Karol Wojtyla (JPII) wrote,
“A non-Catholic philosopher once said to me: ‘You know, I just can’t stop myself reading and rereading and thinking over the first three chapters of Genesis.’
And indeed it seems to me that unless one does so reflect upon that fundamental Ensemble of facts and situations it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible to understand man and the world.
These are the key to understanding the world of today, both its roots and it’s extremely radical and therefore dramatic affirmations and denials.
The Covenant springs from the great heart. From God’s love for man. At theame time it is built on Truth rooted in what is real, that is to say true. God gave man this commandment,
“You shall eat freely of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat, for in the day you eat of it you will surely die (Gen. 2:16,17).”
Thus from the very dawn of History man is faced with a tree, the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree which is a symbol of his new human nature in that it is a sign of the limits implicit in his creaturely state, and, at the same time, in the frontier which development of the human person may not cross. The human person created in the image of God is not set beyond the confines of good and evil as Nietzsche and other propounders of the absolute autonomy of man would have it.”
The Anti-Word, the “Last Lap” and “Final Passover” of History
The Pope continues,
“Here, in the third chapter of Genesis, at the very beginning of the Bible, it becomes clear that the history of mankind, and with it the history of the world, will botg be subject to rule by the Word and the anti-Word, the Gospel and the anti-Gospel…it all begins with the first lie…”
“We may now be wondering if this [our time] is the last lap along that way of denial which started out from around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To us, who know the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, no stretch of that route can come as a surprise. We accept with trepidation but also with trust the inspired words of the Apostle Paul,
“Let no one deceive you in any way; because first it is necessary for the rebellion to come, and for the man of sin, the son of perdition to reveal himself”. (2 Thess.2.3) — pp.29, 35 Sign of Contradiction, 1979 Seabury Press, NY.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
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. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth 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.
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 eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.
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. 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. 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.
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Called to Watch
32 “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Take heed, watch;[a] for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Watch therefore—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning— 36 lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Watch.”
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— America is racing toward Canada’s euthanasia free-for-all – as seven more states eye legalizing assisted suicide [as media helps manufacture Satanic cultures of despair—SH].
Catholic Critique 