IT’S TOO LATE !!!

 1. Parousia.
     In its ordinary meaning, Parousia means the coming of an important person. In Christianity it often refers to the Second coming of Christ, either when we die or at the 2nd coming of Christ at the end of the world. 
     It is used in both senses; our own personal death and the 2nd coming of Christ at the end of the world, because on both occasion Christ is going to judge us.
     Parousia, then, is when we come to face Christ in order to be judged.  And the way we prepare ourselves for both is identical; to be in the state of grace. To prepare for the second coming of Christ is to prepare ourselves for death.  So it really does not matter whether we are preparing for one or the other; there is only one preparation for both. 
     St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Robert Bellarmine have very helpful treatises on how to prepare for death.  The way to prepare for both death and the second coming of Christ is to repent and then have the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. 

2. How far and how near. 
    GPS  (Global Positioning System) is very helpful when we are driving a car and looking for a specific destination. It is like God, Himself, guiding us directly to our destination. Well, we have something similar in the spiritual life. The Liturgy !! The liturgy tells us the path that leads to heaven, from the very beginning up to the end; the beginning is the season of Advent, and the final goal is the Feast of Christ the King. Every Sunday, Holy Mother the Church describes the sign posts that we must watch in our spiritual travel. These sign posts are visible sign of spiritual realities. As we go through the Sundays, the Liturgy tells exactly where we stand before God. Are we nearly approaching Him or are we very far away from Him?
     It even tells us if we have taken the wrong road and how to go back to the right road; just like the GPS.  But the Liturgy can, also, tell us if we have taken the wrong road and that we are hopelessly lost, which the GPS does not do. So, we really have a better instrument in the spiritual life made by God, Himself. 

3. Two signs.  A  pre-warning sign  showing we can still change our course and another sign showing it is too late.
    The whole of Scriptures is filled with pre-warning signs and hopeless signs. These are all meant to prepare us for the final pre-sign and final it’s-too-late sign.
     Let us look at the story of the deluge during the time off Noah.  The times of Noah were very bad and sinful times. So bad that God regretted He created man and decided to end the human race. But, of course, this was a temporary set back for the human race. The race will continue to exist and continue to be tested by God. But this one story will be a lesson on how the next subsequent Parousias will look like and how man should prepare for them. 
    It will not happen every year; but will happen often enough to teach men enough lesson to prepare for the last Parousia, the end of the world. 

     What is the pre-warning sign in the case of Noah? The building of the Ark. The sinful world of Noah saw the Ark being built. And Noah was telling them why he was  building the Ark; because of a coming chastisement due to  their sinfulness. At that time everybody had more than enough time to change and repent. But they did not.  The Ark was finish and the rain came; that was still a pre-warning sign. But when God, Himself, closed the door of the Ark…that was it. It was now too late. They knock and the door was not opened. The water rose, they called for help and for mercy, but it was too late. The door of the Ark was closed and God would not allow them to enter.
     Note that most of the people wanted to enter the Ark which was a figure of the Catholic Church but they could not because God closed the door. There is a possibility that one day God will close the main door of the Church which is the entrance shown by evangelisation. I repeat; God will close down the main entrance to the Catholic  Church. The story of Noah clearly shows this. 
     This is the urgency why we should set all things aside and work, first and foremost, to enter the Catholic Church before doing anything else……..because the main door might be closed by God. Remember it was not Noah who closed the door. It was God. 

4. Noah is a figure for today.
     We should expect the same thing to happen today. That one day when God sees the sins of today that surpass the sins during Noah’s time, rise like flood waters He will invite souls to enter the Catholic Church. But if He sees their continuous refusal, He will shut the main door of the Church. We will cry and knock but no one will open the door because what God has shut no man can open. Then we will all drown in our sins.

5. The Hope in the New Testament.
     God in His mercy will still shut the main door as in the time of Noah. But as a little joke that spread during my seminary days with the Jesuits, St. Peter noticed a steady flow of souls inside heaven though the main door is closed. It seems that a woman had opened a very small door somewhere to let some of her choiced souls inside. And that woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  
    At first , I though this was just some bad Jesuit joke like Karl Rahner’s  transignification heresy. But no. This was something true and genuine. In a picturesque way, the Blessed Virgin Mary seems to have open a very small door in the Ark of the Catholic Church. So that in the coming expected prophecy that the door of the Ark of the Catholic Church is closed by God Himself, Mary can allow entrance to some of her choiced souls. It is a hopeful element of the New Testament. 

6. The small door. 
     And this small door is found in Divine Revelation. The entire story of the Blessed Virgin Mary is just about her being the small door. As of recently, this was noticed in Pope Paul VI document on Mariology, ‘Marialis Cultus’ where he described the Catholic Church as a Marian Church. Earlier St. Grignon de Montfort had explicitly described her as the door that leads to Christ as the head of the Mystical Body. John Paul II was most expressive of Mary’s role as such that he took the title ‘Totus Tuus’ from St. Grignon. 
     When Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI  presented their ‘new’ evangelisation to the whole world they were, in effect, saying that the main door of the Ark of the Catholic Church, which is the main entrance through which all should enter, has now been shut by God. And that the ‘new’ evangelisation’ is the new path that leads to that small door opened by the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is not for all.  It is only for a few choiced soul devoted to her.
     This small door was first described by St. Bonaventure from where Joseph Ratzinger noticed it and made it into his thesis as a young priest. This was incorporated into some Franciscan spirituality since St. Francis of Assisi mentioned it in his farewell address to his friars.

7. The Woman clothed with the Sun.
     This ‘new’ evangelisation is described in the Apocalypse on the ‘Great Sign’ mentioned by Pope Paul VI, thus the first words of his encyclical ‘Marialis Cultus.’ It was earlier described in the last Gospel of St. John as he narrated the boat trip in lake Tiberius. So this teaching is all over Scriptures and in the teachings of the saints. 
     It is clear that the rain described in Noah’s deluge started from the very beginning of the Church. It seems that the waters of sin begun to rise around the 19th century, at the time of Pius IX when the Blessed Virgin Mary begun to appear regularly on earth. The rise of modernism during the French Revolution is suspected as the time the doors of the Ark were closed. And the apparitions of Mary were her efforts to point to the little opening into the Church described clearly in the Apocalypse. But it is coded so that almost nobody among the bishops and priests today seems to know where that door is. 

8. Significance of this truth.
    Since the main door of the Church is closed as prophetically portrayed by Noah’s Ark, it would be impossible for most to enter the Catholic Church today. As before, they can shout and beg and knock but the door will not be opened. There is only one small door open, personally controlled by Mary. And like before, Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, true to their office as Popes had pointed to that door through the ‘new’ evangelisation.
     The great danger is everybody, today, is using the word ‘new’ evangelisation but the direction they are pointing to is the opposite direction, away from that small door and away from the closed main door. Pope Francis and most of all the bishops and priests are pointing to the wrong direction and calling it ‘new’ evangelisation.’ So beware.