A post here at Blogcritics entitled Israeli Politics: All the Trash is Jumping into the Same Bin by Ruvy in Jerusalem has caused me to ponder the prospect of the Christian or Hebrew concept of the End of Days. Ruvy writes an interesting piece and I hope you’ll take the time to read it. I think that much of what Ruvy discusses may be at the heart of Kabbalah, which I have yet to completely understand. Ruvy's insight in that piece gave me pause causing me to place my thoughts in a companion piece.
Interesting information indeed from our friend in Israel. It reminds me of the predictions by St. Malachy concerning the papacy and the Roman Church. Anyone familiar with his legendary predictions will note that this Pope, Benedict XVI is the next to the last Pope. St. Malachy referred to this Pope as “the glory of the olive”. While many theologians believe that the prediction refers to a time of peace, some have said that the prediction meant that a Benedictine would rise to the throne of Peter. St. Benedict and his order have been represented by the olive. Ironically, Joseph Ratzinger chose the name Benedict. Was it coincidence? Is he trying to set the stage for the last Pope? Was he consciously fulfilling St. Malachy’s vision? I don’t think we will ever know for certain.
The successor to Benedict XVI is supposed to be Petrus Romanus or Peter of Rome who will lead the Holy Mother Church at the End of Days into the Final Judgment. There have been hundreds of predictions on the End of Days. Christ Himself said that the end would come like a “thief in the night.” I’m not going to pretend that I don’t believe in the predictions of Armageddon. To be quite honest, I believe anything is possible. It’s great advice to live each day as if it were your last – that is how all of us should live regardless of belief system. I believe that we will come to a time where there will be the end to things as we know them. That has happened many times in the evolution of Humankind, we’ve just failed to acknowledge that simple fact. Just as the Gods of Egypt, Greece and Rome have fallen from the face of the Earth, other beliefs will do the same. Is Evangelization in the Name of Christ the answer? Perhaps it is but I cannot answer that question for I am not God. Are there clairvoyants? I believe that it is possible. I can’t dispute that I believe there is an ethereal force that dwells upon, within and around us. I have no scientific proof to back it up, but my heart tells me it is so.
Article comments
1 - Bennett
Nice musings Silas. I enjoyed it, and now I'm off to read Ruvy's post.
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Very interesting article, Silas. Thank you for the plug. You give me too much credit, but thanks, anyway. I'm glad to have inspired you. If you want something that gives you a concept of the End of Days from a very Jewish viewpoint, go towww.signsfrom heaven.com, a site about a young autistic girl who achieves communication with her mother. This is about something that actually happened in Israel a few years ago.
3 - Howard
Yours is an excellent statement of the mysteries of life. I wish you could share my faith in Jesus. He taught that while life on earth is very important and the subject of much of His effort, our worldly life is but a blink in the eternity of our existence. As I understand the book of Revelation, the rapture will occur as the first sign of the end times. All of the events you mention will come to pass after the rapture. In spite of the fear message of some TV preachers, the end has not yet come into sight. We all have some time left to enjoy this life.
Howard
4 - Christopher Rose
er, exactly how long do we have?
5 - Howard
Until all the Christians disappear which will be a moment of joy for some of those remaining.
6 - Victor Plenty
Tonight we gotta party like it's 2012, dude.
7 - Silas Kain
Ya'll better make sure your flood, plague and famine insurance premiums are paid for 2006. Better safe than sorry.
8 - Victor Plenty
Who needs famine insurance when you've invested heavily in canned food and shotguns? (Yes, I just made a literary allusion to the movie Gremlins 2. Somebody shoot me.)
9 - Silas Kain
The Mogwai are coming! The Mogwai are coming! I hear grilled Mogwai are wonderful after a balsamic & raspberry marinade.
10 - Justene Adamec
This week's Catholic diocesan newspaper had a two page spread on how Catholic theology does not believe in the literal end of days.
11 - Victor Plenty
... anymore.
12 - Silas Kain
Ah, the Holy Mother Church tends to subtley change with the tides. As a child I was taught by the good Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth that the End of Days would be a great tribulation. In the spirit of Vatican II, my religious instructor in the last two years of high school urged us to question what we found in Scripture as it corresponded with the Church. The impressions she left upon me about my moral obligation to question and test my faith carry through to this day. If anything the story of Christ being found in the Temple by Mary and Joseph when he was a child serves as the foundation to my reasoning. If we are to believe the story, He questioned and debated Rabbis in the Temple. I think that gives us the same duty.
13 - Christopher Rose
SILAS: You have a beautiful and intelligent mind in normal usage but your last post may as well have been written in babble-on as I didn't follow a word of it...
14 - Silas Kain
Sorry, CR, I am but a babbling fool most times. To get to the point, in Luke it is written that when Jesus was 12 he was lost to Mary & Joseph for 3 days. They found him in the Temple questioning and debating the religious leaders. That was the lesson my liberal Catholic instructor taught me in my teenage years - to question that which is taught. It's not such a bad thing to do as opposed to blind acceptance; so, instead of asking What Would Jesus Do, perhaps it should be What DID Jesus Do? Is that better?
15 - Chantal Stone
Good morning everyone.....Silas I think you hit the nail on the head here with the idea that we're actually supposed to question. I just made a similar comment on John Spivey's post titled QUEST FOR MEANING......
I am a Christain, so I get the whole idea of blind faith, but I don't necessarily agree with it. God gave us free will for a reason, I believe, free will and mind to question not only what is taught, but to question EVERYTHING. Isn't that how we've evolved thus far? And we have sooooo far yet to go.
16 - Victor Plenty
The end times are also the beginning times. Both are happening all the time.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
17 - Silas Kain
True, Victor, unfortunately too many of us forget that every time the sun rises in the East it is a new beginning.
18 - Stan L Bowman Jr
THE WORLD GOES ON FOREVER. IT NEVER IS TOTALLY DESTROYED.
ITS JUST THAT ONE HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIES IN WW3.
THEN THE MESSIAH RETURNS TO EARTH TO RULE AND REIGN FOREVER.
AND ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM WILL NEVER BE DIVIDED AGAIN WHEN MESSIAH RULES.