Can we know Roughly when the Great Tribulation could start?

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abelville

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First, I want to say that I know we should all be ready daily in our Christian walk due to our own personal “End Times”.
But, lately many Protestant and some Catholic theologians have been predicting that the Great Tribulation will happen by, or no later than the years 2028 – 2038. A lot due to the fact that Israel became a nation in 1948, along with other fulfilled prophecies.
Is this time frame based on teaching from our Catholic Magisterium in understanding prophecy?
Protestants talk about it a lot, and in fact you can see them planning for it and giving advice to their flock about how to prepare.
On the one hand, we as Catholics (and all Christians) should be spiritually ready at all times for tribulation or our own end times. On the other hand, if true, shouldn’t this teaching be a regular part of Catholic teaching/homilies?
I know my own Parish never talks about the Great Tribulation.
If this timeframe is true, and with it being so close to us in the near future, shouldn’t our Catholic leadership be treating it much more seriously?

Finally,
Is this related to Dispensationalism? Or is it part of authorized Catholic teaching?

Thank you so much for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

Sincerely
Alan
 
First, I want to say that I know we should all be ready daily in our Christian walk due to our own personal “End Times”.
But, lately many Protestant and some Catholic theologians have been predicting that the Great Tribulation with the mark of the beast will happen by, or no later than the years 2028 – 2038. A lot due to the fact that Israel became a nation in 1948, along with other fulfilled prophecies.
Is this time frame based on teaching from our Catholic Magisterium in understanding prophecy?
Protestants talk about it a lot, and in fact you can see them planning for it and giving advice to their flock about how to prepare.
On the one hand, we as Catholics (and all Christians) should be spiritually ready at all times for tribulation or our own end times. On the other hand, if true, shouldn’t this teaching be a regular part of Catholic teaching/homilies?
I know my own Parish never talks about the Great Tribulation.
If this timeframe is true, and with it being so close to us in the near future, shouldn’t our Catholic leadership be treating it much more seriously?

Finally,
Is this timeline of the Tribulation related to Dispensationalism? Or is it part of authorized Catholic teaching?

Thank you so much for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

Sincerely
Alan
 
It is not part of Catholic teaching. You can safely ignore it.

As you mentioned, though, we have our own personal end time, and we should prepare for that.
 
Bonnie said:
It is not part of Catholic teaching. You can safely ignore it.

As you mentioned, though, we have our own personal end time, and we should prepare for that.
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Where at in NE Washington im in Richland
 
North of Spokane.

I spent my teen years immersed in that end times stuff. That was one of the wonderful things about becoming Catholic - I could leave it all behind! 😃
 
Bonnie said:
North of Spokane.

I spent my teen years immersed in that end times stuff. That was one of the wonderful things about becoming Catholic - I could leave it all behind! 😃
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Plenty of end times garbage out there and in ever generation it comes up…no one knows or can tell.
 
According to this Catholic Answers tract:
In the 1940s the Holy Office judged that premillennialism “cannot safely be taught”
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The source is not cited. To my knowledge, this comprises the entire body of official Church teaching on the whole pre/mid/post trib, pre/post/amil topics. The Church simply has not taught about these things.

Mr. Keating is, of course, welcome to chime in. I think he actually wrote the tract I cited, so he probably has nothing else to say. Beyond that scant bit of info, I am pretty sure that anything else is merely theological opinion, and not Church teaching. Because there is no Church teaching.
 
abelville said:
On the one hand, we as Catholics (and all Christians) should be spiritually ready at all times for tribulation or our own end times. On the other hand, if true, shouldn’t this teaching be a regular part of Catholic teaching/homilies?
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The homily is supposed to be based on the subject matter of the Gospel reading. All Catholic parishes typically read the same Gospel passage at each Mass, based on a three-year cycle of readings (the priest doesn’t pick and choose what Gospel is read). The homily should be drawn from that reading.

I don’t recall Jesus talking much about the end times in the Gospels. So that’s probably why you don’t hear it talked about very much in the homily.
 
My personal opinion is that there are at least three places in the Gospels where Jesus says we will not know ahead of time when it is (Mt. 24:37-44, Mt. 25:13, Mk. 13:32-37), so I don’t think we will know. Also, there were apparently a large number of people who were certain that Jesus would return at the end of the millennium–the first millennium, in 1000 AD. 🙂 And very many times since then.

I’m pretty sure that the official Catholic teaching is that we will not know ahead of time, too (CCC #673), but I welcome correction by anyone who knows more about it.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with speculating about when Jesus will return, I just think it is pointless. It would be wrong to preach it in homilies except to mention it as a theory, since that is all it is, and not an official Church teaching.

Just MHO, though.

–Jen
 
Although I cannot provide an exact reference in the Gospels, Jesus Christ Himself said the ONLY the FATHER knows when.

So, the speculation is superfluous.

The OP is correct in acknowledging that each of us should keep ourselves as ready as possible.
 
End time predictions based on current events (or near-historical events) form no part of formal Church teaching.

As such, they would not normally be preached about.

ICXC NIKA
 
Pretty much from the time we are born. There’s the birth trauma … which some don’t survive, etc.

I know this references our own personal tribulation(s) and not the end of the world or planetwide cataclysms … but for most of us, OUR world will end before THE world will end. Jesus tells us to " … stay awake" anyway … and to be ready to give a good account of our stewardship even should the day of our own end overtake us suddenly.

As for the coming of the “man of lawlessness,” the persecution of the Church, world war(s), fiery mountains falling from the sky, famine(s), floods, plagues, massive insect attacks and the other breathtaking horrors depicted in the Book of Revelation – we see some of these things, here and there, in our world now.

We are to be people of prayer in any case, loving God and our neighbor, and maybe being careful not to be so obsessed with knowing the future that we become no earthly good for the Lord’s work in the present.

Our KNOWING when it will start (formally) is something we’d like to know (for many of us), but that will matter far less for us into eternity than how we lived our lives through whatever circumstances surrounded us.

Per scripture, the tribulation (i.e. the cataclysmic events depicted through much of Revelation), horrible as it is – ENDS.

For the redeemed anyway.
1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world.
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17 Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever. 18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour.
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Written hundreds and hundreds of years ago - and still true now - though this world’s final things may still yet be further in the future.
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Don’t bother listening to those who claim to “know” when the End Times begin. Afterall, Jesus states in Matthew 24:36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” (NAB) People throughout history (including multiple times in the past few years) have claimed they have calculated the date, but this is only speculation and should never be considered as true knowledge. I agree that it may be okay to speculate but you should definitely not go around thinking and/or claiming that you know. Like you said though, even though we don’t know, Saint Paul still writes that we should prepare ourselves.
 
abelville said:
But, lately many Protestant and some Catholic theologians have been predicting that the Great Tribulation with the mark of the beast will happen by, or no later than the years 2028 – 2038.
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It wouldn’t make any sense for a ‘Catholic theologian’ to speculate on the date of Jesus’ second coming, since the Church stresses that we cannot know the day or the hour, as others have mentioned here.
A lot due to the fact that Israel became a nation in 1948, along with other fulfilled prophecies.
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Again, that is just conjecture – prophecy ‘fulfillment’ is a tricky thing. A thousand years ago, as the year 1000 approached, people asserted that prophecies had been fulfilled and the end was near. During the Black Plague, people asserted that prophecies had been fulfilled and the end was near. During WWII, people asserted that prophecies had been fulfilled and the end was near. See a pattern? Each generation sees the prophecies as being fulfilled in their times, and conclude that the end is near. (So far, the prognosticators for the end times are batting a big fat 0.000 😉

Yes, one day the end will come; but the Church asserts that we cannot know that day in advance.)
Is this time frame based on teaching from our Catholic Magisterium in understanding prophecy?
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Not in the least.
Protestants talk about it a lot, and in fact you can see them planning for it and giving advice to their flock about how to prepare.
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What they tend to plan for is the ‘Rapture’ … which is something that is not accepted in Catholic theology.
On the other hand, if true, shouldn’t this teaching be a regular part of Catholic teaching/homilies?
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Here’s the thing: how, exactly, does one prepare for the end of the world? After all, no one ‘survives’ it… 😉
I know my own Parish never talks about the Great Tribulation.
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Here’s the thing: Protestant theologies look at the Book of Revelation in a variety of ways. Many believe that the things mentioned in the Book of Revelation have yet to occur. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, tends to be preterist in its understanding of the Book of Revelation – that is, that the bulk of the items that are being discussed there have been fulfilled in the first century (or first couple of centuries) A.D.

So… what would you have your priests say about a ‘Great Tribulation’, when it is only Protestant theologians that tend to see it as a future event?
Is this timeline of the Tribulation related to Dispensationalism? Or is it part of authorized Catholic teaching?
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Dispensationalists look for an upcoming tribulation. No, the timeline you mention is not part of Catholic teaching.
 
Bonnie said:
It is not part of Catholic teaching. You can safely ignore it.

As you mentioned, though, we have our own personal end time, and we should prepare for that.
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My names not Karl, but the Catholic Church takes Jesus at His word when He said, “No one but the Father knows the hour or the day.” Others have been predicting the “End of the World” for many, many years and so far they have ALL been wrong. Just be prepared always. God Bless, Memaw
 
Mr_Clean said:
I recommend the book discussed here:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=109745
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Thanks. I had read another of Currie’s books.

While learning of this one, (David Currie’s Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind?) I wondered if it had a Catholic *Imprimatur *or Nihil Obstat - making it a (more formally? safer?) book per Catholic theology.

I didn’t find that (not yet anyway), but there was the fact that it is (was?) available on Catholic.com. And there was an accompanying video

catholic.com/video/what-jesus-really-said-about-the-end-of-the-world

If anyone has the book and knows of any

Imprimatur < Catholic Bishop who has determined it is useful for and beneficial to one’s Catholic faith

or Nihil Obstat < A Catholic expert who determines that there is formally “nothing objectionable” in the the book per the Catholic faith

that might be nice to know. 🙂
 
Gorgias said:
Here’s the thing: Protestant theologies look at the Book of Revelation in a variety of ways. Many believe that the things mentioned in the Book of Revelation have yet to occur. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, tends to be preterist in its understanding of the Book of Revelation – that is, that the bulk of the items that are being discussed there have been fulfilled in the first century (or first couple of centuries) A.D.

So… what would you have your priests say about a ‘Great Tribulation’, when it is only Protestant theologians that tend to see it as a future event?
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Well, yes and no. It could be a question of terminology, since, “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.”

And the Protestant document making those claims? The Catechism of the Catholic Church, #675. 🙂

Basically, it isn’t Catholic theology (generally–I don’t think that preterism is actually dogmatically defined) to think the Left Behind stuff is going to happen–no rapture (a concept that originated in the 19th century, IIRC), no seven seals or seven trumpets, etc.

But the idea of a period of tribulation before the second coming is Catholic. It probably wouldn’t hurt to mention it in a homily now and then, not so that we can obsess on when it is coming, but so that whenever it does come (whether next year, next century, next millennium, or what), we (as a Chruch) recognize it.

–Jen
 
Thanks so much for all of your replies.

I had recently also read a view of things to come. IT stated that soon protestant Christians will join with us and we would be “one” faith, and that a lot of the Jewish faith would also join with us as Catholic (universal) Christians. After this happens, the church will undergo a severe trial someday (like the Tribulation). Could someone comment on this too?

Thanks!!

I appreciate all of you educating me on this.

Al

PS: SORRY I HAD TWO OF THE SAME POST.
 
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