Know to learn and love!: The end-time drama

Morning prayer Evening prayer Exorcism Rosary Consecration

03/26/2020 spirituality Created by valde.com.br

THE END OF TIMES in the most complete approach on the theme.

PE. EMMANUEL-ANDRÉ

THE END-OF-TIME DRAMA

ELECTRONIC EDITION PERMANENCE

RIO 2004

CANNOT BE MARKETED

PREFACE

The following pages, written by RP Emmanuel, Prior of the Monastery of Mesnil-Saint-Loup, are a hundred years old. They were written in 1884-1885, and are being published in 1985.
Reverend Father Emmanuel is a theologian, but his doctrine is entirely oriented towards spiritual life. His soul burns with the desire to communicate the truth to souls, to lead them to the Praise of God, to sanctify them in the manner of Saint Benedict who wanted to make his monks good Christians, that is, disciples of Jesus Christ.
Reading these pages about the Church is exciting, you can feel the breath of the Holy Spirit in them. Some of them are even prophetic, when they describe the Church's Passion. The year 1884 was also the year of writing by Leo XIII of his exorcism through the intercession of Saint Michael the Archangel, who announces the iniquity on Peter's throne.
A few years earlier Pope Pius IX had published the Acts of the Masonic sect of the High Sale, which are true diabolical prophecies for our time.
The Reverend Father gives surprising details about religious indifferentism, which corresponds exactly to the ecumenical heresy of our day.
What would he have said or written if he lived in our time! Through his writings he encourages us to remain firm in the faith of the Catholic Church and to refuse the commitments that ruin the liturgy, its doctrine and its morals. The example of his apostolate in the parish of Our Lady of Holy Hope in Mesnil-Saint-Loup remains a testament to his zeal and his holiness.
May these pages have a wide spread through the intercession of Nossa Senhora da Santa Esperança. May she deign to bless her readers and editors.

D. Marcel Lefebvre.

FIRST ARTICLE
March 1885

A WORD TO THE READER

We consider the Church in the past and in the present; we need to contemplate it in the future.
God wanted the destinies of the Church of his only Son to be traced beforehand in the Scriptures, as were those of his own Son; it is there that we will look for the documents of our work.
The Church, having to be like Our Lord, will suffer, before the end of the world, a supreme test that will be a true Passion. It is the details of this Passion, in which the Church will show the immensity of her love for her divine Spouse, which are found in the inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments. We will pass them on to our readers.
We do not intend to scare anyone by dealing with such a matter. We will say more: it seems to us, alongside great teachings, great consolations.

It is certainly a sad spectacle to see humanity, seduced and maddened by the spirit of evil, trying to suffocate and annihilate the Church, its mother and its divine tutor. But from this show a light comes out that shows the whole story in its true aspect.
Man is agitated on the earth; but he is pushed by powers that are not of the earth. On the surface of history, the gaze apprehends the disorders of empires and civilizations that appear and disappear. Beneath this, faith makes us follow the great antagonism between Satan and Our Lord; makes us watch the wiles and the violence of the unclean spirit, to enter the house from which he was expelled by Jesus Christ. In the end he will enter and will want to eliminate Our Lord. Then the veils will be torn, the supernatural will shine everywhere; there will be no more politics per se; a purely religious drama will develop and involve the entire universe.
One may ask why the adventures of this drama are so thoroughly described by the sacred writers, since it will last only a short time?
Because it will be the conclusion of the entire history of the Church and of the human race.
Because it will bring out the divine character of the Church with a supreme brilliance.
In addition, all these prophecies are undoubtedly intended to fortify the souls of the faithful in the days of the great trial. All the shakes, all the fears, all the seductions that will come to assault them, having been predicted so exactly, will constitute arguments in favor of the fought and proscribed faith. Faith will be established in them precisely because of what should destroy it.
But we ourselves have great fruits to take from these strange and terrible events. After speaking of them, Our Lord said to his disciples: “Watch and pray, that you may be found worthy to flee from these things that will happen in the future, and to remain standing in the presence of the Son of Man” (Lk 21, 36) .
So, the announcement of these events is a solemn warning given to the world: "Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation". (Mt 26, 41).
You do not know when these things will happen: watch and pray, lest you be surprised.
You know that from now on seduction works in souls, that the mystery of iniquity does its work, that faith is considered an opprobrium (St. Gregory); watch and pray, to keep the faith.
Here is the hour of the night, the hour of the powers of darkness: Watch that your lamp does not go out, pray that torpor and sleep do not overtake you.
But first, raise your heads to heaven; for the hour of redemption is near, for the first light of dawn begins to dawn. (Lk 21, 28).

III

After having spoken of the teachings, let us say a word about the consolations.
Evil has never been so loose; and at the same time so restrained by the hand of God.
The Church, like Our Lord, will be handed over without defense to the executioners who will crucify it in all its members: but they will not be allowed to break their bones, which are the chosen ones, as well as with the Easter lamb lying on the cross.
The ordeal will be limited, cut short because of the elected; and the elect will be saved; and the elect will all be truly humble.
Finally, the ordeal will end with an unprecedented triumph of the Church, comparable to a resurrection.
In that time, and even in the preludes of the supreme crisis, it will see the remains of the nations convert. But his most vivid consolation will be the return of the Jews.
Jews will be converted, either before or during the Church's triumph; and São Paulo, which announces this great event, is not content with joy when contemplating what will follow.
We see how the words of the psalm can be applied to the Church: Following the multitude of afflictions that filled my heart, your consolations, Lord, made my soul happy.

SECOND ARTICLE
April 1885

THE PRECURSORY SIGNS

The issue of the end of the world has been discussed since the Church's origins. Saint Paul had given precious teachings to the Thessalonian Christians on this subject; and how, despite the oral instructions, the spirits let themselves be disturbed by predictions and unsubstantiated rumors, he sent them a very serious letter to calm their concerns.
"We insistently plead with you, my brothers, tell them, do not let yourselves be shaken by your resolutions, nor be disturbed by any vision, or chatter, or letter supposedly coming from us, as if the day of the Lord is near."
“No one in any way deceives you! For the great apostasy must come first, and the man of sin, the son of perdition, must appear ... ”.
"Don't you remember that I said these things to you when I was still with you?"
“And now you know what is holding you back. For the mystery of iniquity already does its work. Whoever holds it back will retain it, waiting until it is set aside ”. (2 Ts 2, 1, 6).
So the end of the world will not come without a terrifyingly evil and wicked man, the son of perdition, appearing. And this, in turn, will only manifest itself after the great general apostasy, after the disappearance of a providential obstacle about which the Apostle had taught his faithful by voice.

What apostasy does São Paulo speak of? This is not a partial defection; he says, in an absolute way, apostasy. One can only understand the mass apostasy of Christian societies, which socially and civilly will deny their baptism; the defection of these nations that Jesus Christ, according to the energetic expression of Saint Paul, made members of the body of his Church (Eph 3, 6).
Only this apostasy will make possible the manifestation and domination of the personal enemy of Jesus Christ, in a word, Antichrist.
Our Lord said: Will the Son of Man, when he returns, find faith on earth? (Lk 18, 8). The divine Master saw faith decline in an aging world. It is not the winds of the century that can make this inextinguishable flame falter, but societies, intoxicated by material well-being, dismiss it as unfortunate.
Turning its back on faith, the world enters darkness and becomes a plaything of the illusions of evil. He thinks they are misleading meteor lights. You will even take the redness of the fire by the first rays of the day.
Renouncing Jesus Christ, he will fall, whether he likes it or not, into the clutches of Satan, so well called the prince of darkness. It cannot remain neutral; it cannot create independence for itself. His apostasy puts him directly under the power of the devil and his accomplices.
The learned Estius, studying the text of the Apostle, says that this apostasy began in Luther and Calvin. This is the starting point. Then he made a scary path.
Today it tends to consummate. It is called the Revolution, which is the insurrection of man against God and his Christ. It has the formula of secularism, which is the elimination of God and his Christ.
This is how we see secret societies, invested with public power, obstinate in de-Christianizing France, taking away from it, one by one, all the supernatural elements with which it was impregnated during fifteen centuries of faith. These sectarians have only one purpose: to seal the ultimate apostasy, and to prepare the way for the man of sin.
It is up to Christians to react, with all their energies, against this abominable work; and for this to reintroduce Jesus Christ into private and public life, customs and laws, education and instruction. In all this, Jesus Christ has long been no longer what he should be, that is, everything. For a long time, there has been a half-apostasy. How, for example, after the instruction was paganized, could we form anything other than half-Christians?
Working in a direction diametrically opposed to that of Freemasonry, Christians will delay the advent of the man of sin: they will prepare for the Church the peace and independence it needs to reach and convert the world that opens before it.
The whole struggle of the present time is therefore concentrated there: will we, baptism or not, leave the baptized, that the apostasy that the Antichrist will bring in a short time?

III

The Apostle speaks, in cryptic terms, of an obstacle that is opposed to the appearance of the man of sin: "Whoever holds him back, he says, hold him back, until he is set aside."
For the one who retains, the oldest Greek and Latin Fathers understand, almost unanimously, the Roman Empire. Consequently, they explain this to St. Paul: as long as the Roman empire remains, Antichrist will not appear.
This gloss dislikes the most recent interpreters; they do not admit that the fate of the Church is linked to that of an empire; but they look in vain for another satisfactory explanation.
We naively confess that the thinking of the ancients does not seem so despicable, as long as we understand it with a certain amplitude.
Let us note that St Paul, announcing an apostasy to the faithful when the conversion of the world was outlined, was giving them a vision of the whole future of the Church. He announced to them that nations would be converted, that Christian societies would be formed, and then these societies would lose faith. He had shown them, without a doubt, the transformed Roman empire, a Christian power emerging in place of a pagan power, the authority of the Caesars passing into the hands of the baptized who would use it to extend the kingdom of Jesus Christ. He could, since then, add: as long as this state of affairs lasts, rest assured, Antichrist will not appear.
The Apostle's meaning, widely understood, would therefore be this: as long as world domination is in the hands of the Latin race, the enemy of Jesus Christ will not be shown.
Let us note, as a corollary of this interpretation, that the Freemasons are first and foremost opposed to the restoration of Christian power.
When a prince announces himself as a Christian, all means are used to get rid of him. This must be done at any price 1.

1 Fr Deschamps gives a curious detail of the lively hatred that Freemasonry has for representatives of Christian power. In a certain test, the initiate receives this enigmatic motto: LDP
This currency has a double meaning. In the first it means: Freedom of thought. It is the revolt against God. In the second: Lilia destroys pedibus. Smash the lilies with your feet: it is that of Christian monarchies.
So it is Christian political power that would prevent the sect from reaching its end.

On the other hand, the Latin races are oriented to exert a Catholic influence in the world, or to abdicate. Its mission is to serve the spread of the Gospel; and its political existence is linked to this mission. On the day that they renounce it by complete apostasy, they would be annihilated; and Antichrist, probably arising from the East, would crush them easily with his feet2.
Here, it is still up to Christians to act on the public spirit, to make governments return to Christian traditions, outside of which there will only be decay for European nations and especially for our poor country.

2 It is in the tradition of the early days of the Church, enshrined in Lactancio, that one day the empire of the world would return to Asia: Imperium in Asium revertetur.

THIRD ARTICLE
May 1885

THE MAN OF SIN

It is among the possible things, even though the apostasy is already very advanced, that the Christians, by a generous effort, make the promoters of de-Christianization back, and thus provide the Church with days of consolation and peace before the great ordeal. . We expect this result, not from men, but from God, not so much from efforts, but from prayers.
In this order of ideas, some pious authors expect, after the present crisis, a triumph of the Church, something like a Ramos day, in which this Mother would be acclaimed by the cries of love of the sons of Jacob, gathered to the nations, in the unity of the same faith. We are happily associated with these hopes, which aim at a fact formally announced by the prophets, and which we will talk about in due course.
Whatever this triumph, if God grants it to us, it will not be long lasting. The enemies of the Church, stunned for a moment, will resume their satanic work with redoubled hatred. One can imagine the state of the Church, then, as similar to the state of Our Lord in the days before his Passion.
The world will be deeply agitated, as the Jewish people were gathered for the Easter feasts. There will be many rumors, each talking about the Church, some to say that it is divine, others that it is not. It will be the target of the most insidious attacks of free thought; but he will never have reduced his contradictors to silence so well, pulverizing his sophisms.
In short, the world will be placed in the face of the truth; he will be struck in the face by the divine splendor of the Church; but he will turn his back and say, "I don't want it!"
This contempt for the truth, this abuse of grace will be the introduction of the man of sin. Humanity will be wanting this filthy master: it will have it. And it will produce a seduction of iniquity, an efficacy of error (that's how Bossuet translates São Paulo) that will punish men for having rejected and hated the Truth.
Speaking like this, we are not making imaginations, we follow the Apostle.
According to him, in effect, all seduction of iniquity will act “on those who perish, as if they did not receive the love of the Truth that would have saved them. For this reason, God will send them the efficacy of error, so that they believe the lie; and so will be judged those who did not believe in the truth, but were pleased with iniquity ”. (Tess., II, 11.12).

When the man of sin appears, it will be, as Saint Paul says, in time; that is to say, at the moment when the body of the wicked, closed to the blows of grace, made compact and intractable by the obstinacy of its malice, is asking for a head like that.
He will arise, and Satan will explode in it the full extent of his hatred against God and men.
The man of sin, the Antichrist, will be a man, a simple traveler for eternity. Some authors have assumed in him the incarnation of the devil; this imagination is without foundation. The devil does not have the power to take and join a human nature, to ape the lovely mystery of the Incarnation of the Word.
The Fathers unanimously think that he will be a Jew of origin. They even add that it will belong to the tribe of Dan, based on the fact that this tribe is not named in the Apocalypse as providing elect to the Lord. Saint Augustine echoes this tradition in his book “Questions about Joshua”. It is made quite credible by the fact that Freemasonry is of Jewish origin; that the Jews run it spread throughout the world; which suggests that the head of the anti-Christian empire will be a Jew. In fact, Jews, who do not want to recognize Jesus Christ, always expect their Messiah. Our Lord said to them: "I came in the name of my Father, and you did not receive me: if another comes in his own name, you will receive him". (Jn 5, 43). By this other the Fathers commonly understand Antichrist.
Although Antichrist is called the man of sin, the son of perdition, one should not think that he will be fatally and irrevocably voted for evil. He will receive thanks, he will know the truth, he will have a guardian angel. He will have the means to attain salvation, and will be lost through his own fault.
However, Saint John Damascene does not hesitate to say that he will be unclean since his birth, all impregnated with Satan's breath. And it is to be believed that from the age of reason he will enter into such a constant and so close relationship with the spirit of darkness, he will turn to evil with such stubbornness that he will not let any supernatural light, no grace from above. He will be immutably rebellious to all good.
This is what the name of man of sin will be worth. He will do his best, making his whole life one act of revolt against God; by this constant application of evil, it will reach a refinement of impiety that no man has ever achieved.
The qualification of son of perdition that is common to him with Judas, means that his eternal loss is foreseen by God, dear to God, in punishment for his terrible malice, to the point that it is inscribed in the Scriptures and as if recorded in advance. It is probable, and this is what St. Gregory thinks - that the monster will know, in a light that comes from the depths of hell, the luck that awaits him, that he will renounce all hope to hate God more at will, which will be fixed since this life in the irremediable obstinacy of the damned. And so he will carry out the terrible name of son of doom.
In this way he will be truly the Antichrist, namely, the antipode of Our Lord. Jesus Christ was elevated above the reach of sin; Antichrist will put himself out of grace, by abandoning his whole being to the spirit of evil. Jesus Christ turns to his Father with all the impetus of a divine nature and preserved from evil influences; Antichrist will turn to evil with all the impetus of a deeply addicted nature that will even renounce hope.

III

Thus being diametrically opposed to Our Lord, he will do works in direct opposition to his own.
He will be for Satan an organ of choice, an instrument of preference.
Just as God, sending his Son into the world, endowed him with the power to work miracles, and even to give life to the dead, so Satan making a pact with the man of sin, will communicate the power to him to do false miracles. That is why São Paulo says that “his coming is the work of Satan with the unfolding of power, signs and lying wonders”. Our Lord only performed miracles of kindness, refused to do wonders of pure ostentation; Antichrist will be delighted to do it, and the peoples, by a fair judgment of God, will let themselves be arrested for their tricks.
It is clear from the above that Antichrist will present himself to the world as the complete type of those false prophets who fanaticize the masses, and who drag them to all excesses, under the pretext of religious reform. From this point of view, Muhammad seems to be his true precursor. But he will immediately overtake him in perversity, in skill, as well as in the fullness of his satanic power.
We will study in the next article the origins and developments of his power, as well as the phases of the extermination war that he will unleash against the Church of Jesus Christ.

FOURTH ARTICLE
June 1885

THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTICHRIST
Vision of the prophet Daniel

One night, the prophet Daniel had a terrifying vision. As the four winds of heaven fought over a vast sea, he saw four monstrous beasts rise out of the waves.
They were a lioness, a bear, a four-headed leopard, then I don't know what a prodigious force, having iron teeth and nails, and ten horns on its forehead.
It was revealed to the prophet that these four beasts meant four empires that would rise in succession over the shifting waves of humanity.
Now, while Daniel regarded the fourth beast with horror, he saw a little horn born among the ten others, slaughter three, and grow above all; and this horn had the eyes of a man, and a mouth that spoke with insolence; he made war on the saints of the Most High, and got the better of them.
The prophet asked the meaning of this strange vision. It was replied that the ten horns represented ten kings; the little horn was a king who would eventually rule over the entire land with unprecedented power. “He will vomit, he was told, blasphemies against God, he will crush the saints of the Most High under his feet; he will think that he can change times and laws; and everything will be delivered to you for a time, two times, and half a time ”. (Dn 7).

By this king, all interpreters understand Antichrist.
What is the beast on which this horn of wickedness appeared at the appointed time? It is the Revolution, by which the whole body of the wicked is understood, obeying a hidden engine and rebelling against God: the Revolution, Satanic and bestial power; satanic, because animated by a hellish spirit; bestial, because it delivered to all the instincts of degraded nature. It has iron teeth and nails: it forges despotic laws through which it crushes human freedom. It seeks to seize kings and governments, who have to make a pact with it. When Antichrist appears, she will have ten kings at her service, like the ten horns on her forehead.
Antichrist, Daniel tells us, will appear as a little horn; will have an obscure start. You will not leave the royal family; he will be a Mohammed, a Mahdi, who will rise up little by little by the audacity of his impostures, supported by the devil's complicity.
The horn that represents it is very different from the others. He has the eyes of a man; for the new king is a seer, a false prophet. It has a mouth that makes great speeches; for it is imposed no less by the brilliance of the word and the seduction of promises, than by the strength of arms and political intrigue.
Soon everyone will have their eyes on the impostor, their great deeds will be celebrated by the trumpets of a complacent press. Its popularity will overshadow that of many apostate sovereigns, who will then divide the empire of the revolutionary beast among themselves. A gigantic fight will follow, in which, according to Daniel, Antichrist will take down all his rivals.
At this moment, all peoples, fanatical for his prodigies and his victories, will acclaim him as the savior of humanity. And the other kings will have no other recourse than to submit to him.
This will be the beginning of a terrible crisis for the Church of God. For the horn of wickedness, reaching the height of power, will make war on the saints and will prevail against them.

III

It is likely that during this period, which may last for many years, the man of sin will affect airs of hypocritical moderation.
Jewish, he will present himself to the Jews as the expected Messiah, as the restorer of the law of Moses; he will try to twist the mysterious prophecies of Isaias and Ezekiel in his favor; will rebuild, in the words of many Church Fathers, the temple of Jerusalem. The Jews, at least in part, overshadowed by their false miracles and their insolent boast, will receive him, the false Christ; they will put high finance, the press, and Masonic lodges around the world at your service.
It is also very credible that Antichrist will have, in order to rise, all supporters of false religions. He will announce himself as full of respect for the freedom of cults, one of the maxims and one of the lies of the revolutionary beast. He will tell Buddhists that he is a Buddha; to Muslims, that Muhammad is a great prophet. There is nothing to prevent the Muslim world from accepting the false messiah of the Jews as a new Mohammed.
What do we know? Perhaps he will even say, in his hypocrisy, as Herod his forerunner, that he wants to worship Jesus Christ. But this will be just a bitter mockery. Cursed Christians who bear without indignation that their lovely Savior be placed side by side with Buddha and Muhammad, in I do not know what pantheon of false gods!
All of these devices, similar to the caress on the horse of the rider who wants to ride him, will callously herd the world towards the enemy of Jesus Christ; but once firm in the stirrups, he will use the bridle and spurs; and the most terrible tyranny will befall humanity.

São Paulo makes us know with a single trace the full extent of this tyranny, the most odious that has been and will be at all times.
The man of perdition, he says, the son of perdition, the wicked, “will oppose and rise up against everything called God or who is worshiped as God, until he sits in the temple of God, presenting himself as if he were God". (2 Ts 2 4).
Daniel had predicted before São Paulo: “You will not take into account the God of your parents; he will dive into debauchery; he will have no concern for God, he will rise up against everything ”. (Dan 11, 17).
Thus, when Antichrist has enslaved the world, when he has placed his ordinances and creatures everywhere, when he can pull at will all the threads of a centralization taken to the extreme: he will take off his mask, proclaim that all cults are abolished , will acclaim himself as the only God and, under the most terrible and most infamous penalties, will want to force all the inhabitants of the earth to worship, excluding any other, his own divinity.
This is what will lead to the famous freedom of worship which is so popular; the promiscuity of errors logically requires this conclusion.
While on earth, the lovely Jesus, meek and lowly in heart, never set out to worship his apostles being Him God; quite the contrary, he got down on his knees before them and washed their feet. Antichrist, a monster of wickedness and pride, will make himself adored by maddened and seduced humanity; she will have chosen this master over the first.
And do not think that the trap will be crude! Let us not forget, says St. Gregory, that the monster will have the power of the devil to do false wonders; unlike the beginning, when miracles were on the side of the martyrs, it will seem that they are now on the side of the executioners. There will be a daze, a dizziness. Only the humble, firm in God, will distinguish the lie and escape the temptation.
But where will Antichrist establish his new cult? Saint Paul tells us: in the temple of God; Saint Irenaeus, almost contemporary with the Apostles, clarifies better and says: in the temple of Jerusalem he will have it rebuilt. This will be the center of the horrible religion. St John elsewhere gives us to know the image of the monster will be proposed everywhere for the worship of men. (Ap 13, 24).
So Buddhism, Islam, Protestantism, etc. will be suppressed and abolished.
But it goes without saying that the world's furor will be directed against Our Lord and his Church. It will stop public worship; Daniel says, the perpetual sacrifice will disappear. Holy Mass can only be celebrated in caves and in hidden places. The desecrated churches will only show the abomination of desolation, namely, the image of the monster raised to the altars of the true God. (Daniel, pass.). There was a rehearsal of these things in the French Revolution.
There the hand of God will be felt. It will shorten those days of supreme anguish. This persecution, which will cause the columns of heaven to falter, will only last for a time, two times and half a time, namely, three and a half years.

FIFTH ARTICLE
July 1885

THE PREACHERS OF THE ANTICHRIST
Vision of St. John

The holy books that go into so much detail about the man of sin, make us know a mysterious agent of seduction that will subject him to the earth. This agent, at the same time one and multiple, is, according to St. Gregory, a kind of teaching body that will spread the perverse doctrines of the Revolution everywhere.
Antichrist will have his helpers and generals; it will have an innumerable army. We hardly dare to take literally the number that St. John gives us talking about his cavalry (Rev. 9, 16). But he will have false prophets like himself, enlightened by the devil, doctors of lies; personal enemy of Jesus Christ, he will ape the divine Master, surrounding himself with apostles in reverse.
Let us speak, then, according to St. John, of these ungodly doctors that we will call preachers of Antichrist.

St. John, in chapter XIII of his Apocalypse, describes a vision similar to that of Daniel. He sees a unique monster emerge from the sea, bringing together in itself a horrible synthesis of all the characters of the four beasts seen by the prophet. This monster looks like the leopard; it has bear feet, lion's throat; it has seven heads and ten horns.
It represents the empire of Antichrist, formed by all the corruptions of humanity. He represents Antichrist himself who is the knot of this whole violent set of inconsistent and disparate members.
You can even see the impostor, with the procession of apostate Christians, fanatical Muslims, enlightened Jews, who will follow him everywhere.
Now, while St. John considered this Beast, he saw one of the heads wounded to death; then the deadly wound was healed. And the whole earth marveled at the Beast. Interpreters see this as one of Antichrist's false wonders; one of his main helpers of order, or perhaps he himself, will appear seriously injured, it will be believed that he died, when suddenly, by a diabolical device, he will recover full of life. This imposture will be celebrated by all newspapers, very credulous on this occasion; enthusiasm will go wild.
“Then, St John continues, men will worship the dragon that gave power to the Beast, saying; who is like her, and who can fight against her? ”.
Thus, both the devil will be worshiped and Antichrist; and it will not be a double cult, the first being worshiped in the second. St. John then makes us watch the persecution against the Church.
“And the Beast was given a mouth that would utter arrogant and blasphemous things; and he was given the power to wage war for forty-two months ”.
This is the same word as Daniel and designates the time of persecution in its paroxysm. Forty-two months, it's just three and a half years.
"And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle and those who dwell in heaven."
“And he was allowed to wage war on the saints and to overcome them. And he was given power over every tribe, and people, and language, and nation. ”
"And all the inhabitants of the earth worshiped her, whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of life, which was sacrificed from the beginning of the world."
"If anyone has an ear, listen!"
“Whoever takes him into captivity, will go into captivity; he who kills with the sword, must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and faith of the saints ”. (13, 3-11).
This is how the beloved apostle describes the terrible persecution. All threats are joined by all seductions; this will result in delusional fanaticism that will send the whole world at the feet of the Beast. But all assaults from hell will fail in the face of "the patience and faith of the saints".

III

Saint John then paints us the great agent of seduction that will double the spirits of men to the cult of the Beast.
"And I saw another beast coming up from the earth and that had two horns similar to those of a lamb, but that spoke like the dragon".
“And she exercised all the power of the first beast in her presence; and caused the land and its inhabitants to worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed ”.
"And he worked great wonders, so that he even made fire come down from heaven on earth in the sight of men."
"And he seduced the inhabitants of the land with the wonders he was allowed to do in front of the beast, persuading the inhabitants of the land to make an image of the beast, who had received a sword stroke and preserved his life."
“And it was granted him to animate the image of the beast, so that he would speak; and force all men, under pain of death, to worship the beast ”.
“And he will make everyone, small and large, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a sign on their right hand, or on their foreheads; and that no one can buy or sell, except the one with the sign or the name of the beast, or the number of his name ”.
“This is where wisdom is. Who has intelligence, calculate the number of the beast. Because it's a man's number; and her number is six hundred and sixty-six ”. (Rev 13, 11-18).
Such is the second part of St. John's prophecy. St. Gregory interprets this mysterious passage in the sense, as we have said, that Antichrist will have his college of preachers and apostles in reverse. And these doctors of lies will be anything like our modern sages, mixed with magicians or spiritualists.
They will have the appearance of the Lamb. They will apparently adopt the evangelical maxims of peace, harmony, freedom, human brotherhood; and under these appearances, the most shameless atheism will spread.
They will have the appearance of the Lamb. They will present themselves as agents of persuasion, respectful of consciences; and afterwards, those who refuse to hear them will die among torments.
“His listeners, says Saint Gregory strongly, will all be reprobates; his tactic, he says, will consist in proclaiming that mankind, during times of faith, was plunged into darkness; and they will greet the advent of Antichrist as the appearance of the day and the awakening of the world ”(Mor. in Job. lib. XXXIII).
These sermons will be supported by false wonders. Instructed by the devil and his agent about natural secrets still unknown, the Antichrist's missionaries will amaze and seduce the crowds with all sorts of wiles; they will bring fire down from the sky, and they will make speak the images of Antichrist that they will have erected.
But that is not all. They will force men, under pain of death, to adore these talking images. They will force men to carry the number of the monster on their right hand or forehead. And he who does not have that number will neither be able to buy nor sell.
There the terrible refinement of the supreme persecution appears. Whoever does not take the monster's stamp will therefore be outside the law, outside society, liable to death.
But have we not seen from the present whether to design some essays of this tyranny?
What are all these masters of teaching without God, if not the precursors of Antichrist? The Revolution wants to have its teaching body, officially responsible for de-Christianizing youth, and for printing on the forehead of everyone, small and large, poor and rich, the stamp of the God-State. Mandatory and lay education has no other end. Laws are already being prepared to prohibit the entry into public careers of those who have not received the signature from state schools. On the day that these abominable laws are passed, human freedom can be mourned. We will be under a dark, suffocating, infernal tyranny. Antichrist may arrive.
Hopefully, public conscience is still quite Christian and will not endure such torture. We also try to fall asleep in every possible way.
Furthermore, may the faithful be comforted! All of these extremes will only serve, in God's designs, the shine of the saints' patience and faith.

SIXTH ARTICLE
August 1885

THE CHURCH DURING THE STORM

St. Gregory the Great, in his luminous comments of Job, penetrates deeply into the whole history of the Church, visibly animated by the same prophetic spirit spread in the Scriptures.
He contemplates the Church, at the end of time, under the figure of a humiliated and suffering Job, exposed to his wife's perfidious insinuations and bitter criticisms from his friends; Job, before whom the elders once stood up and the princes were silent!
The Church, the great Pope often said, at the end of his earthly pilgrimage, will be deprived of all temporal power; they will seek to remove every point of support on the earth.
It goes even further, declares that it will be stripped of the very brilliance that comes from supernatural gifts.
“The power of miracles, he says, will be withdrawn, the grace of healings snatched, prophecy will disappear, the gift of great abstinence will be diminished, the teachings of doctrine will be silenced, miraculous wonders will cease. This does not mean that there will be none of that; but all these signs will not shine openly, in a thousand ways as in the early days. It will be an occasion for wonderful discernment. In this state of humiliation of the Church, the reward of the good will grow, who will cling to it, considering only the heavenly goods; when to the wicked, seeing no temporal attraction in the Church, they will have nothing to pretend, they will show themselves as they are ”. (Mor. 1, XXXV) What a terrible word: the teachings of doctrine will remain silent! St. Gregory proclaims elsewhere that the Church would rather die than be silent. Then she will speak: but her teaching will be hindered, her voice covered; many who should shout on the roofs will not dare to do so for fear of men.
And it will be the occasion for great discernment.
St. Gregory often insists on the three categories of people in the Church: hypocrites or false Christians, the weak and the strong. Now, in these moments of anguish, the hypocrites will raise their mask and manifest their secret apostasy; the weak, the poor, will perish in great numbers and the Church's heart will bleed for them; in short, many of the strong, confident in their own strength, will fall like the stars in the sky.
In spite of all these poignant sorrows, the Church will neither lose courage nor trust. It will be sustained by the Savior's promise, enshrined in Scripture that these days will be shortened because of the elect.
Knowing that despite everything the elect will be saved, the Church will endeavor, in the midst of the most atrocious storm, to save souls with untiring energy.

Despite the horrible scandal of these times of perdition, one should not think that the weak are necessarily lost. The path of salvation will remain open and salvation possible for everyone. The Church will have means of preservation proportionate to the size of the danger. And among the little ones, only those who leave their mother's wings will fall into the hawk's claws.
What are these means of preservation? The Scriptures do not leave us with no indication on the subject; we can, without fearlessness, formulate some conjectures.
The Church will remember the warning given by Our Lord to the times of the taking of Jerusalem and applicable, with the consent of the interpreters, to the last persecution.
“When you see the abomination of desolation, predicted by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy places (the one who reads, understand!), Then those who are in Judea flee to the mountains ... Pray that your escape will not be in winter, not even on a Saturday! For there will be great tribulation, as there has never been since the origin of the world, and there will never be. And if those days were not cut short, no one would be saved; but they will be shortened because of the elect ”(Mt 24, 15, 23).
According to these Savior's instructions, the Church will make small herds safe by escape; will provide inaccessible retreats, as the land will be crossed and cleared by the media. It is necessary to answer that God will provide for the safety of the fugitives himself. St. John lets us glimpse this action of Providence.
In chapter XII of the Apocalypse, he presents us with a woman dressed in the sun and crowned with stars: it is the Church. This woman suffers the pains of childbirth; for the Church gives birth to the elect of God amid great suffering. In front of her is a large red-haired dragon, image of the devil and his continuous traps.
But the woman flees to the desert, to a place prepared by God Himself, and there she is fed for 1,260 days (Rev 5, 6). These 1,260 days, which are three and a half years old, indicate the time of the persecution of Antichrist, as is manifested in other passages of the Apocalypse. Then, during that time, the Church, in the person of the weak, will flee to solitude; and God will take care to keep it hidden and feed it.
At the end of the same chapter are the details of this escape. The woman is given two large eagle wings to transport her to the desert. The dragon tries to chase her, his throat vomits a river of water against her. But the land comes to the rescue of the woman and absorbs the river. These enigmatic words designate some great wonder that God will make appear in favor of his Church; the dragon's anger will expiate at your feet.
However, while the weak pray safely in a mysterious loneliness, the strong and the brave will engage in a terrible struggle in the presence of the whole world, with the dragon unleashed.

III

It is beyond doubt that in recent times there will be saints of heroic virtue. In the beginning, God gave to the Church the Apostles who brought down the idolatrous empire, and who founded and cemented the Church with their blood. In the end, God will give children and defenders, who cannot be said to be less holy or less.
Saint Augustine, thinking of them, exclaims: “In comparison with the saints and the faithful then, what are we? For to put them to the test, the devil will be unleashed, and we will fight him at the price of a thousand dangers, being he bound ”. And he adds: "However, even today Christ has soldiers who are very prudent and strong enough to be able to break their traps wisely and withstand the enemy's assaults with patience even if triggered." (From Civ. Dei, XX, 8).
Saint Augustine continues to ask: “Will there still be conversions in these times of perdition? Will the children still be baptized despite the monster's prohibitions? Will the saints then have the power to uproot souls from the furious dragon's throat? The great doctor answers affirmatively to all these questions. Without a doubt, conversions will be rarer, but they will be more spectacular. Undoubtedly, as a general rule, it is necessary that Satan is bound in order to be able to strip him (Mt 11, 29); but in these days God will be pleased to show that his grace is stronger than the strong himself in his most furious outburst.
Everyone should note how consoling this data is. But what will the Latter-day Saints be? We like to think that there will be soldiers among them. Antichrist will be a conqueror, he will command armies; you will find before you the Theban Legions, heroes of this glorious and indomitable lineage that has the Maccabees as ancestors and that counts in their ranks with the Crusaders, the peasants of Vandea and Tirol, in short, the pontifical Zuavos.
These soldiers, Antichrist will be able to crush them under the weight of their innumerable hordes; he will not make them flee.
But Antichrist will be, above all, an impostor; consequently he will encounter as opponents mainly the apostles armed with the crucifix. As the last persecution will take on the aspect of seduction, they will combine the patience of martyrs with the science of doctors. Our Lord made Santa Teresa see them with luminous radios in hand.
In front of these intrepid phalanxes, two extraordinary envoys of God will appear, two giants of holiness, two survivors of ancient times; we refer to Henoc and Elias, whom we will talk about in the following article.

SEVENTH ARTICLE
September 1885

HENOC AND ELIAS

The wonderful facts we have described are not adventurous assumptions; they are truths taken in Holy Scripture and that it would be at least reckless to deny.
Before the end of time, and during the persecution of Antichrist, two extraordinary characters, called Henoc and Elias, will appear among men.
Who are these characters? Under what conditions will they make their providential entry on the world stage? This is what we are going to examine in the light of Scripture and Tradition.

Henoc is one of the descendants of Set, son of Adam and root of the race of the children of God. He is the head of the sixth generation from the father of mankind. Here is what Genesis teaches us about it: “and Jared lived 162 years and begat Henoc ... Now Henoc lived 65 years and begat Methuselah. And Henoc walked with God and after having generated Methuselah he lived 365 years. And he walked with God and disappeared because God took him ”(Gen 5: 18-25).
God took him at the age of 365 years, that is to say, in this time of great longevity, in the mature age. He didn't die, he disappeared. He was transported alive, to a place known only to God. Here is what we know about Henoc, patriarch of the race of Set, great-great-grandfather of Noah, ancestor of the Savior.
As for Elias, his story is better known. Henoc, before the Flood, was born many thousands of years before Jesus Christ. Elijah appeared in the kingdom of Israel, less than a thousand years before the Savior; he is the great prophet of the Jewish nation.
His life could not have been more dramatic (Rs 3; 4). It can be said that it is a prophecy in action of the state of the Church, at the time of the persecution of Antichrist. He lived wandering, always threatened with death, always protected by the hand of God, who now hides him in the desert where crows feed him, now introduces him to the proud Ahab, who trembles before him. It gives you the keys to heaven to unleash rain or lightning; on Mount Horeb it favors you with a vision full of mysteries. In short, it makes him grow to the size of Moses, the Thaumaturge, so that with Moses he accompanies Our Lord on Mount Tabor.
Elias' disappearance corresponds to a life of strange sublimity.
Walking with Elisha, his disciple, he opens a passage for himself in Jordan, touching the waters with his cloak. He announces that he will be taken up to heaven. Suddenly, “as they walked, they talked among themselves, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them from each other; and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. And Elisha saw him and cried out: My father, my father, Israel's car and its driver! And he didn't see him again ”(4 Rs 2, 11-12).
And so it was that Elijah, the friend of God, the caretaker of his own glory, was taken and transported, himself, to a mysterious region, where he found his ancestor, the great Henoc.
What is this region? Henoc and Elias are alive, that's for sure. Where does God hide them? Is it in some inaccessible part of the world down here? Will it be in some place in the firmament? No one can say. It can only be said that they are out of human conditions for the time being; the centuries pass at their feet without reaching them; they remain in the mature age, no doubt, in the age when they were snatched from among men.

Its reappearance on the world stage is no less certain than its disappearance.
Thus the inspired author of Ecclesiastes speaks of these great characters, expressing the entire Jewish tradition.
“Henoc pleased God and was transported to paradise to preach penance to the nations” (Eccle 44, 15).
“Who can boast like you, O Elijah? You were swept up to heaven in a whirlwind of fire, in a cart drawn by burning horses; you, of whom it is written that at the time of the judgments you will come to soften the Lord's wrath, to reconcile the hearts of parents with their children and to restore the tribes of Jacob ”(Ib, 47).
These words from a canonical book make it clear that Henoc and Elias have a future mission to fulfill. Henoc must preach penance to the nations, or, if he prefers in another translation, lead the nations to penance. Elijah must one day restore the tribes of Israel, that is, return the place of honor to which they are entitled in the Church of God.
The unanimity of the doctors understands that this double mission will take place simultaneously at the end of the world. Elijah, in particular, is considered the forerunner of Jesus Christ who comes from heaven as a judge; this thought clearly springs from the Gospels (Mt 17; Mk 9).
Then, men will see one day, and not without surprise, Henoc and Elias reappear among them and preach penance with extraordinary brilliance.
Saint John calls them the two witnesses of God, and so describes them in his Revelation (11, 3-7).
“They will prophesy for 1,260 days, covered in sackcloth.
“They are the two olive trees and the two chandeliers set before the Lord of the land.
“If anyone wants to harm them, fire will come out of their mouths that will devour their enemies; and if anyone wants to offend them, this is how they should die.
“They have the power to close the sky so that it doesn't rain for as long as their prophecy lasts; and they have power over the waters, to convert them into blood and to hurt the earth with all kinds of plagues, whenever they want ”.
Who does not recognize in this portrait the Elijah of the Old Testament, closing the sky for three years and making fire descend from the sky on the soldiers who came to take it.
The 1,260 days mark the time of the final chase, as we have already noted. Thus, the appearance of God's witnesses will coincide with the persecution of Antichrist.
It is necessary to recognize that the help brought by the Church will be proportional to the size of the danger.
The two witnesses of God, wearing the insignia of the most austere penance, will go everywhere, and everywhere they will be invulnerable; a cloud, so to speak, will cover them and set fire to whoever dares to touch them. They will have in their hands all the scourges to unleash them at will on the whole earth. They will preach with sovereign freedom in the presence of Antichrist himself.
This one will tremble with anger; and there will be a terrible duel between the monster and the two missionaries of God.

EIGHTH ARTICLE
September 1885

THE FINAL CRISIS

Let us stop for an instant before the intrepid missionaries of God and notice the divine opportunity of their appearance.
According to Saint Peter: “In recent times, fraudsters, seductive scoffers will come living their lusts, saying: Where is the promise and the coming (of Jesus Christ)? Since our parents died, everything has remained the same since the beginning of creation ”(2 Pet 3: 3-4).
These seducers, these deceivers, we are seeing them with our own eyes, listening with our ears. They are called rationalists, materialists, positivists: they deny, "a priori", every superior cause, every supernatural fact; they are not interested in knowing where they come from or where they are going; similar to the fools in the book of Wisdom, they look at life as one of those morning clouds that leave no trace at sunrise. What is beyond the grave, they call the great unknown; they absolutely refuse to investigate it.
Consequently, the whole of man, in his eyes, is to enjoy the present moment as much as possible, because everything else is uncertain.
These false sages relegate Moses' writings to fabulous cosmogonies.
They refuse to recognize any historical value in holy books. According to what they say, all of these documents, in contradiction to science, would be the work of an exalted Jew, Ezra, who wanted to highlight his nation.
As for the coming of Jesus Christ, the general resurrection, the final judgment, the rewards and eternal penalties, they are treated as absurd dreams. They assure that humanity, on the path of indefinite progress, will one day find paradise on earth.
Now, to confuse these impostors, God will raise up Henoc, representative of the ante-flood period; Henoc, almost contemporary with the origins of the world.
Elijah, representative of Mosaic Judaism, will arouse; Elijah who, on the one hand, touches Solomon and David on the other, Isaiah and Daniel.
These great men will come, with indisputable authority, to establish the authenticity of the Bible, and to show that Christianity is linked to the age of the prophets until Moses and the age of the patriarchs until Adam. They will rise up in them all the centuries to bear witness to the truth of revelation. Never will the divinity of the Lamb who was slain from the origin of the world (Rev. 13, 8) shine more brilliantly.
At the same time, they will vigorously announce the approach of the trial.
Resuming the words of Saint John, they will cry out to all the ends of the world: “Make worthy fruits of penance ... the ax is already set at the root of the trees ... He has the spade in his hand and will clean his floor well, and he will collect the wheat in the barn but he will burn the straws in an unquenchable fire ”(Mt 3, 8-13).
Continuing the prediction of the Ecclesiasticus, Henoc will preach penance to the nations, which comprise all peoples outside Judaism; he will speak to you with the majesty of an ancestor and make you know and recognize Jesus Christ, the Desire of Nations.
Elijah will address especially to the Jews who await His coming; he will make himself known by signs of extreme evidence; it will make Jesus shine in your eyes, Jesus who is the bone of your bones and the flesh of your flesh.
It is beyond doubt that these sermons, despite threats and torments, will be followed by numerous and resounding conversions, especially on the side of the Jews; this is formally predicted.
The two witnesses of God will preach both together and separately; and for three and a half years they will truly travel the whole earth. The newspapers will make a conspiracy of silence around them (as around the miracles of Lourdes); but they will impose themselves on the world's attention. Antichrist will try in vain to catch them, because the fire will devour anyone who dares to touch them. They will pass with the gladius of God's justice in the midst of men who live in pleasure and debauchery; they will hurt you with horrible wounds.
However, just like Our Lord's mission, theirs will have a definite time. At some point, they will lose the supernatural assistance that protected them until then. Let us listen to Saint John.

“And after they have finished giving their testimony, the beast that rises from the abyss will make war against them, and will win and kill them.
“And their bodies will be stretched out in the squares of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
“And the men of different tribes, and peoples and languages and nations will see their bodies for three and a half days; and they will not allow their bodies to be buried.
“And the inhabitants of the land will rejoice over them and will have parties and send gifts to one another because these two prophets had tormented them.
“But after three and a half days the spirit of life entered them from God. And they stood up, and a great fear took hold of those who saw them.
“And they heard a great voice from heaven saying to them: I went up here. And they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies were witnesses of it.
“And at that very hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell; and in the earthquake seven thousand men died and the rest, frightened, gave glory to the God of heaven ”(Rev. 11, 7-14).
What a conclusion to an unprecedented drama! What a statement of the supernatural! The two prophets will meet in Jerusalem, where their Lord was crucified.
They will share in Jesus' divine weaknesses; how he will be arrested, how he will be judged, how he will be tormented, how he will be killed, perhaps on the cross.
It will be thought that the end has come. Antichrist will appear to triumph across the board.
They will mock the two prophets: they will laugh and dance around their corpses; they will leave them without a grave to indulge themselves at will.
But suddenly the two prophets will be resurrected; a great voice will sound from the height of the sky and they will ascend to the sky before an innumerable crowd seized with sudden terror. There will be a major earthquake in the deicidal city; seven thousand men will lose their lives, others will beat their chests and give thanks to God.
We repeat, what a drama, what an outcome!
What will Antichrist do in the face of such wonders? You will foam with rage, you will feel that everything escapes you, that the hour of justice is at hand.
It can be believed that at that very moment his punishment prescribed by Saint Paul will arise: "Jesus Christ will kill him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the brilliance of his coming" (3 Thess 2: 8).
However, according to Daniel's calculations, it appears that the monster's punishment will be delayed thirty days after Henoc and Elias's triumphant assumption.
Daniel says that from the suppression of the perpetual sacrifice, when the abomination of desolation will appear, 1,290 days will pass (Dan 12, 11), consequently 30 days more than the time of the preaching of Henoc and Elias.
During these intervals, Antichrist will try to recover the lost influence. We do not want to admit any vision within the scope of this report; if we make an exception for that of Saint Hildegarda on the end of God's enemy it is because it is just a commentary on Saint Paul's word: Jesus will kill him with the breath of his mouth!
The Saint sees in spirit the monster, surrounded by its officers and immense crowd, climbing a mountain. Reaching the summit, he announces that he is going to rise into the air. It was elevated, in effect, like Simon the magician, by the power of the devil. But at that moment there is a strong thunder and it falls with a thunderstorm. His body immediately decomposes and gives off an intolerable stench and everyone will run away in terror.
Thus, or in a similar way, the enemy of God will end.
And your immense empire will evaporate like smoke. The world will be relieved of an overwhelming weight. And there will be a general conversion that in St. Paul's words will look like a resurrection. We will talk about this in the next article.

NINTH ARTICLE
November 1885

THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS

Holy Scripture marks a great event that shows us intertwined in the war that Antichrist will unleash against the Church: the conversion of the Jews.
We have left this matter aside until now to deal with it in more detail.
Furthermore, here he will be very well placed, as the conversion of the Jews is presented to us as the fruit of Elijah's preaching.

The Jewish people are the point around which the history of humanity revolves. He received God's touch in the person of Abraham from which he came. It is, before the coming of Our Lord, the priestly people par excellence, whose status, in Saint Augustine's testimony, is entirely prophetic; from him was born the Blessed Virgin and the Savior of the world; he formed the nucleus of the nascent Church. All of these privileges make the Jewish race an exceptional race whose fates are mysterious.
By a strange and regrettable inversion, at the moment when it produces the Savior of the world, the chosen race, the blessed race among all, deserves to be condemned. She refuses to recognize, in her humility, the One in whom she does not know how to worship the invisible greatness. It seems that God wanted to show that there is nothing of the flesh and blood in the vocation of Christianity, since those who Christ belonged to, according to the flesh (Rom. 9: 5), are rejected because of their tenacious and carnal pride .
Is it a definitive sentence? Will Satan's prey remain excluded from the rest of the world by the Lord's cross? God forbid! God prepares supreme mercies for his people. These people, who were told: “You are no longer my people”, will be said one day: “You are the children of the living God”.
(The 3, 4-5). After long years without a king, without a prince, without sacrifice, without an altar, the children of Israel will seek the Lord their God; and that will happen at the end of time. (Id. III, 4, 5) Elias will be the instrument of this wonderful return. “I will send you, says the Lord in Malachi, the prophet Elijah, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the parents towards the children, the hearts of the children towards the parents ”(Mal 4: 5-6).
That is, it will restore the harmony of the same loves, of the same adorations between the holy ancestors of the Jewish people and their last descendants.
São Paulo in turn insists on such a consoling event. He sees in the condemnation of the Jews the occasional cause of the Gentile vocation. Then he adds: "Because I do not want, brothers, that you ignore this mystery, that a part of Israel fell into blindness until the fullness of the nations has entered and then all Israel is saved" (Rom. 11:25).
Such is the design of God. All kindness must enter the Church; and that when the parade of nations ends, Israel will enter in turn. This will be the world's great jubilee; grace will spread through torrents. Taking the prophecies to the letter, all the Jews who are then alive, even as numerous as the sands of the sea, will be saved to the last (Rom 9:27).
In order to understand the profound trembles that this great event will cause to run through the world, it is necessary to use the prophetic figures by which God had chosen to announce it.
The Jewish people entering the Church, is Esau reconciling with Jacob. With what tenderness! "Running to meet his brother, Esau hugged his neck and kissed him, wept."
But it is above all Joseph recognized by his brothers who is the true symbol of Jesus recognized by his brothers, the Jews! They once sold and crucified him, and now an imperative need for truth and love takes them to their feet at the end of time. What a meeting! What a show! Jesus, with all the brilliance of his power, unraveling the treasures of his heart from the Jews, and saying to them: “I am Joseph, I am Jesus whom you have sold!” (Gen 45).
I finally opened the Gospel, on the page of the prodigal son (Lk 15). This prodigal who comes from so far is the poor Gentiles entering the Church. The Jews are represented by the eldest, jealous, selfish son, who is persistent in remaining outside because his brother was received at home. The father goes out and makes pleas for him, coepit illum rogare. This denatured refuses to listen to his father; but at last he will listen to him, he will come in and that entrance will bring double joy to his father's house.
No, one cannot imagine what the joy of the Church will be when she opens her mother's breast to the children of Jacob. One cannot imagine their tears, their transport of love when the veil is removed from their eyes, they recognize their Jesus. What will be the precise moment of this great event? This is the difficulty. Without intending to resolve it, we hope to clarify it a little.

According to tradition, it seems certain that Antichrist will be of Jewish nationality.
He will appear as the product of this ferment of hatred that for centuries has exasperated the hearts of the Jews against Jesus, their tender brother, their incomparable friend. It also seems certain that the Jews, for the most part, will welcome this false messiah by following him in a procession and subjecting the world to him by bad press and high finance.
But from the time that man of sin will precede, a chain of adherence to the Church will form among the Jews! Major events have preludes that announce them.
St. Gregory declares that the furor of the persecution of Antichrist will fall mainly on the converted Jews, whom no one will match in the constancy of enduring all the outrages and torments for the name of Jesus a thousand times blessed.
This passage from São Gregório is very important to be omitted.
The great pope explains one of Ezekiel's great prophecies in action (Ez 3).
It is a drama in three acts. 1 °) God commands the prophet to go out into the field; this departure represents the spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles. 2 °) Send him back home, where he is bound with chains, imprisoned and reduced to silence: this indicates how the Gospel will be preached by the Jews to the Jews themselves, of whom some will be converted, others will arrest the preachers and oppress them with mistreatment. , during the persecution of Antichrist. 3 °) God appears, opens the mouth of the prophet who speaks with more force than ever; this is what will happen at the coming of Elijah, who, with his fiery and irresistible preaching, will convert the remains of his nation (In Ezeq. lib I, hom XIII).
We do not tire of admiring the prophetic lucidity of St. Gregory. He distinguishes beforehand the phases of the great event that occupies us: split the Jewish people in two parts, oppression of converts by refractories, total conversion carried out by Elias.
The holy Pope assures, in his comments on Job, that this definitive return of the remains of Israel will be made before his own eyes and in spite of the Antichrist's anger (Mor. Lib XXXV and XIV). If the Church enjoys such consolations under the fire of persecution, what joy will that be in the hour of triumph! This is what we will consider quickly.

III

God employs evil angels for necessary destruction. Antichrist, in his own way and unintentionally, will be God's rod.
This iron rod will pulverize schisms, heresies, false religions, the remains of paganism, Mohammedanism and Judaism itself: it will crush the world in favor of prodigious unity.
When that colossus of wickedness is cut down by the pebble, it will become an immense mountain and will cover the earth; the Gospel, having no more obstacles, will reign without contradiction over the entire universe.
The Jews will be the first workers in this establishment of the kingdom of God. São Paulo is ecstatic at the great things that will result from his conversion. “If the sin of the Jews was the wealth of the world and its reduction the wealth of the nations, how much more their total membership? ... if your loss is the reconciliation of the world, what will be your entrance into the Church if not a resurrection? ” (Rom 11, 12, 15). We are afraid of weakening these energetic antitheses by commenting on them. It is legitimate to conclude that the converted Jews will put an invaluable ardor of proselytism at the service of the Church. Rejuvenated by this infusion of life, the Church will emerge from the clutches of persecution like a tomb, and take possession of the world with the majesty of a queen and the tenderness of a mother.
Are these events the immediate prelude to the last judgment or the dawn of a new era? We will talk about the conjectures that can be formulated on this issue.

TENTH ARTICLE
January 1886

THE COMING OF THE JUDGE SOVEREIGN

It is superfluous to try to specify the time when the second coming of Our Lord will take place. It is an impenetrable secret for all creatures. “As for that day and that hour, Jesus Christ tells us, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, but only the Father” (Mt 24, 36).
However, that supreme moment, which will end this world of sin, will be preceded by resounding signs that will fix the attention not only of the believers but also of the wicked.
First, as we have shown, there will be the persecution of Antichrist, the appearance of Henoc and Elias. When Saint Paul tells us that Jesus Christ will kill the wicked with the breath of his mouth, and destroy him with the brilliance of his coming, it seems that the punishment of Antichrist will coincide with the coming of the sovereign judge. However, that is not the general feeling of the interpreters. One can explain São Paulo by saying that the destruction of the wicked will only be consummated on the day of the general judgment, although his death took place some time before. On the other hand, the Gospels imply very clearly that there will be a certain period of time, albeit relatively short, between the punishment of the monster and the consummation of all things.
What does Our Lord say indeed? He begins by painting such a tribulation as there has never been since the beginning of the world: it is the persecution of Antichrist.
Then he adds: “Soon after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; and all the tribes of the earth will weep and see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and majesty ”(Mt 24, 29-30).
These are the signs that will immediately precede the coming of Jesus Christ as Judge. But how to reconcile all these terrible preludes with this surprise and unpredictability that, according to other texts in the Gospel, characterize this event? A little further on, in fact, Our Lord introduces us to the men of the last days of the world similar to Noah's contemporaries whom the Flood surprises by eating and drinking, marrying and giving daughters in marriage (Id., Ibid., 36- 40). Santo Tomás responds to this objection by saying that all the precursor shakes of the end of the world can be considered as making sense with his own judgment, looking like these sinister snaps that cannot be distinguished from the collapse that follows them. Before all these terrible omens, men will be able to scoff at the Church's warnings. But when they hear the crack of the world machine, they will go pale; and as Saint Luke says, they will dry up in fear, waiting for what will come to the universe (Lk 21, 26).
Saint Thomas spreads a living light about the times that will pass between the death of Antichrist and the coming of Jesus Christ, when he says: “Before the signs of judgment begin to appear, the wicked will believe they are at peace and security, namely, after of Antichrist's death, because they will not see the world end, as they previously estimated. (Suppl. Q. LXXI, art. I, ad. 1). With the help of this word we can form more plausible conjectures about the last times in the world; and our readers will not cease to be interested in receiving these conjectures as a matter of simple probability.

We have said and maintain that it is indisputable that the death of Antichrist will be followed by an unparalleled triumph of the Holy Church of Jesus Christ. The prophetic joys of Tobias recovering his sight at the same time that he finds his son, the heady joy of the Jews at the fall of Aman and his satellites, the transports of the inhabitants of Betulia, freed by Judith from the iron circle that held them; the cleansing of the temple by the Maccabees overcoming the wicked Antiochus; finally and above all the calm and peaceful triumph of Job restored by God in all his possessions, seeing repentant friends and relatives come to his feet and bringing everyone together at a religious banquet: all these images insufficiently express the state of the Holy Church, opening his heart and his arms to his enemies as to his children, to the converted Jews as to the reconciled heretics, to the descendants of Cam as to the sons of Shem and Japheth, in a word, realizing the unity bought at the price of the blood of one God, one flock and one shepherd!
Certainly, and even in this period of triumph, there will still be wicked and wicked; but we are allowed to think that they will hide and that they will disappear in the intensity of public joy.
Unfortunately, these beautiful days will not last longer than the time of being able to forget the solemn events that gave birth to them. Little by little, lukewarmness will succeed to fervor; and this insensitive passage will take place as quickly as the less enemies the Church then has to fight.
The esteemed author, Father Armijon, thus paints the state into which the world will then fall: “The fall of the world, he says, will take place instantly and offhand: veniet dies Domini sicut fur (2 Ped 3, 10). - It will happen at a time when the human race, immersed in the deepest neglect, will be a thousand leagues away from dreaming of punishment and justice. Divine mercy will have exhausted all means of action. Antichrist will have appeared. The men scattered in all spaces will have been called to the knowledge of the truth. The Catholic Church for the last time will have blossomed in the fullness of its life and fruitfulness. But all these marked and overabundant favors, all these wonders will be erased again from the hearts and memories of men. Humanity, through a criminal abuse of graces, will return to its vomit. Turning all his aspirations to earth, he will turn his back on God, to the point that he no longer sees heaven or remembers his righteous judgments (Dan. 13: 9). All faith will be extinguished in the hearts.
All flesh will have corrupted its way. Divine Providence will judge that there is no remedy.
It will be, says Jesus Christ, as in Noah's day. Men lived carefree, planted, built sumptuous houses, delightedly mocked the simple-minded Noah who dedicated himself to the profession of carpenter, working day and night to build his boat. They said: how crazy, how visionary! This lasted until the day the flood came and submerged the whole earth: venit diluvium et perdidit omnes (Lk 17, 27).
Thus the final catastrophe will occur when the world is more secure; civilization will be at its height, money will abound in markets and public funds will never be so high. There will be national parties, large exhibitions; humanity regurgitating from a material prosperity never seen before, will say like the miser of the Gospel: My soul, you have assets for long years, drink, eat, have fun ... But suddenly, in the middle of the night, in media nocte - for there will be darkness, and at that fateful hour of midnight, when the Savior first appeared in his lowliness, it is that he will reappear in his glory; - men, awake with a start, will hear a great crash and a great cry, and a voice will be heard: God is here, I went out to meet him, exite obviam ei (Mt 25, 6).
And the author adds that men will not have time to repent.
Here we separate from him. The great catastrophe will be preceded by terrifying signs, the whole of which will form a supreme appeal of divine mercy; blind and well hardened will be the one to resist all this!
The sun will be darkened as if exhausted by a waste of light. The moon will no longer receive even a ray enough to shine. The sky will close like a book invaded by thick darkness. The powers of heaven will be shaken; for the laws of the movements of celestial bodies will appear suspended. There will be a deep commotion in the sea, a great crash of high waves, the land shaken by unusual movements; and men will not know where to launch themselves to escape from the elements unleashed. Finally, the earth will open and launch globes of flame that will cause a general burning while a sparkling cross will appear in the air announcing the arrival of the sovereign Judge.
How long will these signs last? Nobody knows. What Scripture tells us is that men will dry up with dread. And what happened to Noah's contemporaries will happen to them. As he continued the ark, they mocked him; but when the Flood began to invade everything, everyone trembled, and many, according to Saint Peter's testimony, were converted. We are allowed to hope that, at the approach of the judgment, a part of men, watching the sky be veiled and feeling the earth missing under their feet, make an act of supreme contrition and return to the state of grace with God.

ELEVENTH ARTICLE
February 1886

CONCLUSION

We have reached the end of our study.
Taking a look at our future destinies, we rely solely on those prophecies that form an integral part of inspired divine Scripture.
The substance of our work is therefore taken from the very sources where the Catholic faith is nourished; and we think that it cannot be denied without recklessness, which we advance with regard to the event of Antichrist, the appearance of Henoc and Elias, the conversion of the Jews, the precursor signs of the judgment.
Where we could be mistaken, it would be in the comments we made on various passages in the Apocalypse, as well as in the direction we sought to establish among the events mentioned above. But if we made a mistake, it was following authorized interpreters, most often the priests of the Church.
Are we wrong to see in the present state of the world the preludes to the final crisis that is described in the Holy Books? We don't believe. The apostasy begun in Christian nations, the disappearance of faith in so many baptized souls, the satanic plan of war waged against the Church, the coming to power of Masonic sects are such phenomena that we could not imagine more terrible.
However, we would not like to force our thinking.
The time we live in is indecisive and plagued. Humanity is restless and hesitant. Beside evil there is good; alongside revolutionary and satanic propaganda there is a Catholic revival movement, manifested in so many generous and holy companies. The two currents are drawn more clearly each day; which of the two will drag humanity? God only knows, He who separates light from darkness, and marks their respective places (Job 38, 19-20).
In fact, it is true that the Church's earthly career is far from over: it may never have been so open. Our Lord has made us know that the end of time will not come before the Gospel has been preached throughout the universe, in testimony to all nations (Mt 24, 14). Now, can it be said that the Gospel was preached in the heart of Africa, in China, in Tibet? Some rays of light do not make a day: some headlights on along the back do not keep the night from the deep lands that extend behind them.
How will the Church go through this stage? Under what auspices will the testimony promised by Our Lord take to the nations that ignore it or that have received it insufficiently? Will it be a time of relative peace? Is it among the anxieties of religious persecution? Two-way hypotheses can be formulated. The Church develops in a way that baffles human predictions; who remembers the wonderful conquests made in the lands of infidels at the height of the Protestant crisis?
In reality, the most absolute confidence in the magnificent future plans of the Church is not incompatible with our reflections and our conjectures about the gravity of the present situation.
Estimating that we are witnessing the preludes of the crisis that will bring the appearance of Antichrist on the world stage, we keep ourselves from wanting to specify the time and the moment; what we would see as a ridiculous recklessness. Allow us a comparison that will explain our thinking.
It happens to the traveler to discover, at a certain point on the road, a vast expanse of land, limited on the horizon by distant mountains but which would not know how to assess the distance that separates them from them. When he undertakes to cross that intermediate distance, he finds banks, hills, streams, and the end seems to be moving away as he approaches.
That is how it is, for us, the present times, in our humble opinion.
We can envision the final crisis by seeing the satanic plan unfold and unfold before our eyes. But from where we are until the time of the crisis, how many surprises are in store for the future! How many restorations of good, always possible! And also how much progress from evil! How many alternatives in the fight! How many compensations beside the losses! It is in this that it is necessary to recognize, with Our Lord, that only the Father belongs to having the times and the moments. This is not our time, which Pater possesses in his potestate (At 1, 7).
In this uncertainty, dominated by the thought of Providence, what to do?
Watch and pray.
Watch and pray, because times are undoubtedly dangerous, instabut tempora periculosa (2 Tim, 3, 8); because in this time of scandal there is a great danger of losing faith.
Watch and pray, that the Church may do its work of light, in spite of the men of darkness.
Watch and pray not to fall into temptation.
Watch and pray all the time, to be found worthy to flee from those things that will come in the future and to stand in the presence of the Son of man, Vigilat, omni tempore orantes ut digni habeamini fugere ist omnia quæ future sunt et stare ante filium hominis (Lk 21, 24).

Translation: Anna Luiza Fleichman

Published in PERMANENCE n ° 198-199 and 206-207 50

he_end-of-time_drama_-_Pe._Emmanuel-Andre.pdf231 KB