1. At the beginning.
The Chosen people begun their training in the desert. St. John the Baptist begun his training in the desert. Christ, Himself, lived a hidden life in imitation of the life in the desert. And the beginnings of the Catholic Church, after Pentecost, the Church developed in the desert with the beginnings of monasticism.
The Church begun as types that can only be understood in the context of the desert. The Catholic Church begun as monasticism in the dessert. St. John the Evangelist established one of the first monastic community.
The Catholic Church begun with the first coming of Christ. It will end with the second coming of Christ. Similarly, as the Church begun with monasticism, it will end as a monastic institution..
The Fathers of the Church knew this well. St. Bonaventure explained it in more detail in his Theology of History. It was this topic that the young Joseph Ratzinger used as his thesis.
The Catholic Church is a prophetic religion; meaning to say, she has the gift of prophecy where she knows all the teachings of Christ and can use that knowledge eschatologically, i.e. how that knowledge is fulfilled in the future.
The Benedictine monasteries were meant to be schools of prophets. They master both the teachings of God and its eschatological significance. Thus St. Benedict being so, was the founder of the beginnings of the Catholic Church in a decaying Rome and was prophesied to establish the Church at the end of the world in preparation to welcoming the Second coming of Christ.
2. Joseph Ratzinger
The young Ratzinger studied well this concept of the Catholic Church’s beginning as a monastic movement and ending at the End times as a monastic movement. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict’s ‘new’ evangelisation is based upon this concept. So the ‘new’ evangelisation was similarly described by both, using the words of St Bonaventure as the ‘new’ monasticism.
Every renewal in the history of the Catholic Church always consisted in the renewal of monasticism because the beginnings of the Christian life, which is the life of repentance, was the monastic life. The first step in the spiritual life is the monastic life. Everything else is built on the monastic life.
It will be noticed that all religious orders are essentially monastic. The life in the seminary is an imitation of the monastic life. Even the laymen’s spirituality is described by St. John Chrysostom as a ‘mystical desert,’ refers to the life in the desert.
Joseph Ratzinger went deep into this concept due to his exposure to several Benedictine monasteries in Bavaria. As Pope he dreamt to continue studying this theological concept by furthering his understanding of St Bonaventure’s theological concept of history which is the eschatological aspect of monasticism.
3. Pentecost.
At Pentecost, the first members of the Church, the apostles, were perfect. But the church they were starting was imperfect. As they went about to all nations the churches they started were all imperfect. They would rise up to certain degrees of spirituality but they were, always, imperfect.
As the Faith was introduced around the world, to Asia, Oceania, the US, to South America, the Church was always at its beginnings. Developing but always imperfect.
The Catholic Church will, only, become almost perfect at the end of the world; and then it will be perfected in the next life. So there was never a time that the Church was perfect except at its beginnings and at its end.
So as missionaries go to far lands, when Catholic nations undergo renewal…..it was always a beginning. It was never the end or its perfection. Except at the end time, the Church will be nearly perfect. This way God will show the world her perfection and how she could have solved all the problems of the world if only the world followed her teachings. The end time will be the exaltation of the Catholic Church above all nations. The world could have been as glorious as this if only the world used its head and submitted to her.
4. St. Benedict of Nursia.
At the time of St. Benedict, the Church had, already, been started in Jerusalem and its surroundings, by the Apostles. Peter and Paul has gone to Rome and started the Church there. The Church had a beginning in Rome. But at the time of St. Benedict, it had not reached perfection. In fact, it was as it was in the beginning……it was back to paganism.
This is the genesis of the Catholic Church everywhere. Always beginning. Never reaching perfection. But, instead, returning back to paganism. St. Benedict knew that. He knew that it had to start again from the beginning. And the beginnings of the Catholic Church is always with monasticism or the life of repentance. So he left Rome, looked for a cave. And with a few peasants started the Benedictine communities.
Europe was going to be Catholic this way. Whole communities of monks went to evangelise Europe and transformed it into a Christian nation reaching its highest point around the 13th century. That was just mid-way of its spiritual development. Unfortunately, before it could further progress towards perfection, it collapsed with the Reformation. It was back to zero.
St. Benedict knew the possibility of the Faith returning to zero so he saw to it that monasteries were establish everywhere to maintain the momentum of the Faith and lead it to perfection. But everywhere it was the same story. Always back to zero or maybe to 10%…but not good enough.
By the time of Pope Benedict, he knew it would be like this. So at the very beginning of his papacy he tried to begin from the beginning by proclaiming at St. Paul outside the Walls that to save civilisation that have returned back to zero we have to return back to monasticism……to the monasticism of St. Benedict. Europe responded with the establishment of the European Union which was patterned on the Basiliades of St. Basil, a very good model for a monastic nation. They knew something most politicians did not notice. That its emblem was the Apocalyptic ‘great sign in the sky.’ This was the Blessed Virgin with 12 stars. The emblem of the EU is still the blue flag with the 12 stars.
But even before it could start in the right direction it totally collapse under the weight of secularism and paganism. So back to zero. We cannot alway return to zero and get away with it. God had given man limits.
St. Benedict started the Catholic Church in many places. Still, it can be the starting point for the Church in any place.
One day St. Benedict had a vision that his faithful followers will prepare the world for the second coming of Christ. So St. Benedict’s monasticism was the beginnings of the Catholic Church everywhere, it will also be the sign of the perfection and end of the Catholic Church on earth. Thus the monasticism of St. Benedict had always been described as the classical evangelisation. Now it is, also, called the ‘new’ evangelisation.
Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict described the evangelisation that should be used today in the world as the ‘new’
evangelisation or new monasticism. Just as the Catholic Church, at the beginning of Christianity, were souls living in monastic communities in the desert. Today, the Catholic Church will be a new monastic community. The Catholic Church will not be found in cities as many think. As the Apocalypse described it, the Church will be a monastic community in the desert brought there by the ‘Great Sign’ in heaven
Thus as St. Benedict was starting the Catholic Church in Rome, once again, an angel informed him that his followers will again teach his monasticism at the end time to prepare the world for the Second coming of Christ. Monasticism, it seems, will be the beginning of all the Churches and all Churches will end up in being one monastic community.
What we see today is that there is no new monastic communities. Most monastic communities had become purely worldly communities. But there are a few monastic communities that had progressed towards becoming almost perfect monastic communities.
While there are hardly any beginnings, there are some progressing towards perfection. Let us look for signs showing this directions.
5. Sign of the times.
A beginning is the Papacy of John XXIII. He said that he took the named John in honour of St. John the Baptist who was a voice crying from the wilderness inviting souls to come to the desert to hear the Word of God. That was symbolically a call to the monastic life.
Then the ‘Veritatis Splendor’ of Pope John Paul II was a call to perfection. Its main theme was the young rich man who was told to go home, sell all his possessions, give it to the poor and follow Christ. That was not living an ordinary Catholic way of life. That was living the perfection of the Catholic way of life. How many can live that way of life? No wonder no one obeyed that encyclical. See what I mean?
Pope Benedict further perfected the direction of the Church by clearly pointing towards the monasticism of St. Benedict to whom the angel prophesied that it is the Church living his Rule that would welcome Christ in his Second Coming. He further perfected the ‘veritatis splendor’ with his three encyclicals on the three theological virtues. That is, indeed, the perfection of the Catholic way of life of which very few can observe. It is the very narrow road that very few can pass through .
6. Archbishop Ganswain.
Archbishop Ganswain with his constant conversation with Pope Benedict is expressing what we have described above; first, that the Catholic Church begins with the monastic life with the life of repentance; and it ends with the monastic life with the life of perfection.
The Church has many beginnings in every place and in many places. But it will end with one huge monastic community. And the Papacy of Pope Benedict is the beginning of the age of the perfection of the Church.
But how can we say that the Church is approaching perfection when it is in complete disarray and in total confusion? That is not the Church. It is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that is approaching perfection. And it is not the one in the largely developed metropolis. It is not the one in the Vatican and the Curial offices. It is not of this world though it is still in the world.
Recently, the good bishop said that Pope Benedict did not really resign. And he described a diarchy, two persons in one Papacy. The Vatican had not raised any objection. That raised a lot of problem because the idea of two person in one Pope or two Popes in one Papacy is not Catholic Doctrine. Even the Bishop’s explanation that one of them being a contemplative and the other being active…..which is like Mary and Martha, did not help clarify the situation. Not because the bishop is unclear; but more because most human minds are dull.
It is for this reason that the good bishop had been giving clarifications. And they are indeed clarifications.
The good bishop mentioned, recently, St. Malachi and the saint’s prophecy on the Popes. Prophecies can only be understood when they are actually happening. They cannot be interpreted before they are fulfilled. So any earlier comments in favour or against them are out of place.
The Bishop is on schedule because the prophecies of Malachi is supposed to be fulfilled now, today. So it can be interpreted correctly if we are guided by types written in Scriptures.
Here is the Good Friday scenario commented on by St. Bonaventure. The Apostles who made up the near perfect Church were in hiding. While everybody else, the Jews, the Romans, all the priests were not only against Christ but were the ones plotting for the life of Christ. This is the situation described in Malachi as the ‘days of tribulation’ that is supposed to happen under ‘Peter Romanus,’ the Pope after Benedict XVI.
Peter Romanus is supposed to be Pope Francis. Though the prophecy had been fulfilled we, still, cannot interpret it correctly. He does not seem to be Peter Romanus no matter how much we try.
What bothers us is from ‘Scivia,’ a book of visions by St. Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine superior, in chapter 10 described an anti-pope during this time. Which explains why things don’t fit.
So bishop Ganswain comment that Benedict did not resign when actually he resigned and reappeared as Pope again, could be a fulfilment of what St. Grignon de Montfort wrote, that the Pope today will be appointed by Christ as it was in the beginning; just as God, Himself again, will appoint the apostles of the last days’ just as it was in the beginning’ thus establishing, again, the perfect Catholic Church that existed as it was in the beginning.
The possibility that Pope Emeritus Benedict is the newly appointed ‘Petrus,’ and since he is staying in Rome, therefore, ‘Romanus.’ How did he become ‘Petrus?’ Because it is Christ who appoints and who gives the name. Christ called him ‘Petrus’ before, He will surely used the same name as it was in the beginning.
7. The beginnings and the end.
We have seen the Catholic Church beginning in many places; in Jerusalem, in Greece, in Europe and in the US. We have, also, seen the Church disappearing in many places; in Jerusalem, in Rome, in Europe. We have seen the Church resurrecting and beginning again in many places; liked in Japan and Korea.
But now we are seeing the Church being purified, a division is occurring world wide, beginning in the Vatican and extending to the smallest parish. Why is the Church being purified? That the good may form a small nucleus that would make up the small Church near to perfection. Why now? That is what Ganswain is trying to lead to; that the Papacy of Pope Benedict is the beginning of the fulfilment of the vision of St. Benedict. A vision that was confirmed by St. Hildegard of Bingen in her 10th prophetic vision in her work ‘Scivia’; a 12th century Benedictine saint, who was raised by Pope Benedict to the honors of being a Doctor of the Church. In that vision she was describing the Papacy after that of Pope Benedict XVI.
In short, this division occurring in the Catholic Church is not man-made. It is the work of angels. And St. Benedict’s message is; be sure you are in the side of the true Catholic Church.