Prophetic ? .........

[BarbTherese]

I tend to think that the words of Emeritus Pope Benedict in his book back in 1969 are prophetic..........a grim scenario for some........for others it is a real message of hope for today and the future.  I am writing with a wrist brace, please excuse any typos.

The following excerpt is from Cardinal Ratzinger's book (Emeritus Pope Benedict) "Faith and The Future".  Original publication date 1969.  The text is from Catholic Education Resource Centre (CERC).

 

Quote

 

"Faith and The Future" is not a cheap book at $88.30 on Amazon,

but it is available on Kindle for $11.07

HERE

Excerpt only: "The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members....

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her........"............ read more https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/spiritual-life/the-church-will-become-small.html

 

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

[CatherineM]

I wonder if he predicted the coming persecutions. 

[Guest]

On 6/5/2018 at 1:29 AM, CatherineM said:

I wonder if he predicted the coming persecutions. 

I haven't read the book.  What follows is all my opinion only: The CCC leaves no doubt about the place of millenarianism (see below) in our Faith.  When the "final Passover" will occur we do not know, nor how long it will last nor the forms it might take.  We only know generalities (CCC) based on Scripture. I pray for those who are to live through these times - and I think they are already beginning.  Again, I think too that the appearances of Jesus to St Faustina is an urgent, extremely urgent, appeal to The Church and mankind as the final days do begin.  The Pope responded with establishing the Feast of Divine Mercy, along with the Jubilee Year of Mercy and the Mercy Gate.

I think Pope Benedict (Cardinal Ratzinger at the time of writing) read the signs of the times at the point of writing going into some details.  He made deductions or conclusions, outcomes, for the future based on conclusions about unfolding cause and effect as time progresses.

Quote

 

Luke Ch12

"He also said to the crowds, "When you see (a) cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain - and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot - and so it is.

You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

 

 

 

Quote

 

Catholic Catechism: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c2a7.htm

"The Church's ultimate trial

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 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.576

676 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,577 especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.578

677 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.579 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.580 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.581"

 

The whole of Article 7 is worth reading.

[Guest]

Reflecting on the times and in the big picture, looking past trees to see the wood, it seems to me that all Praise and Thanksgiving to The Holy Spirit for Pope Francis in our time.  We needed a very strong man of great childlike Faith and trust in God and we got one.   We have received the gift of a Pope and leader aware of the endless depths of Divine Mercy.  A man of Scripture.  A Pope who disturbs secular concepts (for one only) - and a Pope whom the secular quite often likes and in the urgent task of evangelisation, especially in our times, it is the person that speaks first without words.  Francis is a Pope who talks the talk of Scripture and walks the talk.   A Pope who can begin the transformation of Catholic cultural consciousness as well as the secular cultural consciousness.

Be the above as it may, I still believe that if Pope Francis puts his foot down, it would go right through the jolly floor.  

When Cardinal Bergoglio was elected Pope taking the name of Francis, most everyone said "HUH! who on earth is he?". 

Our God of The ........."SURPRISE!"

and more, I would wager, is 'waiting in the wings'