Following are the words of no less an authority than the holy founder of the Order of Friars Minor St. Francis of Assisi, and they were issued when he realized he was dying. To alert his fellow friars and all in his Order as well as those generations to come, he foretold of dire times not only in the world, but within the very bosom of holy Mother Church. The source for this is from the book "Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, translated by a Religious of the Order" and published in London in 1882 during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII. This book is excerpted at NovusOrdoWatch.org and we have expanded by commenting on each point below.

• 1. The time is fast approaching in which there will be great trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and temporal, will abound; the charity of many will grow cold, and the malice of the wicked will increase.

      Many might think that this is nothing new because Jesus Himself foretold this in the Gospels, but all we need to do today is look around and see how wicked and debase we as a society have become just in the past 50 years. So on that prophesy the holy Franciscan was right on.

• 2. The devils will have unusual power, the immaculate purity of our Order, and of others, will be so much obscured that there will be very few Christians who will obey the true Sovereign Pontiff and the Roman Church with loyal hearts and perfect charity.

      This ties in perfectly with the very vision Pope Leo had between satan and St. Michael where God made a pact with the devil that he could have the next century as his last hurrah. We can see from the results, that lucifer has been working overtime because, thank God, his time is so short.

• 3. At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death.

      While many might be shocked by such a prediction, St. Paul said the very same thing in 2 Thessalonians 2: 6-7.

  "And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way."

  You can find an excellent explanation of this by Stephen Grieve at Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of his series Our Scriptural Roots in which he provided documentation Toward a Scriptural Brief proving Sede Vacante and identifies the "withholder, the restrainer" in tracing it back to the Greek roots of Paul's meaning.

• 3. Then scandals will be multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it.
  
     Here, also, St. Paul foretold these times in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Second Chapter, verses 9-10:
  "Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, 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:"

      What better "operation of error" than to fundamentally transform the true Faith into a humanistic entity that compromises divine truth for the favor of tolerating sin? We see this today and we can readily see how the Second Vatican Council ushered in the "operation of error" through satan's works in all power and signs from twisting Catholic truth to lying wonders personified in John XXIII through Benedict XVI, who continues the seduction of iniquity through his Hegelian helter-skelter skewing of Catholic truth.

      Look at the false apparitions since Fatima. Look how the Modernists have twisted the Fatima message to make it irrelevant and how it was suppressed by the conciliar antipopes or more appropriately antichrists since they fit the mold St. John defined in his verse 7 of Chapter one of Second Epistle:

  "For many seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: this is a seducer and an antichrist."

      Look how John Paul II manipulated the purported "Sister Lucy", who in no way replicated the true visionary of Fatima in appearance or her own sensus Catholicus so deeply ingrained from her mystical experiences with the Mother of God and training as a Dorothean nun as Sister Maria of the Sorrows for so many years. How could a peasant woman suddenly become a celebrity rubber stamping the Vatican II manifesto? No way, Jose! It was all part of what St. Paul and St. Francis, and Our Lady as well, had warned. Have we listened? Evidently not.

• 4. There will be such diversity of opinions and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion, by the immense mercy of God.

      This is self-evident for the very same was echoed by Our Lord in holy Writ, specifically St. Matthew 24: 21-25:

  "For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Behold I have told it to you, beforehand."

      Yes, St. Francis could very well have been parroting Christ in what he portended to his followers, but packed with his whole body of work and the fact he was extremely blessed with the cross of suffering, magnified by his visual stigmata of the physical imprint of Our Lord's sacred wounds of which a special feast was established for this miraculous event that occurred on Mount Alvernia by Pope Sixtus V and raised to the rank of a Double Feast by His Holiness Clement XIV.

• 5. Then our Rule and manner of life will be violently opposed by some, and terrible trials will come upon us. Those who are found faithful will receive the crown of life; but woe to those who, trusting solely in their Order, shall fall into tepidity, for they will not be able to support the temptations permitted for the proving of the elect.

      Here again, St. Francis foresaw the evils and depravity that would throw his own beloved Order into turmoil; not just his, but all religious congregations for they would believe the lie and, as St. Paul warned in 2 Thessalonians 2: 11

  "That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity."

      Obedience has always been a staple of religious living and is, most of the time, one of the key vows a religious takes. A vow is an oath before God and to break it is a serious violation. Thus, satan, the clever devil that he is, used this to blind the elect, if you will, from the truth and in their blind obedience they followed the pied pipers of Pantheism and Protestantism, and, yes, Paganism to the brink of the abyss. The first thing they did was to take off the garments of grace given to them that signified who they were and exemplified all their Orders or congregations stood for. Instead of setting the example, they sampled. They were persuaded that modern times no longer called for Roman Collars and cowls. Off came the habits and cassocks, off came the cinctures. Rosaries were stashed, crucifixes were too traumatic and offensive to non-Catholics so the cross replaced the Corpus of Christ. Can't see how much He suffered for us. In fact, suffering took a back seat as well. Penance and sacrifice, a staple of religious life, became a thing of the past. After all, they were modern men and women. Those disciplines were for another time and thus, shelved, in favor of being more in tune with the times. They were fed the line that they could reach more people and be accepted if they did not stand out like sore thumbs. Mind you, prior to this they were never considered "sore thumbs" but rather edifying men and women who spurred others to follow their example of zeal.

      But, alas, political correctness slithered in through Vatican II and the revolution of the sixties, both of which worked hand in hand, for if the Church was not there as the guiding beacon, then the ship of fools could sail wherever it wanted, even into the dangerous waters of Modernism. Thus the Church had to be compromised, then eclipsed before the S.S. Satan could cruise without opposition right into the stream of everyday life and submerge souls in their own homes through the tools available to him in the chaotic chimera that followed Vatican II. Is there any wonder so few truly KNOW their Faith today? How then could they KEEP the Faith if they do not have the zeal to truly KNOW what Christ passed down. They failed to realize that obedience to God trumps obedience to man everytime.

• 6. Those who preserve their fervor and adhere to virtue with love and zeal for the truth, will suffer injuries and, persecutions as rebels and schismatics; for their persecutors, urged on by the evil spirits, will say they are rendering a great service to God by destroying such pestilent men from the face of the earth, but the Lord will be the refuge of the afflicted, and will save all who trust in Him.

      We know from Sacred Scripture the words of Jesus that unless we would take up our cross and follow Him daily, we could never be His disciples. We also know He said it would never be easy as recorded by St. Matthew in Chapter 10: 22-25,

  "And you shall be hated by all men for My name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?"

  ...and returning to Matthew 24: verses 6-10

  "And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled. For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places: Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and shall hate one another."

      We can see just in the last 50 years the fundamental transformation of morals and morale. Yes, we will be persecuted for His name's sake and to run from this is cowardice and playing right into the devil's hands, which, sadly, so many have caved because they are built on sand, not on the solid Rock of Peter which remains sturdy, even if the visible Chair upon this Rock remains empty. Christ is still there as are His Vicars from Peter through Pope Pius XII fortified by the infallible, perennial Magisterium of the Church. With this knowledge, we can see the confidence of St. Francis' next point.

• 7. And in order to be like their Head, [Christ] these, the elect, will act with confidence, and by their death will purchase for themselves eternal life; choosing to obey God rather than man, they will fear nothing, and they will prefer to perish rather than consent to falsehood and perfidy.

      Did not the famed Church Father of the second century Tertullian say that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church"? Though we may be persecuted, it is truly worth it for we see the fruits of our labors will bear a great harvest, maybe not in our time, but in God's time. All He asks us to do is to try, He'll do the rest and we are assured of this not only by what Christ comforted us with, but also the Apostle of the Gentiles' words so many times, specifically in 2 Thessalonians 2: 12-15

  "But we ought to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved of God, for that God hath chosen you firstfruits unto salvation, in sanctification of the spirit, and faith of the truth: Whereunto also He hath called you by our gospel, unto the purchasing of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God and our Father, Who hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope in grace."

• 8. Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it.

     Have we not seen this over the past 50 years and even further back? Look at how silent the pulpits have been everywhere, not just in traditional chapels where there have certainly been orthodox preaching but not nearly enough, but also sound teaching is practically nil in the conciliar lodges where even Baptists and other Protestant evangelicals are putting supposed Catholic leaders to shame for their lack of speaking out for fear they'll either offend someone, or worse, lose the financial backing of some parishioners, or lose their social influence in high society circles where they are pandered and schmoozed by the Freemasons and other secular entities whose subliminal agenda is to destroy the Catholic Church. The collateral damage for this sellout: souls trampled under foot and exposed to the world, the flesh and the devil with no filter as the Church always provided prior to Vatican II.

• 9. Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer.

     We have the glaring evidence of this ever since Roe vs. Wade in 1973. Already the counterfeit church of conciliarism was firmly ensconsed. Do you think such an abominable "law" would ever have seen the light of day if there had been no Vatican II? Darn right. Why? Because the Church would have stood as the vanguard for decency and moral certitude. As example, look at the influence the Legion of Decency had in the 40's and 50's of the past century. When the Church said jump, Hollywood jumped. No longer because the church of Modernist Rome has no teeth and everyone knows it.

      Consider how the United Conference of "Catholic bishops" adopted the seamless garment agenda where providing government assistance to the poor was as important an issue as abortion and therefore justified the masonic potentates posing as "prelates" in their purple and scarlet to promote the socialist symptoms of the Demoncrat Party and turn their backs on the egregious two sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance: Abortion and Sodomy. Have those two sins magnified over the past 40 years? Sadly, yes, to the point of oversaturation where in the most recent convention in Charlotte the Party of Death proudly proclaimed and emphasized the right to abortion and tolerance for homosexuality, even to promoting the unnatural, unfruitful, dead-end avenue of same-sex 'marriage' - an oxymoron if there ever was one by the morons of Modernism both in ecclesiastical and secular sectors. The effeminate movement in the conciliar church and society was actually spurred on by an infested seminary system where noli me tangere was abandoned for more touchy-feely curriculum that fostered perversion and pedophilia in their warped sense of aggiornamento in keeping up with the times and being in touch with the world. How has that worked out?

      St. Paul answers that by warning, again in 2 Thessalonians 2: 3-5,

  "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, 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. Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?"

     Then return to the links above by Stephen Grieve to understand better how right on St. Francis was in warning that Christ will send "not a true Pastor, but a destroyer" and, that being the case as we can clearly see, would God expect us to believe that we should follow one who is an antichrist (v.g. 2 John 1: 7) and, lest we forget Our Lord's words in St. Matthew 12: 30 and St. Luke 11: 23,

  "He that is not with Me, is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth."<

      Finally, let us quote Jesus also from St. Matthew 11, 32-36 in which He speaks of another sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance and which those deceivers at Vatican II committed by denying the Holy Ghost in their determination to change the Church to man's image and agenda, not God's, thus the Sanctifier withdrew His protection of said man-made evolved church that still called itself 'Catholic' but proved by their deeds that their seeds were rooted in evil and whatever tree has grown from that seedling in the 60's is destined to be destroyed as the Evangelist records:

  "And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come. Either make the tree good and its fruit good: or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is known. O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, whereas you are evil? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of a good treasure bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of an evil treasure bringeth forth evil things."

      Indeed, St. Francis was right. Why? Because he listened to the will of God and heeded the Word of God. Why haven't we? Why haven't the majority of Catholics done the same? Why have they been allowed to be led astray and to believe the lie? Because they have a free will and because, as St. Paul attests, God is testing us. Only by praying for the grace to truly see can one connect the dots and come to the same conclusion we have here at the DailyCatholic. There is no other conclusion unless you are in denial of what a holy, humble Franciscan imparted to his followers because of his love for souls. So also we share this with you this day because, while far less holy and humble than Francis, nevertheless our goal is the same as it was 900 some years ago: to save souls from the wickedness and snares of the devil.