always at the heart of Christian culture—Mary and the Mass.  Where devotion to Our Lady thrives, so too does the Mass.  Where the Mass is seen as the “source and summit” love for the Immaculate Heart grows.

Ironically there has been so much controversy over whether or not John Paul II consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart or not, that we have neglected the other part of Our Lady’s request of the First Saturday Communion of Reparation.  While we have very little control over whether the Pope performed or has yet to perform the Consecration of Russia, we do have control over the spread of this practice.  The best way to bring about the reign of the Immaculate Heart and hasten the reign of the Sacred Heart is also the best way to heal our culture.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, reign in our hearts and show us the way to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Our Lady of Fatima and the First Saturday Devotion

End Times, Mary, Redemption, , ,

In the popular devotion of the Church, Saturday has long been a day set aside to honor the Blessed Mother.  It was the 8th Century Benedictine monk and Carolingian liturgical reformer, St. Alcuin, who first composed Votive Masses to honor Our Lady on Saturday.  These masses were so popular among the faithful, that they eventually became accepted into the Missal as the Common of the Virgin Mary.

It was no accident however that Alcuin chose Saturday, for there are deep theological reasons for doing so.  The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy  explains that Saturday is set chosen as a memorial of the Blessed Virgin as “a remembrance of the maternal example and discipleship of the Blessed Virgin Mary who, strengthened by faith and hope, on that great Saturday on which Our Lord lay in the tomb, was the only one of the disciples to hold vigil in expectation of the Lord’s resurrection; it is a prelude and introduction to the celebration of Sunday, the weekly memorial of the Resurrection of Christ; it is a sign that the ‘Virgin Mary is continuously present and operative in the life of the Church.’”

This devotion to Our Lady has been sorely tried in recent centuries, beginning with the Protestant Revolution.  Rather than being met with indifference, she was treated with contempt.  It was within this setting that a practice of receiving Communion in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary arose.  This devotion spread, catching the attention of Pope St. Pius X who attached an indulgence to the practice in 1904.  This practice was expanded when on June 13,1912 he offered additional indulgences for “All the Faithful who, on the first Saturday or first Sunday of twelve consecutive months, devote some time to vocal or mental prayer in honor of the Immaculate Virgin in Her conception gain, on each of these days, a plenary indulgence. Conditions: Confession, Communion, and prayers for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff.”

Fatima

Five years to the day, Our Lady appeared to the Fatima visionaries, showing them the Immaculate Heart surrounded with thorns.  Sr. Lucia would later say that she understood that the vision was “was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humanity, which demanded Reparation.” It was also during this appearance that Our Lady told the children that Jesus wished to “establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” Our Lady promised Lucia that she would return to explain the practice of the first five Saturdays.

Fast forward eight years and Lucia is now a postulant in a convent in Pontevedra, Spain.  Our Lady appeared to her and said “Look, my daughter. My Heart is surrounded with thorns that ungrateful men pierce unceasingly with their blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, try to console me and announce that for all those, who for five consecutive first Saturdays, confess, receive Holy Communion, pray the Holy Rosary and accompany me for15 minutes by meditating the mysteries of the Holy Rosary with the intention to do reparation, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with the graces needed for salvation.”

About a year later, she was taking out the trash when she encounters a little child.  She told the child to pray a Hail Mary which He refused to do.  So, she tells him to go to the Church and ask the Heavenly Mother for the Child Jesus.  When the child returns, she asks him if he did what she said to which He replied “And have you spread through the world what the heavenly Mother requested of you?”  She replied, knowing it was Our Lord, that she had met many difficulties in spreading the devotion.  He told her to rely on His grace and to “have compassion for your Mother’s Heart. It is surrounded with thorns that ungrateful men pierce at each moment, and there is no one who does acts of reparation to remove them.”

Our Blessed Lord appeared once again to now Sister Lucia on May 29, 1930. He explained that the devotion involved five consecutive first Saturday because it was five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against the Immaculate Heart of Mary that required reparation, namely: blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, against her perpetual virginity, against the divine and spiritual maternity of Mary, blasphemies involving the rejection and dishonoring of her images, and the neglect of implanting in the hearts of children a knowledge and love of this Immaculate Mother.  Mary had asked Jesus for this to forgive those who “had the misfortune of offending her.”

Why does it Matter?

Why do all these details matter?  Because we are now closing in on the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance to the visionaries in Fatima.  The world has changed in ways the Fatima visionaries could hardly have conceived.  But many of the advances that have been made have left us less human.  Our Lady appeared in order to warn us of this and offered us a remedy to protect us from ourselves—“Penance, penance, penance.”  Many within the Church has chosen to focus on the consecration of Russia as the primary message, but it seems to me that any debate on whether that has actually been accomplished (Sr. Lucia herself said it had) misses the point when we fail to implement the simple call to do Penance.

Our Lady’s instructions are a reminder to all the Faithful of the communal dimension of sin and our obligation to make reparation. Christ came for no other reason than to make reparation.  A Christian is meant to continue His work throughout time and space.  Sure, He could have done the work Himself had He so willed, but He did not will.  Sure, His participation and ours differ immeasurably but He asked for our participation in it when He called upon us to take up our Cross.  We cannot be Christians while at the same time striving to live a comfortable life.  Christians must act redemptively by consciously making acts of reparation, not just for our sins but for the sins of others.  Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, provided we are willing to act like other Christs.  Our Lady’s very specific instructions to Sr. Lucia offers us a concrete means to make this happen.  She is ever the spiritual mother teaching us.  Can we not give to her Son, the First Five Saturdays in honor of His holy Mother?

Finding the Antichrist

End Times

As the Liturgical New Year approaches, the Church turns her focus to the Second Coming of Christ.  We are reminded that although no one knows the hour of His return, we are still to be vigilant in watching (Mk 13:42).  This “watching” includes reading the times so that we might be prepared on that day.  In this spirit, the Church gives us four signs that we should watch for, namely, the Preaching of the Gospel to the whole world (Mt 24:14), the mass conversion of the Jews (Romans 11:25-30), the great apostasy (Mt 24:9-12) and the coming of the Antichrist.  While it is difficult to gage the first three of these, the appearance of the Antichrist is the most easily recognizable.  Therefore if, we are to remain with our lamps lit, it is instructive for us to understand what we should be looking for.

Using Sacred Scripture and the writings of the Fathers of the Church, we are able to piece together seven things that we will know about the Antichrist.  Much of what we can know is based on using the interpretive principle known as typology.  Fr. Hardon’s Catholic dictionary defines a biblical type as a “biblical person, thing, action, or event that foreshadows new truths, new actions, or new events.  A likeness must exist between the type and the archetype, but the latter is always greater.”  By applying what we know about the type, we can learn more about the archetype.  Sacred Scripture abounds with examples, especially related to Christ and Our Lady.  One of the more obvious examples in the New Testament of biblical typology is found in the Book of Hebrews which refers to Christ as forever a priest of the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7:17).  Melchizedek was a priest that Abraham met who offered a sacrifice of bread and wine (Gen 14:18-20).    So Melchizedek’s simple offering was a type of Christ’s perpetual offering of the Eucharist (archetype).  Christ Himself also uses this principle when He prophesizes the destruction of the Temple.  Because the Temple was views as a microcosm of the entire cosmos and it was literally the center of existence of Israel, its destruction would have been understood to foreshadow the end of the world.   This is why He appears to be referring to both the type and archetype when He speaks of the end times.

In his second letter, St. Paul prepares the Faithful in Thessalonica for the coming of the “lawless one” by alerting them to the fact that “the mystery of iniquity is already at work” (2Thes 2:7-8).  In essence he is encouraging them to apply this typological principle as a means to recognizing the Antichrist.  Because the spirit of the Antichrist is being restrained (2Thess 2:6-7), they know that the antichrists they are witnessing serve only as types of the evil one that is to come.  Therefore, with respect to the Antichrist, we can apply this principle to three historical examples in particular.  The first is Antiochus Epiphanes who is found in Second Maccabees.  After being held captive in Rome for 14 years, he ascended to the throne of Syria.  In 175BC,  he marched against Jerusalem and eventually stripped Temple of its treasures.  By 168 BC the city was completely devastated and he declared one religion and seated himself on the throne in the Temple.  This is the “Abomination of Desolation” that was predicted by Daniel (7:8,11,25) and promised by Our Lord during the end times.

The second is the Emperor Nero. During his reign, he embodied all the cruelties attributed to the Second Beast of Revelation 13.  It is probable that the number 666 refers to him specifically. While he is not mentioned by name, he is also the “Caesar” referred to in Acts 25 who is ultimately responsible for the martyrdom of St. Paul.

Finally, there is Muhammad.  While many in the Church have been duped by the nearly two century dormancy of Islam, Church Fathers and saints label him as a type of the Antichrist.  Islam’s absolute monotheism declares that Jesus is not the Son of God, but a mere man—this according to St. John, is the antichrist (1John 2:22-23).  St. John Damascene said, “[T]here is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist…. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst.”  Certainly the institutionalized persecution of “People of the Book” “until they feel themselves subdued” (Surah 29) is a foretaste of the persecution that Christians will face under the reign of the Antichrist.

Relying on the Sacred Scripture, supplemented with typology and the teachings of the Fathers, we can conclude seven things about the Antichrist.

Antichrist--Chapel of San Brizio

First, the Antichrist will be a man and not the devil incarnate.  Try though he might, the best the devil can do is to mimic God.  He is not so powerful that he could effect something like the Incarnation.  Instead as a “thief and a liar” he can only possess the man, even if it is to such a degree that the man submits intellect and will over to him

Second, the Antichrist will perform many signs and wonders.   Because angels (and demons) have control over material creation, the Antichrist will have the power to perform many seemingly miraculous things.  In this way, St. Irenaeus says Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24) was a foreshadowing of the Antichrist.  When he could not “purchase” the Holy Spirit, he set himself in opposition to the Apostles and devoted himself more fully to the study of magic, claiming to be a god and receiving honor even from Claudius Caesar.

Third, he will be thought to be the Christ by the Jews.  This is why most of the Church Fathers say he will be a Jew (possibly from the tribe of Dan) and will rise to power in Jerusalem (and why we should be careful in thinking that we should always side politically with Israel).  He will also rebuild the Temple and sit in the Desolation of Abomination as Daniel and Our Lord prophesized.

Fourth, he will reign for 3 and a half years.  Both the Book of Revelation, “[T]hey will trample on the holy city for 42 months” (Rev 11:2) and the Book of Daniel “[A] time, two times and a half a time” both predict this.

Fifth, St. Cyril of Jerusalem says, the Antichrist will at first put on a show of mildness, soberness and benevolence and will beguile many (especially the Jews who will think he is the expected Christ) by his lying signs and wonders of his “magical deceit” but afterwards he will be characterized by all kinds of crimes of inhumanity and cruelty and will outdo all unrighteous and ungodly men who have gone before him especially towards the elect.

This is where typology becomes so important for understanding just how bad things will be during the persecution of the Antichrist.  He will set up a world government and a world religion that worships himself.  Because of the harsh persecutions, only the true Faith will remain, even if the Church herself is “given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she was taken care of for a year, two years, and a half-year” (Rev 12:14).  St. Augustine interprets Daniel 12:13, “[F]rom the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the desolating abomination is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days” to mean that the offering of the Mass will cease during the reign of the Antichrist.  He even speculates that the persecution will be so bad that there will be no baptisms by water during that time.

The Christians who are on earth during this time will suffer their Purgatory on earth.  When Christ returns after the forty-two months, He will take everyone who is still alive up with Him.  They will have to be so purified that Purgatory is not necessary.

Six, “two witnesses” will plague the Antichrist and he will ultimately slay them.  Revelation 11:3-12 speaks of two witnesses who will prophecy for 3 ½ years.  It is ultimately their witness that will lead to the mass conversion of the Jews. Eventually they are slain and lay in the streets of Jerusalem for 3 ½ days.  After that they are taken up to heaven accompanied by earthquakes.

Many Church Fathers think that these two witnesses are Enoch and Elijah.  Both of them were taken to heaven without dying and the thought is that they will return.  The thought is that Elijah will preach to the Jews while Enoch preaches to the nations.  Part of the Messianic expectation is that Elijah will come again prior to the (second) coming of the Messiah (see Mal 4:5-6) .  This helps to make sense of the veiled answer Our Lord gave to the disciples when they questioned whether Elijah had come—“And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; but I say to you that Elijah already came” (Mt 17:11-12).

This taking up of the two witnesses is the definitive sign of the beginning of the end leading to the seventh thing we know—the Antichrist will be killed by “the breath of the mouth” of Christ (2 Thess. 2:8).  Whether this means that Christ kills Him with His literal Second Coming or without His physical appearance is questionable.

One of the reasons the Antichrist will garner worldly attention is that he will appear to have been dead and is somehow miraculously healed (Rev. 13:3).  This is an attempt of the Evil One to mimic the Resurrection.  Along those same lines, some theologians have speculated that the Antichrist will try to mimic Christ’s ascension and Christ will slay Him and drop Him into the pits of hell.

 

 

 

 

 

Glenn Beck and American Eschatology

End Times

Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress this week about the growing threat of Iran to Israel.  Drawing on the biblical tradition of Queen Esther, he compared the situation of Israel today to that of the Jews in her day saying, “(T)oday the Jewish people face another attempt by yet another Persian potentate to destroy us.”

Glenn Beck, commenting on Netanyahu’s speech, says that America “as a nation, may not stand, if you don’t side with the Jewish people today. God’s commandments will tell you that. If you side with the Jew, you will survive. If you don’t, you will not survive.”   While it seems that in this particular situation, we should side with Israel in its dispute with Iran, what needs to be challenged is the assumption that we must always side with Israel as part of “God’s commandments”.  In fact, if the Fathers of the Church are to be believed, then there will come a time when we certainly will not want to side with the nation of Israel.

If you were to poll Catholics as to whether the restoration of the Promised Land to the Jews is a sign of the End Times, then a majority of them would agree.  But if you consult the Tradition of the Church and Sacred Scripture then you would find no mention of this.  While the Church teaches the necessity for repentance and spiritual renewal on the part of “all Israel” it says nothing about the necessity of the people of Israel returning to the Promised Land.  This belief has crept into the mindset of Catholics through the eschatological (study of the end of the world) vision of what is commonly referred to as Dispensationalism.

While Dispensationalism comes in different forms, its uniting premise is belief that God is pursuing two distinct plans or dispensations in history—one with an earthly people (Israel) and the other with a heavenly people (the Church).  When Jesus came, He offered the earthly people a physical kingdom until they rejected Him as their Messiah.  Once this happened, He formed a heavenly people that were meant to reign not on earth, but in Heaven.  However the unconditional promises of the Old Testament to Israel needed to be fulfilled.  These promises were put on hold until Christ removed the heavenly kingdom via the Rapture.

The so-called prophetic dispensationalists of the mid-1800s and early 1900s promised a return of the Jews to Palestine and actively pursued the rebirth of the political nation of Israel.  Once Israel was re-gathered as a nation, the End Times would follow shortly thereafter.  Jerry Falwell has declared that the return of Israel to Palestine is “the single greatest sign indicating the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”  It is this same misguided theology that inspires the bestselling Left Behind books  and the writings of Hal Lindsay.  It is also this false eschatology that leads someone like Glenn Beck to conclude that those who do not support the nation of Israel oppose God.

As we have seen with ISIS, theology has consequences and bad theology has bad consequences.  In contrast to what the dispensationalists believe, the Church is not a mere hiccup in history, but the fulfillment of all the promises to Israel.  There is not a sharp distinction between the Israel of Sacred Scripture and the Church.  When Scripture speaks of Israel it is concerned not with Israel as a nation but a people.  St Paul even goes so far as to identify the Church as the New Israel see Romans 9-11, Gal 3:27-29, 6:16).  The Catechism says that, from being parenthetical, the Church is “the goal of all things” (see CCC 760).  Pope Benedict seems to summarize it best in Behold the Pierced One when he says “…the question of whether Jesus intended to found a Church is a false question because it is unhistorical. The only proper way to phrase the question would be to ask whether Jesus intended to abolish the People of God or to renew it. The answer…is plain: Jesus made the old People of God into a new people by adopting those who believe in him into the community of his own self (of his ‘body’).”  Having a proper ecclesiology is vital to having a correct eschatology.  The restored Israel is already here in the Church and not in the political Zionism of Israel today that lacks the intrinsic core of Judaism and is really a secular state.

Why does this matter?  It matters because it is the nearly universal teaching of the Church Fathers that the Anti-Christ, when he comes, will be a Jew since his rejection as the false Messiah will lead to the mass conversion of the Jews.  Because it is prophesied that he will rebuild the Temple (Christ and Daniel say he will sit in the Desolation of Abomination), it is believed also that he will rise to power in Jerusalem.  This means that a secular earthbound state of Israel with its superior military force could very well become a military power base for the Anti-Christ.  In lobbying for the secular state of Israel, the dispensationalists may actually be aiding the arrival of the End Times in a manner they cannot possibly imagine.  Unfortunately when it happens, there will be no rapture to stop the great tribulation that Scripture promises.

Certainly I am not saying that this is going to happen like this.  The point is that there is no biblical basis for an unconditional support of the nation of Israel and certainly there is no reason to think that Netanyahu’s speech is “the final spiritual warning to the American people to wake up and side with the Jewish people, or you will face God’s wrath.”