Friday, June 18
The End
Mark Shea has a post on how world developments mirror the conditions for the Second Coming, pulled from a Church document he left unnamed (and which I don't have time during my break here to look up; I assume either the Catechism or the Fatima document):
675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
Now, my gut reaction is that this sort of analysis is a bit too steeped in his formerly Protestant cultural inheritance. The Second Coming will be prefaced by events that exactly similar to all the other ages of human history, because they will be committed by humans with the same nature as those who lived in every age. Societies have risen and fallen, and will continue so to do. Current events are grave, sure, but to me, don't quite seem any more doomsdayish than the Germanic invasions of Rome or the battle of Lepanto. Perhaps this perspective is a bit too steeped in "been there, done that" Catholic cultural inheritance which is rather loathe to jump up and declare "The end is near!", but I would (1) expect that the conditions of the Second Coming will mirror the falled human tendencies of all the ages, yet (2) on a much grander scale -- grander than the current situation.
Who knows?
Mark Shea has a post on how world developments mirror the conditions for the Second Coming, pulled from a Church document he left unnamed (and which I don't have time during my break here to look up; I assume either the Catechism or the Fatima document):
675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
Now, my gut reaction is that this sort of analysis is a bit too steeped in his formerly Protestant cultural inheritance. The Second Coming will be prefaced by events that exactly similar to all the other ages of human history, because they will be committed by humans with the same nature as those who lived in every age. Societies have risen and fallen, and will continue so to do. Current events are grave, sure, but to me, don't quite seem any more doomsdayish than the Germanic invasions of Rome or the battle of Lepanto. Perhaps this perspective is a bit too steeped in "been there, done that" Catholic cultural inheritance which is rather loathe to jump up and declare "The end is near!", but I would (1) expect that the conditions of the Second Coming will mirror the falled human tendencies of all the ages, yet (2) on a much grander scale -- grander than the current situation.
Who knows?
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