What Catholics Believe about the End Times

Over and over again we have been hearing about the end of the world coming on 12/21/2012. There are some who thought it would be 12/12/2012 but nonetheless it had to do with the ancient Mayan civilization. I am not going to go into all the reason people are believing such things, but instead I will let you investigate the beliefs on your own. I did read some and all I wanted to read at Wikipedia and National Geographic. Here are the websites for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111220-end-of-world-2012-maya-calendar-explained-ancient-science/

As you can see by reading the links that the prophecies are mostly just theory and has very close links to New Age thinking.  None of which have anything to do with the truth Jesus gave us through His Church and His Word but it sure seems like everywhere I go people are talking about it. I even heard on the news last night that those who believe in this theory are saying that there is one mountain top that might be safe and if people head there they may survive, which made no sense to me because this mountain is also part of the world but the mountain has had to be secured off to keep people from coming.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/12/12/mystical-doomsday-mountain-braces-for-mayan-apocalypse/

What frightens me is not that the world will end, is that there will be those who predicted it so much they will do something to themselves or others to try to prove themselves right or there will be those who believed it so much they will do something to themselves or others.  Sometimes our society feels as if because we have so much technology and material things and scientific knowledge that we are in a world where people aren't deceived by false prophecies and false religions and that we are so very sophisticated and civilized we don't need anyone to tell us what truth is. In reality, we are not that much different from people of past ages that believed in the deceptions and heresies of their times.

So what does the Catholic church, the place that God gave us to lead us to truth, say about the end times or the end of the world.

Last night I pulled out the Catechism of the Catholic church, (I am working through a yearly reading) and I flipped to the return of Jesus which took me several places.

Starting here we can see that no one knows the day or the hour, not even the Mayans or those studying ancient Mayan writings and there is so much more to what is going to happen in the end than just "the end."

CCC 673-677:

673      Since the Ascension Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent,566 even though “it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.”567 This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are “delayed.”568 (1040,1048)
674      The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by “all Israel,” for “a hardening has come upon part of Israel” in their “unbelief” toward Jesus.569 St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.”570 St. Paul echoes him: “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”571 The “full inclusion” of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of “the full number of the Gentiles,”572 will enable the People of God to achieve “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” in which “God may be all in all.”573 (840, 58)
The Church’s ultimate trial
675      Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 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.576 (769)
676      The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatalogical judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,577 especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.578(2425)
677      The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.579 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.580 God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.581 (1340, 2853)

Then I came across this:

1040    The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvellous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death.628 (637, 314)
1041    The message of the Last Judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them “the acceptable time,... the day of salvation.”629 It inspires a holy fear of God and commits them to the justice of the Kingdom of God. It proclaims the “blessed hope” of the Lord’s return, when he will come “to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all who have believed.”630 (1432)
VI. The Hope of the New Heaven and the New Earth 2854

1042    At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul. The universe itself will be renewed: (769,670, 310)
The Church... will receive her perfection only in the glory of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things. At that time, together with the human race, the universe itself, which is so closely related to man and which attains its destiny through him, will be perfectly re-established in Christ.631
1043    Sacred Scripture calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, “new heavens and a new earth.”632 It will be the definitive realization of God’s plan to bring under a single head “all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.633 (671, 280, 518)
1044  In this new universe, the heavenly Jerusalem, God will have his dwelling among men.634 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”635
1045  For man, this consummation will be the final realization of the unity of the human race, which God willed from creation and of which the pilgrim Church has been “in the nature of sacrament.”636 Those who are united with Christ will form the community of the redeemed, “the holy city” of God, “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”637 She will not be wounded any longer by sin, stains, self-love, that destroy or wound the earthly community.638 The beatific vision, in which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to the elect, will be the ever-flowing well-spring of happiness, peace, and mutual communion. (775, 1404)
1046    For the cosmos, Revelation affirms the profound common destiny of the material world and man: (349)
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God... in hope because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay.... We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.639
1047    The visible universe, then, is itself destined to be transformed, “so that the world itself, restored to its original state, facing no further obstacles, should be at the service of the just,” sharing their glorification in the risen Jesus Christ.640
1048    “We know neither the moment of the consummation of the earth and of man, nor the way in which the universe will be transformed. The form of this world, disorted by sin, is passing away, and we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, in which happiness will fill and surpass all the desires of peace arising in the hearts of men.”641 (673)

So, what does all this mean. Well, first of all none of us know when the end will come and first of all the world isn't going to blow up or just end or whatever.  Jesus has promised us his return, a judgement, a new heaven and earth and not only that no one knows when the end of their own world will come. Each of us has a limited time here on earth and that is how we are to live, never knowing when we will be called.

I am not a theologian, or an eschatologist of priest or any kind of interpreter of what the end times are about but according to what I have come to understand and read the end will result with these happenings:

1. Preaching of the Christian faith throughout the world.  Matthew 24:14

2. Conversion of the Jews. Romans 11:25-26

3. Return of Enoch and Elijah. Malachi 4:5-6, Ecclesiasticus 48:10, Matthew 17:11, Ecclesiasticus 44:16.

4. A Great Apostasy. 2 Thessalonians 2-3

5. Reign of the Antichrist. 1 John 2:18

6. Disturbances in nature: Matthew 24:29, Luke 21: 25-26

7. Change in appearance and form of creation. 2 Peter 3:10-13,, 1 Thessalonians 5:2, Apocalypse 3:3, 16:15

8. Trumpet of the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:52, 1 Thessalonians 4:15, John 5:28     

9. The sign of the Son of  Man appearing in the heavens. Matthew 24:30

Source:   http://www.conventhill.com/endtimes/index.htm

So, considering we are in the Liturgical season of Advent, we have heard a lot recently in the scriptural readings regarding the second coming of Christ. We really need to hear what God is saying. Our priest has repeated it over and over again. "No one  knows when Christ will return or when the end is coming."
We must prepare our hearts for His return, in our own individual lives or in the worlds, right now.  

As we are lighting the second candles on our Advent wreaths, I find it interesting that the candle represents the prophets. The first candle represented the patriarchs and the third recalls John the Baptist and the final one Our Lady. But concentrating on the second one and the prophets. Let's prepare our hearts, turn away from our sins and draw closer to our Lord for that is where our truth lies.