Rapture, a Revalations Timeline, and Confusion

[spauline]

You’d best be careful–you are trying to pry apart a couple of prophecy enthusiasts at the height of their fever. It would be better to weave a circle round them thrice and close your eyes with holy dread, for they on honeydew hath fed and drunk the milk of Paradise. Or something like that.

Well, hey, wait a minute, I do not call myself a “prophecy” enthusiast. I am not trying to “know” the “future” for the sake of “knowing the future”. Rather, I wish to understand the meaning behind the spiritual process that is the Redemption of humanity. Let me ask you this, do you believe that the age of Christianity has no structure that will ever be discerned? That it is a random mess that has no meaning, other than a fully vague allegorical idealism that is repeated indefinitely? But since you are not Catholic, I assume you would reject the notion that there is a general pattern/structure to the lives of the saints, and here I speak of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages?

I don’t really like you implying that i am a Fundamentalist and a “prophecy” enthusiast. I am simply making an observation that, at a bare minimum, a great “dark night of the soul” is present in the Global North. And yet you would like to relegate me to a “Russia will attack china” literalistic fundmentalist because I have faith that the dark night of soul shall end and be followed by the glorious vindication of the Catholic truth, and that in some sense this adds meaning to the history of the Church and of Salvation History itself.

 

[cpayne]

Wow–I don’t think anyone has ever put so many words in my mouth all at once.

I might even agree with you on many points. But the OP concerned the Book of Revelation, about which the Catholic Church (not yet my home, as you for some reason pointed out) does have a basic interpretive stance. My only point, I suppose, is that the ongoing discussion seems far from that stance.

Sorry if you thought I was calling you a “fundamentalist,” although some of my best friends are fundamentalists. Of both the Protestant and Catholic varieties.

 

[spauline]

Wow–I don’t think anyone has ever put so many words in my mouth all at once.

I might even agree with you on many points. But the OP concerned the Book of Revelation, about which the Catholic Church (not yet my home, as you for some reason pointed out) does have a basic interpretive stance. My only point, I suppose, is that the ongoing discussion seems far from that stance.

Sorry if you thought I was calling you a “fundamentalist,” although some of my best friends are fundamentalists. Of both the Protestant and Catholic varieties.

OK, look, I am sorry. I misinterpreted your intention. Please forgive me, cpayne.

And yes, you are right, I should not speak derogatorily about Fundamentalists. For they may be misguided in some ways many times, but many of them sure do seek to follow Christ as best as they can.

So, again, I apologize, I mistook your remarks as an insult to me. BTW, did you say that you are considering entering the Church. Even if not, we accept you as our brother in faith.

 

[Tom317]

spauline,

I look at the subject like this:

If the world begins to become more and more Catholic (truly Catholic), then your view is likely correct. However, if the world continues to become less and less authentically Catholic (as it has been doing for the last 20-30 years), then my view is likely correct. I say this because the Catholic faith is the One True faith, and the book of Revelation speaks to the real faith, not the thousands of false Protestant faiths floating around the world. So, if we are going to enter an era of peace, then we will have to see the Catholic faith sweep across the Christian world. I see no sign of that whatsoever–of course God could act to make that happen.

It shall be interesting to see all of this unfold in real time.

 

[spauline]

spauline,

I look at the subject like this:

If the world begins to become more and more Catholic (truly Catholic), then your view is likely correct. However, if the world continues to become less and less authentically Catholic (as it has been doing for the last 20-30 years), then my view is likely correct. I say this because the Catholic faith is the One True faith, and the book of Revelation speaks to the real faith, not the thousands of false Protestant faiths floating around the world. So, if we are going to enter an era of peace, then we will have to see the Catholic faith sweep across the Christian world. I see no sign of that whatsoever–of course God could act to make that happen.

It shall be interesting to see all of this unfold in real time.

Hi, Tom,

here are some things I would say: I would say that this very debate is part of the very mystery of iniquity itself. Obviously, you must have studied the “restrainer” stuff. BTW, what are your views on that? For that matter, what do you think the mystery of iniq could be?

Again, I argue it must have something to do with the very mystery of all salvation history. If you’ve studied like you said you have, then you know that general understanding of the “restrainer” is essentially the Redemptive action of the Holy Spirit itself. for so long as the Holy Spirit can yet draw a greater spiritual good in this world, iniquity is held back from its fullest and incurable manifestation. But then herein is the whole issue: the world that used to be primarily Christian has gradually cast aside this and turned nearly fully from the faith. But then is this great departure the beginning of the great apostasy, that is, the final and IRREDEEMABLE falling away? That is the crux of the whole apocalyptic question. For if secular messianism is not going to be healed to any significant extent, then we can say that the Holy Spirit is being pushed away from His Redemptive action permanently.

On the other hand, if the Holy Spirit has yet the capabiltiy to renew humanity and at least temporarily “wound” secular messianism, then there is still a restraint of iniquity.

but, what I’m saying is this: one of the main seeds of the modern apostasy has been the scandal of Christian division. This is an inescapable fact. so long as Christian division persists to the degree that it is at, it would seem hopeless that humanity can be restored to Catholicism. So the question of a possible restoration is inseparable from the question of what shall become of the schismatics and heretics.

But, again, the mystics give the key: God has “predestined” a glorious reunion of Christians through a “dress-rehearsal” for the end of the world. This is the way I look at it. The more light there is in the sky, the less noticable are the bigger lights. But the darker the horizon gets, the more brilliant of lights that break through are noticable. I think that in the Protestant Revolt, because they still had so much “light”, they were too blind to perceive their deficincies. But the darker [SPIRITUALLY!] that the world becomes, how much more noticable are the greater lights. So now, as society reached into near spiritual depravity, and here we speak primarily of atheism and relativistic hedonism, the more the spiritual and moral and grace deficiencies shall be evident to the separted Christians.

here’s just some examples I’m thinking of: contraception. As the horrors of the ruin of the family become more catastrophic, more and more of the really sincere Protestants are going to realize that much of the immoral dump we have in Europe and its children is precisely tied to the collapse of human sexuality, and most especially contraception. but when these separated Christians come to see this for what it is, it will make them seriously question how their conglomerate of myriads of competeing factions all nearly caved in on this issue, and that only Rome stayed its course.

Also, as more devout Protestants begin to see the immeasurable importance of the family, they will almost have to admit that God should therefore give a special grace to couples and parents, and hence marriage should be a sacrament.

Also consider the rapture theory, which dominates much of Fundamentalism. Well, if the minor chastisement does indeed come, and myriads of devout Protestants who assume that they will not have to suffer, if they are plunged into the midst of total economic collapse, nuclear war, etc, we can say goodbye to false promise of being wisked away into the clouds to escape the horrors of humanities sins.
…

 

[spauline]

…

Thirdly, if the horrific sufferings are wrought onto much of the world, in the midst of these, the Protestants will search for meaning in suffering, and they will grow tired of hard-hearted people who tell them they can’t unite their sufferings with Christ and merit graces for others.

for if millions of people are plunged into slow horrible deaths, since the devout Prots who are conservative don’t believe in euthanasia usually, they will open up to the wondroous comfort of Catholicism that will tell them that their terminal illnesses don’t have to be in vain, that they can offer them up for sinners.

In all of this and more, I would then say that the sufferings of the minor chastisement will serve to show humanity the true nature of spiritual deficencies and vindicate the Revelation of the church.

So, I don’t believe that the world will gradually come back. It will rather be through the horrific crisis of suffering in the minor chas.

There was something I was going to say, but I forgot?

I’ll try to remember…

But also another point, I think the modern world largely does not care about religion because of the confusion, and I think that’s partially understandable. but if God heals the divisions of religion and shows the fullness of the truth, and gives the world a great period of reconciliation of the spirutal and material, a subsequent falling away would need to be incurable, because humanity will have already been shown, apocalyptically ,the full consequences of apostasy, as well as having experienced the full fruits of Redemption. so I would say the world has not yet pushed the Holy Spirit away permanently. Only after the age of peace will this be the case. IMHO! ( )

Blessings, Tom

 

[Tom317]

…

Thirdly, if the horrific sufferings are wrought onto much of the world, in the midst of these, the Protestants will search for meaning in suffering, and they will grow tired of hard-hearted people who tell them they can’t unite their sufferings with Christ and merit graces for others.

for if millions of people are plunged into slow horrible deaths, since the devout Prots who are conservative don’t believe in euthanasia usually, they will open up to the wondroous comfort of Catholicism that will tell them that their terminal illnesses don’t have to be in vain, that they can offer them up for sinners.

In all of this and more, I would then say that the sufferings of the minor chastisement will serve to show humanity the true nature of spiritual deficencies and vindicate the Revelation of the church.

So, I don’t believe that the world will gradually come back. It will rather be through the horrific crisis of suffering in the minor chas.

There was something I was going to say, but I forgot?

I’ll try to remember…

But also another point, I think the modern world largely does not care about religion because of the confusion, and I think that’s partially understandable. but if God heals the divisions of religion and shows the fullness of the truth, and gives the world a great period of reconciliation of the spirutal and material, a subsequent falling away would need to be incurable, because humanity will have already been shown, apocalyptically ,the full consequences of apostasy, as well as having experienced the full fruits of Redemption. so I would say the world has not yet pushed the Holy Spirit away permanently. Only after the age of peace will this be the case. IMHO! ( )

Blessings, Tom

You make many good points. I think it still comes down to whether we are at the tipping point, the point of no return, or the point where the world can still be saved. I personally believe the signs say we are past the point of returning, or restraining if we use the mode of restrainer (Holy Spirit) as you were speaking of.

I also agree that the majority of the current apostasy is due to the Christian division we see, mainly because of Protestantism (which I consider to be part of the first woe).

As for the mystery of iniquity, I feel that we are already seeing in the way the Church has strayed so far from its Divinely given path. Dissenters, child abusers, loss of people going into vocations, etc…those have done unspeakable damage and it has all come from within the Church. Couple those points to the divisions we see in Christianity, and the growing desire by lay Christians to seek a Christianity-lite, and we can see how the Lord’s Church is being attacked from every angle.

Again, if God does not intervene fairly soon, then I feel we must be in the last days.

Now, some prophecies (as you know) state that God will chastise the world in order to bring it back to Him and of course to the Catholic faith. That is the only way I can see the path we are being diverted…if that does not happen soon, then I feel we are living in the beginning of the Tribulation times and the apostasy we see now will only grow.