Before the Day of Judgement.

What will happen:
A: Apostasy
B: Abomination
C: Antichrist

Relevant Quotes to Keep in Mind:

"The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the other Apostles to have expired. But, after this, she will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all doubters."
--St. Nicholas of Flue, quoted in Catholic Prophecy, edited by Yves Dupont, p. 30

"We must remember that if all the manifestly good men were on one side and all the manifestly bad men on the other, there would be no danger of anyone, least of all the elect, being deceived by lying wonders. It is the good men, good once, we must hope good still, who are to do the work of Anti-Christ and so sadly to crucify the Lord afresh…. Bear in mind this feature of the last days, that this deceitfulness arises from good men being on the wrong side." --Fr. Frederick Faber, Sermon for Pentecost Sunday, 1861; qtd. in Fr. Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World (text here)

"Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God." --Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Custodi di Quella Fede, par. 15, Dec. 8, 1892

BEFORE OUR LORD RETURNS FOR JUDGEMENT

A: Apostasy

A: Abomination

A: Antichrist

We read in Daniel the Prophet: “Armed forces shall move at his command, and defile the sanctuary stronghold, abolishing the daily sacrifice and setting up the horrible abomination. By his deceit he shall make some who were disloyal to the covenant apostatize; but those who remain loyal to their God shall take strong action.”[1]

… last Sunday of the liturgical year, we hear about the last days of the world. Our Lord speaks to us about the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the world, and about what the prophet Daniel called the “abomination of desolation.”

Our Catholic Faith tells us that, as God created the universe at some moment of time in the past, so too will He, one day, bring it to an end. We know that the world will eventually come to an end. However, the only thing we know for certain about the schedule for the end of the world is that we don't know when it will occur. If we had read just a few verses further along in Saint Matthew's Gospel, we would have heard the familiar quotation: “But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven. . . . you must be ready because at an hour that you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”[2]

What is important is that the world will come to an end for each of us personally—within the course of a relatively short few years. At some time, now unknown to us, we shall be called upon to give up our life and to make a rendering to God before the Judgment Seat.

For the moment, let us think a little more about this “abomination of desolation,” about which Daniel wrote, and which our Lord associates with the end times. Fairly certainly, Daniel wrote about the invasion of Jerusalem and the desecration of the temple which took place under the Macedonian king, Antiochus IV, in about 170 B.C. We can read about it for ourselves in the first chapter of First Machabees. “And he commanded the holy places to be profaned . . . and swine's flesh to be immolated, and [other] unclean beasts.”[3] To the Jews of the time, this was the end of their world; literally for some, and figuratively for all.

But in Matthew's Gospel, our Lord is clearly talking about an event that would take place after His own time. This made it possible for successive generations to place the events of the end-times in their own period. When the Romans sacked Jerusalem and leveled the temple some thirty years later, this was held by many of the Jewish Christians to be the fulfillment of our Lord's words. When the Moslems invaded Europe and boasted that they would feed their horses on the altar of Saint Peter's, we can be sure that many Christians expected that to signal the end—just as they had when the Huns, the Goths, the Vandals, and the Vikings swarmed the civilized world.

And certainly in our own time, we have not had any shortage of predictions that our Lord's words were going to be fulfilled through the political situation in the middle east, with the help of nuclear bombs. We have seen tens of millions of unborn babies sacrificed to the devil, by men and women claiming to be “physicians.” We have even seen our own version of the “abomination of desolation,” as we seemed about to loose the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; to have it replaced with a secular “Communion” service, occasionally profaned by clowns, dogs, and dancing girls—and sometimes much worse.

Yet the world remains. The Holy Sacrifice continues. The Modernists and the Abortionists will some day go the same route as the Macedonians, the Romans, the Huns, and all the other assorted vandals of history.

Nonetheless, our Lord's words remain true. The end will come some day; both personally and globally. Our task is still to be ready. And that means not to have any “abomination of desolation” within ourselves. Individually, there is very little that we can do to change the moral and political evils of the world. But we can do a great deal to ensure that our own souls are in order. When the day of our individual judgment comes, we can be sure that temple which is our soul has not been left in desolation, without the presence of God and His life-giving graces.

That's not properly a last minute thing to attend to. We would be very foolish to think that we can ignore God all of our life, and then, at the last moment, just as we are about to die, we will all-of-a-sudden repent, develop a sincere sense of perfect contrition, or have a priest waiting to administer the Last Sacraments.

If we are to escape the “abomination of desolation,” we must live all of our years with God being an important part of our lives. And when I say important, I mean that we must do more than the grudging minimum. Prayer, the Mass, the Sacraments, keeping the Commandments, religious reading—must be a regular thing for us—not just something we do for an hour or two on Sundays and most Holy days.

St. Paul gives us some advice which will prepare us for our end, and preserve us from desolation. In the words of today's epistle: “May you be filled with the knowledge of God's will. . . . May you walk worthily of God, and please Him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened through His power unto perfect patience and long-suffering; joyfully rendering thanks to God the Father.”[4]

Do these things day in and day out, and you will be prepared for any end—and will never die the death of desolation.

NOTES:

[1] Daniel: xi. www.drbo.org/chapter/32011.htm

[2] Mt. xliv: 36, 44 www.drbo.org/chapter/47024.htm

[3] 1 Machabees i: 49-50 www.drbo.org/chapter/45001.htm

[4] Colossians i: 9-12 www.drbo.org/chapter/58001.htm

1 Peter ch 4

[17] For the time is, that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if first at us, what shall be the end of them that believe not the gospel of God? [18] And if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? [19] Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God, commend their souls in good deeds to the faithful Creator.

[18] Scarcely: That is, not without much labour and difficulty; and because of the dangers which constantly surround, the temptations of the world, of the devil, and of our own corrupt nature.

2 Thess 2

[2] That you be not easily moved from your sense, nor be terrified, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle, as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand. [3] Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, [4] Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God.

.. [6] And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time. [7] For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way. [8] And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him, [9]Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, [10] And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying:

[10] God shall send: That is God shall suffer them to be deceived by lying wonders, and false miracles, in punishment of their not entertaining the love of truth.