Not by a historic triumph...
Blogged by James Preece on 23rd October 2012
Something else we all need reminding about...
“Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.
The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.”
It's very easy to think that the Church is supposed to get bigger and stronger over the years until everybody in the world is a Catholic and then Jesus returns and says "Nice work! Doesn't look like there's much left for me to do... I'll just sit in this throne over here while you get on with it."
The reality is quite different - the Catechism tells us that the Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only when she follows Jesus in his death and ressurection. By God's victory - not ours. Another reason then, to entrust the great cause of protecting the civilisation of life and love to Mary the Mother of God.
Reader Comments
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shieldsheafson said...
Apologies to Robert Hugh Benson who wrote something along the following lines in his novel 'Lord of the World':-
"In the West the struggle lies between Humanitarianism and Catholicism (Protestantism is dead; I'm not sure what will become of Islam or other eastern religions). The Catholic Church is the only church which claims supernatural authority (with all its merciless logic) and (potentially) can orientate itself to claim allegiance of all Christians who have any supernatural belief left. The secular State has long recognised that a supernatural Religion must necessarily involve absolute authority and so, to cut to the chase, must restrict ‘freedom of religion’".
"In the last century materialism and socialism, without religion, was too crude and rapidly descended into barbarism; the echoes of which remain. The new humanitarianism is become an actual religion, although anti-supernatural. It is pantheism and its creed is; God is man, etc. It has a real food of a sort to offer to man's religious craving; it idealises, but makes no demand upon the spiritual faculties. You could call the new religion, Sentimentalism. At the rate we’re going, I think that the state will establish their ‘religion’ legally in the next ten years, encompassing further horrors".
"The God problem is God. He dared to tell us that His idea of our “flesh and blood” was better than the one we are concocting for ourselves. We dare not admit that He was right. Therefore, He is a problem, a reality to be denied existence. Such is what is beneath the surface of the increasingly bitter activities of our polity." (ref. needed)
Miserere nobis, Domine
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Clare Short said...
"...which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven..."
Like in Medjugorje?
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Mockery of the Sacraments said...
This all means that the end is far from nigh, as the Church is growing globally. It is only in Western countries that it appears to be in decline.
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Catherine said...
The Church is not growinfg globally because Islam now outnumbers the RC Church and will by far in a very short space of time
the most informaative blog on eschatology is without question Mark Mallett in Canada
http://www.markmallett.com/blog/
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