The Tragic State of the Church and Antichrist

The Tragic State of the Church and Antichrist

“He will be a very lofty person, as lofty as a star.  Not a human star shining in a human sky.  But a star from a supernatural sphere that, yielding to the flattery of the enemy. Will experience pride after humility, atheism after faith, lust after chastity,, the hunger for gold after Gospel poverty, and a thirst for honors after concealment.”   “The Antichrist, out of the pride of an hour, will become the accursed and dark one after having been a star in my army.”  (Maria Valtorta, Notebook Aug. 20, 1943)

“In this period of history, Freemasonry, assisted by its ecclesiastical form, will succeed in its great design; that of setting up an idol to put in the place of Christ and of His Church.  A false Christ and a false church.  Consequently, the statue built in honor of the first beast, to be adore by all the inhabitants of the earth and which will seal with its mark all those who want to buy or sell, is that of the Antichrist.  You have thus arrived at the peak of the purification, of the great tribulation and of the apostasy. The apostasy will be, as of then, generalized because almost all will follow the false Christ and the false church.  Then the door will be open for the appearance of the man or of the very person of the Antichrist!  (MMP, Fr. Gobbi #407)

St. Irenaeus on antichrist:

“[H]e, being an apostate and a robber, is anxious to be adored as God; and that, although a mere slave, he wishes himself to be proclaimed as a king. For he (Antichrist) being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king, nor as a legitimate king, [i.e., one] in subjection to God, but an impious, unjust, and lawless one; as an apostate, iniquitous and murderous; as a robber, concentrating in himself [all] satanic apostacy, and setting aside idols to persuade [men] that he himself is God, raising up himself as the only idol, having in himself the multifarious errors of the other idols. This he does, in order that they who do [now] worship the devil by means of many abominations, may serve himself by this one idol, of whom the apostle thus speaks in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians…there shall come a failing away first, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God.”

“As Christ, the Lord also declares: ‘But when you shall see the abomination of desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place (let him that reads understand), then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains; and he who is upon the house-top, let him not come down to take anything out of his house: for there shall then be great hardship, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be.’”

“The Lord also spoke as follows to those who did not believe in Him: ‘I have come in my Father's name, and you have not received Me: when another shall come in his own name, him you will receive’ (John 5:43) calling Antichrist the other, because he is alienated from the Lord.”

Irenaeus pointed out the Angel Gabriel said in Daniel 12:7 his tyranny will last three years and six months.

Late in the century, in 1976, in Philadelphia for the Eucharistic Congress, while still Cardinal Wojtyla, St. John Paul II  warned: "We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. I do not think that the wide circle of the American Society, or the whole wide circle of the Christian Community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the antichrist. The confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God's Plan, and it must be a trial which the Church must take up, and face courageously..."

A message of hope:  In the 19th Century, Bl. Anna Maria Taigi revealed: “Whole nations will join the Church shortly before the reign of the Antichrist. These conversions will be amazing. Those who survive shall have to conduct themselves well. There shall be innumerable conversions of heretics, who will return to the bosom of the Church; all will note the edifying conduct of their lives, as well as that of other Catholics. Russia, England and China will come into the Church…”

“…if I told you about the religious side... how many sacrileges! How many rebellions! How many pretend to be my children, while they are my fiercest enemies! These false sons are usurpers, self-interested and incredulous; their hearts are bilges of vice. These very sons will be the first to wage war against the Church - they will try to kill their own Mother! Oh! how many of them are already about to come out into the field. Now there is war among governments and countries; soon they will make war against the Church, and Her greatest enemies will be Her own children. My Heart is lacerated with sorrow. But in spite of all this, I will let this storm pass by, and the face of the earth and the churches be washed by the blood of the same ones who have smeared them and contaminated them. You too, unite yourself to my sorrow - pray and be patient in watching this storm pass by.”  Book of Heaven, Mar. 7 1915

First stage:  tragic state of the Church.  In the eyes of a missionary and mystic like Montfort, the state of the Church and the society of his time offered scarce consolation.  Although historians agree that conditions at the close of the seventeenth century improved as a result of the intense pastoral commitment of the French clergy, Montfort would disagree.  In his converging texts, he refers to the “universal failure” of contemporary Christian practice (TD 127), to the “corrupt kingdom of the world” (SM 59) and the reign of the enemies of God (PM 4).  The encroaching wave of sin takes on cosmic dimensions and does not spare even the Church herself:  “Your Gospel is thrown aside, torrents of inequity flood the whole earth carrying away even your servants.  The whole land is desolate, ungodliness reigns supreme, your sanctuary is desecrated and the abomination of desolation has even contaminated the holy place” (PM 5; see also PM 14: “the ever-swelling flood of iniquity”).  The Church herself has become a “languishing heritage,” “so weakened and besmirched by the crimes of her children” (PM 20).  Behind the domination of sin, Montfort sees the work of the devil, which is “daily increasing until the advent of the reign of anti-Christ” (TD 51).  Montfort is so dismayed that he invokes his own death if divine intervention does not bring a change: “Send me your help from heaven or let me die” (PM 14).  Thus does he feel compelled to send up a cry of alarm when confronted with such a grave and imminent danger: “The House of God is on fire! . . . Help!” (PM 28)  From the writings of St. Louis de Montfort  (the four stages) 

Lynne B., 2017