[Pearls Episode 144: Preparing for Sunday.]
This Sunday’s readings turn our attention on the End Times. And so in this week’s Pearls episode we’re looking at four particular events believed by some to be associated with the End Times and have recently gained prominence – probably in no small part due to the increasing trials of our Church and nuttiness in our society.
You may have heard terms like tribulation, warning, or era of peace – we’re going to take a very brief look at these (each could fill volumes) – to put them in context and demystify them.
The following categorization and descriptions are very informal, there are multiple and overlapping understandings of these events, but this will serve our purposes of a general understanding:
- Tribulation: And extended period (perhaps 7 years) of trials and suffering. There will be great persecution of the Church and overall societal collapse.
- Chastisement / Great Purification: A period of 3 days of darkness, patterned on the Passover. The wicked will be pruned and it will be dangerous for believers to leave their home or even look out of windows.
- Warning / Illumination of Conscience / Mini Judgement: A brief period (perhaps 15 minutes) when even time will stand still and everyone on earth will see their life as God sees it – particularly their sins. This will lead to mass conversion, but many whose hearts are truly hardened toward God won’t survive the experience. It may be accompanied or followed by a great sign or miracle.
- Era or Peace / Era of Divine Will / Eucharistic Reign / Triumph of the Immaculate Heart: A long period of peace that follows the mass conversions from the tribulation and warning.
What to make of these? Today we look a little deeper at the first three – on Monday we’ll return to the Era of Peace.
The concept of a great Tribulation fits squarely with scripture, particularly Revelation 20 and Matthew 24-25 and is part of the teaching of the Church (see the Catechism #675). Whether or not the present trials in the Church are a prelude to the Tribulation remains to be seen, but it is the testimony of scripture and the teaching of the Church, based on many great Saints and theologians, that a specific Tribulation will occur prior to the second coming of Christ.
The Chastisement and Warning share a similar source in the private revelation of Blessed Anna Maria Taigi. There are many other private revelations of prominent Catholics that are remarkably consistent on the concept of the Warning (or, Illumination of Conscience). They can also be inferred from several Marian apparitions (particularly messages received in Akito and Garabandal).
The bottom line is that we can expect the Church (and world) to suffer a Tribulation at some point, but we don’t know exactly what that will look like or how near at hand that time is. There is no official opinion on the Chastisement and Warning – the faithful are at liberty to make of them what they will, to the extent that there is nothing presented about them that contradicts established truths of the faith.
Our interest, going into this weekend, is what these mean for our spiritual life in the here and now. The overarching message of tribulations, chastisements and warnings is that we need to have our spiritual house in order. If truly severe trials beset us, it will only be that much worse if we are spiritually confused on top of it.
And here are key suggestions regarding the concept of an “illumination of conscience” (seeing our entire life as God sees it). First – we will all be in this situation during our particular judgement, when we die and come before the Lord, and that is why it is particularly important that we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Confession. Second – you may have already had a taste of a warning. Many of us experienced a point in life when we had a sudden realization of our sinfulness – probably associated with something hurtful that we did – and it brought us to our knees, realizing how small and broken and in need of a Savior we really are. And that is the whole point of this weekend’s scripture, and of the End Time events listed above (to the extent that they come to pass) – to deepen our relationship with God, by recognizing our complete need for Him.
So, if you’ve had a personal “warning” experience like that – this weekend is a fitting time to go back to that in meditation – not in an exercise of self-condemnation – but to recognize anew your complete need for God and His great love and mercy.
And whether or not you’ve not had that experience – this weekend is also a fitting time for all of us to pray to God to reveal where in our life we are most in need of His forgiveness and healing touch right now.
Blessings on your journey with Christ –
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life
Postscript: Readings for Sunday
Reading 1: 2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14
It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law. One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: “What do you expect to achieve by questioning us?
We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”
At the point of death he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying.”
After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man’s courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing.
After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15
- (15b) Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.
Hear, O LORD, a just suit; attend to my outcry;
hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit.
R. Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.
My steps have been steadfast in your paths, my feet have not faltered.
I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my word.
R. Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.
Keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings.
But I in justice shall behold your face; on waking I shall be content in your presence.
R. Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.
Reading 2: 2 Thes 2:16-3:5
Brothers and sisters: May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.
Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you, and that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you are doing and will continue to do. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.
Gospel: Lk 20:27-38
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers;
the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.”
Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,
when he called out ‘Lord,’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”