Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, people's minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognizable.
People's appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, Bishops and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left.
At that time, the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.
Apostasy
At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism and equally of remorse.
The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose their faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints. And all this will result from the fact that the Antichrist wants to be Lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs.
Telephones, airplanes, submarines
He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is deceit of the Antichrist. And, the impious one! - he will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases.
The coming chastisement
Then the All-good God will see the downfall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible... then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the Perverter and his servants.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. [Apoc. 12:4]
It is explained in The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter by Steven Paul that this scene depicts the apostasy of one third of the college of cardinals. They are drawn to the False Prophet by his irresistible force. He has a charism that they are unable to resist and are willing to turn their backs on the Holy Pontiff, The Pope, in order to follow him.
In our own times, we see how easily the faithful are willing to cast aside the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ in order to follow their own desires. In the linked article, it says there is a new way of looking at the abortion issue in light of the overall Catholic teaching that allows Catholics to vote for a candidate who is "pro-choice".
This story is false on many levels, not the least of which is that the theory is not new at all. The idea of the "seamless garment" was used by Catholics 30 years ago for the same reason - they wanted to vote pro-abortion because the pro-abortion candidate reflected their ideals more closely.
The second big lie in this article is the idea that the pro-abortion candidate's policies would actually reduce the number of abortions. Can he defy gravity as well? In fact, his policies include support for the Freedom of Choice Act, which rescinds all restrictions on abortion-on-demand including parental notification, late term abortion, born alive act, and interstate restrictions.
The third big lie is that all pro-life Catholics want to is outlaw abortion but won't help young women with prevention of unwanted pregnancies or with prenatal and post natal care. In fact traditional, church-going Catholics have been feeding the poor, placing children for adoption, opening crisis pregnancy centers like Spring House, Visitation House and Birthright for years. While primary political emphasis is placed on voting pro-life, it is wholly consistent with everything the Church teaches that to care for the poor and to work against violence and social justice starts with the right to life.
Catholic teaching and pronouncements from the leadership also condemn the death penalty and war so long as there is a just alternative. No political party perfectly embodies Catholic moral teaching but certainly there is open hostility to the unborn, traditional marriage, abstinence programs, adoption with traditional families, and conscience protection for Catholic physicians and businesses in one party.
Catholics are free to vote for whomever they choose. But to claim that the pro-abortion candidate better fits Catholic moral teaching is just plain false. Since the people making this claim seem sincere, there is a possible reason for this. They have been pulled away from the Church by an irresistible force, a charism so strong they could not do otherwise. They were too weak to overcome it. This charism comes from a fresh, well spoken politician who has learned the power of his trade. Some have even asked if he is the Antichrist himself. That is not likely, but the ease with which he has swept Catholics away from their Church should be a dire warning.
It seems a day doesn't go by that either someone sends me an article or I read on a Catholic site about a war, impending war, natural disaster, economic collapse or other man made calamity that the author claims foretells the end times.
To put stock in such things is to ignore the obvious and to ignore prophetic writings. In the Bible, the actions of God's people, in the Old Testament Israel, and in the Book of Revelation, the Church, indicate when events of significant change will occur.
In our time we have seen the influence of the Church in the western world slide precipitously towards irrelevance as a secular humanist wave has swept over mankind. Why? Look closely INSIDE the Church. We have witnessed the greatest apostasy in history as priests and religious threw of the bonds of authority after Vatican II, engaged in the most disgusting sexual abuse of their charges, enabled and covered up by their bishops.
To make it worse, the bishops continue to this day to deflect attention away from themselves and towards their own priests and the victims they were supposed to be dispensing the sacraments to. They were supposed to help us get to heaven!
No earthquake, hurricane, tsunami, stock market crash, apparition or war compares to the complete devastation wrought by faithless members of the episcopate on the Church. Indeed, all those other natural and unnatural disasters usually have the effect of driving the faithful to SEEK God, to return to piety. These bishops have driven the largest exodus out of the Church in history!
But when the teaching members of the Church say one thing and do another, proclaim justice but avoid blame, cover up and divert attention, condemn abortion but fail to enforce canon law against those who enable it, claim homosexuality is gravely immoral and disordered but refuse to remove homosexuals from their midst, proclaim the True Presence but give communion to public and obstinate sinners, who is left to believe?
Remember ExcordeEcclesae, the bishops statement on Catholic colleges and universities? The idea was that these institutions should reflect and teach the Catholic faith, a novel idea. Instead they have foisted the most anti-Catholic doctrines imaginable on young people. One such college, Holy Cross in Worcester, MA actually sponsored a family planning conference featuring Planned Parenthood! The bishop first warned the college president and then went back to his hole when he was ignored. Is this what Jesus meant by his admonition not to "separate the wheat from the weeds" or is this just institutional cowardice and accommodation?
1 Woe to the pastors, that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Jer. 23
We have seen a priesthood devastated first by the sexual revolution that saw family sizes shrink and materialism grow and then by homosexuality that has gripped the seminaries and discouraged authentic vocations. Bishops have been compromised and blackmailed by their own failings, moving molesters from parish to parish to continue their reign of terror.
Now, as a political system veers out of control codifying sin as privilege, the bishops are too self-absorbed and lacking in credibility to speak out effectively and rally the faithful who are less educated in the faith and more confused than ever due to the infiltration of pagans and secularist authors in religious education programs.
At times like these, God has always acted. But He also promised that one day there would be a final battle, and that in that battle, the devastation of souls would be unprecedented. God's mercy is that He will spare some of the faithful. But His justice is that the day will come.
Don't look to the sky for signs, or to geopolitical events or Wall Street. One need look no further than the local parish, if it hasn't been sold off, to figure out that something cataclysmic is about to happen. The Church has become "like a scroll rolled up." The "sun is darkened and the moon will not give its light."
The difference between how the Pope is treated in Europe compared to the cheering crowds and affection he finds in the USA has been on full display this week.
Only a few weeks ago, a university in Rome that was founded by a past pope effectively protested his impending visit there. Pope Benedict XVI cancelled and stayed home. And while there have been a few protesters along the route or outside the different venues this week, they have been few and largely marginalized.
In a particularly decent gesture, the Pope met with five people who had been caught up in clergy sexual abuse in Boston. He did so out of the spotlight and as a pastor and shepherd. It was no media event and was not announced ahead of time.
His meeting with Catholic college presidents likewise was much anticipated, especially by moretraditional catholics who have lamented for some time that the Catholic colleges had drifted too far from orthodoxy and actually were stunting the growth of religious faith. Details on that can be found at our sister site Ivory Tower Heretics and at The Cardinal Newman Society web page.
Everywhere the Pope went, you could hear affection from the crowds, from the thousands at the White House singing Happy Birthday, to the huge crowd at Mass at National's Stadium.
Contrast that with the reception he receives in Europe. When the Pope speaks there it is met with a yawn, indifference or scorn. Europe has lost its soul. The most striking rebuke was when the European Union Constitution was written and credited Greek and Roman civilizations for their contributions but omitted all mention of the Catholic Church and her 2,000 year imprint on Europe.
In the book Apocalypse - Letter by Letter, by Steven Paul, the author describes how the Book of Revelation speaks of a time when the forces of Antichrist will close in on the Vatican in Rome forcing the hierarchy to flee. She is the "Woman Clothed With The Sun." The "Woman" flees with the aid of the "Two Wings of the Eagle, The Great One" to the "Wilderness."
Paul explains that wilderness is a term for a non-Catholic country. Why would the "Woman" flee to a non-Catholic country? Perhaps because the Catholic countries have either apostatized or are under the control or influence of Antichrist.
This week's events make it seem more plausible that the USA would and will perform such an act of mercy as the rescue of the Woman. That team helped end Soviet communist domination over a billion people and will work again to keep the world free.
I post this excerpt because it is most pertinent to the times we are in - the time of the 200 million "horsemen". In this piece, Steven Paul reveals some of the symbolism used in the Apocalypse and how to discern what it means.
From Chapter 5 of The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation, by Steven Paul
In most instances, the word "earthquake" is a prophetic term signifying "social upheaval or revolution": the "great earthquake" in Apocalypse 6:12, for example. But, that is not the meaning here, because Jesus already included the idea of "social upheaval or revolution" by mentioning "lawlessness" and "wars." Rather, Jesus meant physical earthquakes.
Since "birth pangs" increase in their frequency and intensity, and since Christ included "earthquakes" in that term, it follows that the second and third woes will be a period of spiritual and physical violence ever increasing in frequency and intensity - including earthquakes.
St. Paul hinted at this,
"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revelation of the children of God...We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now..." [Rom. 8:19, 22]
The Apostle wrote "until now" because he thought, as did many others, that "the day of the Lord" was imminent; he did not know that it would be many centuries in coming.
So, in historical comparison, seismic activity during the second and third woes will be extraordinary; indeed, this activity will culminate at the very last event of this present evil age:
There came...a great earthquake, such as has not come since man has come on the earth, the violent earthquake was so great. The great city [Jerusalem] was split into three parts and the cities of the nations fell down. [Apoc. 16:17-19]
The meaning of "nations" in that passage is made perfectly clear by the context: "all the nations," even the Great Eagle mentioned in Chapter 12.
It cannot be deduced from Christ's words, however, that the beginning of the second woe and the escalation of seismic activity to the extraordinary will be synchronous; this notwithstanding, it is a safe assumption that said activity will escalate soon after the second woe has commenced, perhaps, within a year or two: for Christ intended that His faithful be informed; and so, lest the information about earthquakes become otiose, Christ's words will be fulfilled soon after the four evil angels are loosed from the Euphrates. In that way, the faithful, especially, the Four Living Beings, will not mistake other phenomena, such as World War I or World War II, for the second woe.
By no means should the reader exclude from mind the possibility that seismic escalation might begin just before the second woe, even as the rumble of thunder warns of the approaching storm.
Those strong in faith will not despair as the 200 Million Horsemen slaughter both good and bad alike; the informed faithful will understand that the event is a divine judgment and a part of God's mysterious plan; and, too, the brethren will not deceive themselves about the eventual decrease in the violence, the decrease implied in Apocalypse 9:20, which reads,
"And the rest of the men, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they will not be worshipping the demons and the idols the gold [ones] and the silver [ones] and the bronze [ones] and the stone [ones] and the wooden [ones], which cannot see or hear or walk."
Dead men cannot repent; therefore, the general violence will decrease much, but not entirely, so that the men will have a chance to repent. Yet, Apocalypse 9:21 patently states that some forms of lawlessness will continue:
"And they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornications nor of their thefts."
Verse 20 points mainly at nations in Asia, such as China and India; verse 21 points mainly at industrial and technological nations, such as those in Europe and North America.
After reading The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation, by Steven Paul, I purchased and read the biography of St. Vincent Ferrer. He warned all Eurpoe, indeed all Christendom, of God's impending judgement unless they repented. He was "the eagle flying in midheaven" in the Book of Revelation. Sadly, his warning has been forgotten and the judgement, the final three woes, are in progress.
From The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter:
That third date comes in the last verse of Chapter 8: the "eagle" flying in "mid-heaven." An eagle flies higher than any other creature: it flies farthest away from the "earth" and, therefore, closest to the "sun." The "eagle" symbolizes the contemplative life; the one in 8:13 is a member of a contemplative order.
He is obviously delivering a prophecy of warning "to them that dwell upon the earth." Bear in mind that Christ said,
"There are many inside the Church who are outside, and many outside who are inside."
Those who are not of the Truth "dwell on the earth." Since the "eagle" is flying "in mid-heaven," his direst of warnings is directed mainly at the clergy, aye, especially, the episcopate. Like the bishop from the east in Chapter 7, this "eagle" speaks in the name of Christ, for he cries out in a loud voice, the voice of authority that he wants all to hear.
In view of the description of the fourth "wind" in verse 12, it is clear that the "eagle" is the messenger divinely appointed to deliver the last warning to the Church. If the Church does not heed the warning, then the three woes will overtake many more in their sin than the woes would otherwise. But, understand here: the woes are included in "what must soon befall" in the first verse of Chapter 1.
God knows what men will do, but He warns them anyway, so that none can say that there was no warning. Christ warned the Jews, but they, in general, did not listen. He also said,
"Offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! Better for him had he never been born." [Mt. 18:7]
Those are strong words from Him Who created man.
Two great saints appear in the first half of the fifteenth century: the Dominican, St. Vincent Ferrer, and the Franciscan, St. Bernadine of Sienna, each a priest in a contemplative order. In 1398 AD, when St. Vincent was dying of a fever, Christ, together with St. Dominic and St. Francis, appeared to him, cured him of his fever, and commissioned him to preach that the Church must repent and do penance, or else judgment would come.
Christ did not tell St. Vincent exactly when the judgment would come or what kind it would be; but, He must have said something thereof, because St. Vincent, on countless occasions, warned that the "Day of Wrath" was to come "quickly, indeed quickly and very shortly" [cito, bene cito et valde breviter]. While preaching to a crowd in 1406, St. Vincent announced that his mantle [commission] would be handed down to someone then listening to him, and that the person would evangelize throughout Italy.
The person was St. Bernadine. The Franciscan priest often used the same words of the "eagle" in 8:13, "woe, woe, woe!", and he often threatened his listeners with the plague of locusts described in the first half of Chapter 9. He preached from 1417 until he died in 1444. Of the two men, I would say St. Vincent Ferrer was the "eagle” flying in mid-heaven" because he, and not St. Bernadine, received a special revelation from Christ Himself. So, the third approximate date is 1450 AD, at verse 13 in Chapter 8.
In the first half of Chapter 9, the fifth angel sounds the trumpet to announce the first of the three woes. This means that Christ's ONE JUDGMENT will come in three stages. The judgment will be the worst, the most terrible, that He will inflict on his Church and the world. Progressively, it will extend until it involves all mankind, and it will intensify until it culminates in the annihilation of all evil agents and agencies on the earth.
John wrote,
"...and I saw a star which had fallen to the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit..."
Here, I must end this letter, not to occasion a sense of suspense, but to rest my two fingers and 13 billion brain cells. By now, you should be able to figure out who the "star" was, and what the "key" symbolizes.
The only major event that comes after, approximately, the year 1450 AD was.... If you can't figure it out, I will tell you. Hint: the first woe is still in progress. Never again can the unique evolvement of the three woes be repeated. The judgment has already begun, and the Little Lamb shall bring it to completion, to THE GREAT DAY OF ALMIGHTY GOD.
Note: I wrote previously about my feeling that the meaning behind 9:11 referred to the Book of Revelation chapter 9, verse 11. the time 9:11 always seems to get my attention, morning and night. It signals the end of the first woe, or more importantly and accurately, the beginning of the second woe and God's judgements in the time of the 6th and 7th trumpets. The article on SpiritDaily is interesting in that others are feeling something ominous about this number.
DOES NUMBER '11' SIGNIFY 'THE LAST HOUR' AS WELL AS BIBLICAL-LIKE JUDGMENTS?
Is there really anything to the number "11"? We have been having fun with this lately -- if "fun" is the right word. Let's say we see it as curious. So many run across this number and believe there is importance attached to it.
Some of it does seem to indicate significance -- at least to certain people.
We have warned it may be linked to the occult -- that the concept is popular among New Agers (who are also seeing it). But we are not ones to disdain the prophetic, nor potential signs. In this case, it is a number that seems to figure often into both personal and societal situations.
"My dear sweet husband passed December 19," wrote a woman named Nancy. "A speeding car hit him at his work site. He was a lineman and was ready to retire. Please pray for his soul. He had on his brown scapular and just went to Confession and Communion the week before. He has to be with Jesus. Joe was a very holy and loving man. I will be lost and alone without him.
"That day on the clock I saw 11:11 a.m. That evening is when it happened. The day before I saw 11:11 too. I tried to e-mail you the first time, but my email didn't go through. This number is always showing and Joe and I both noticed it. He used to say it's '11:11,' or I'd tell him. Please pray for our family. I have five children and ten grandchildren. They are his step children, but love him as a real father. They are very devastated as am I. I have been reading the articles on the number eleven being noticed by many people, and I have to share my experience. I don't believe this is of the occult, but somehow, in my case, it is a grace from God, and He is showing me that he is in control, and that Jeremiah 1:5 is so true, and he knows or controls when we come into this world and when we leave."
Let us indeed pray for Nancy and her family.
"Twelve years ago my mother suffered and died from cancer," said another viewer. "I took care of her and prayed to God to take her up and end her suffering.
"This went on for a couple of months. Those last few months of taking care of her were a very holy time for us, I had many experiences that brought me back to my Catholic faith in a real committed way. But what I find most remarkable here is what is on my birth certificate and on her death certificate -- the uncanny 'coincidence' in the dates and times (with 11's) with which we came in and out of this world. I was born on 5:11 at 1:15 and she passed on on 5:11 at 11:55. You tell me what are the chances of that...
"I know He was showing me something really big here, and this has a very deep spiritual meaning. He gave me the Grace to deepen my faith in a tangible way; He gave me proof that I could look at over and over."
And so we discern, as we are careful not to become obsessed with it -- not to look too much for any word or symbol (but for the Cross) or number. Is it the coincidence of big numbers (that with a large population, any happenstance can and does occur)?
Or is it -- as a fundamentalist Christian website asserts -- a number that in the Bible means "last hour" and "judgment"?
We can't link directly to the site because it is one of those with anti-Catholic views (many fundamentalists fall into this trap), but it has admittedly intriguing information.
The day of the terrorist attack on New York: 11 The date of the attack, September 11 or 9/11 = 9 + 1 + 1 = 11 911 is emergency number = 9 + 1 + 1 = 11 September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11 After September 11th we have 111 remaining for the end of the year. 119 is the area code for Iran & Iraq 1 + 1+ 9 = 11 The first plane to hit one of the buildings was Flight 11 The State of New York was the 11th state to join the Union New York City = 11 letters Afghanistan = 11 letters The Pentagon = 11 letters Flight 11 had 92 passengers, 9 + 2 = 11 Flight 77 had 65 passengers, 6 + 5 = 11 Twin Towers look like an 11 Twin Towers had 110 floors Another sad occurrence of the number 9 and 11 is found in the official number of people killed in the World Twin Towers: 2792. 2 + 7 = 9 9 + 2 = 11 27 + 92 = 119 92 - 27 = 65 = 6 + 5 = 11
But can we not find such associations -- if we move around figures enough -- with any number? Or do the repeated occurrences of the number eleven have a deeper meaning?
