When a tragedy strikes is it a chastisement or is it the end of the world? Our blessed Mother had been warning us of chastisements if we did not repent. What are chastisements? They are acts of God by which He punishes us due to wrong done. It is God’s way of reminding men that his way of life is not according to His ways. This can range from a devastating earthquake that could kill hundreds of thousands, to Tsunamis that can wash away a populace, to a mere headache. There would be no difference between an earthquake as a chastisement to correct a people with an earthquake that is prelude to the end of the world. Both are earthquakes. But a chastisement can be stopped by a change of life while there is no way to stop the signs of the end of the world.
All the acts of God that have happened, so far, are chastisements. The plaques of Egypt were chastisements to the Egyptians for refusing the let God’s people go. The calamities that were supposed to befall Nineveh were chastisements that were prevented by a change of life in the inhabitants. Sodom and Gomorrah were chastisements that were not prevented because of the continued evil life of its populace. The world wars were chastisements that could have been prevented, if the world listened to the Blessed Mother’s message of repentance (or the pleadings of Pope Benedict XV).
But of recently, we know that the Blessed Virgin Mary had been complaining that the hands of wrath of her son are heavy and she cannot restrain Him anymore. Well, when those hands fall on the earth, it will be the end of the world. And when it is the end, there is no way to stop it.
With the recent tragedies, one can easily say they are chastisements that could have been prevented, if, for instance, the sinful decadent parade did not push through; or maybe, if the Catholic populace prayed more.
But let’s look at the scenario: priests and nuns were unaccounted for, the devastation was extensive, dead bodies polluted the water, crocodiles swarmed into the city to eat the decomposing bodies, the hungry house dogs and cat went wild because of hunger, flies covered vast areas, there was no electricity, water, and light thus making life impossible. And those decapitated and dead bodies … the scene may be described as the city had returned to its primitive state. Why, that’s the description of how things would be at the end of time according to the “Shepherd of Hermas.” The typhoon was accompanied within the week with another tragedy in the east and a plane crash in Asia. Isn’t this the description of the rapidity of the birth pangs of approaching birth, which is another description of the end times?
To complete the collage, let us enumerate the often quoted signs used by preachers to scare their congregation to contribute more. There are the continuous rising prices wherewith a meal would cost a box of money, common in some South American nations, including Italy. Then there are the wars and the rumors of war; the famine in Africa, etc.
Those are the signs often quoted by Protestant preachers. Let us look at a few Catholic prophecies of saints; St. Paul mentioned the great apostasy within the Catholic Church wherein most Catholics would be ignorant of Catholic teachings, that the religious congregations would no longer be faithful to the spirit of their founders, the return to paganism of the worst kind among Catholics, the dictatorship of relativism which was mentioned by St. Benedict of Nurcia long before Pope Benedict XVI mentioned it, and of course “the community” that Pope Benedict is looking for as a result of his study on St. Bonaventure.
St. Hippolytus mentions a few more. The oblation and the incense will be unattended referring to the Liturgy. There will be no sacrifice acceptable to God because worshipping in spirit and truth would cease. The sanctuary will be a garden’s watcher hut. The Body and Blood of Christ will not be shown in those days on the altar (probably relegated to a hidden altar somewhere or probably really nowhere because the church had been closed). The Liturgy shall be extinguished, religious shall cease singing the psalmody (from the original 8 times for prayer, it would be reduced to three from which only one is recited and half-distractedly – parenthesis is mine).
The signs of the end times will be a grandiose exhibition of God’s wrath. No one can prepare himself for it and no one will be able to stand it as described. “People would shrivel dry out of fear and cry upon the mountains to cover them from the wrath of God.” But we are told of a way to be spared from it. The Book of the Apocalypse had aptly suggested joining the Woman who fled into the desert in a place specially prepared by God to nourish her for a length of time.
Jesus Christ was born at the end times. After 2000 years shouldn’t it be time for the end? Nobody wants that but everything has an end. (Painting above is “The Gates of Paradise; the Descent to Hell by Hans Memling , 1430, exhibited in Danzig, Poland.)