Just as happened in the late tenth century as they approached the second millennium, talk of the imminent end of the world is growing as we near the third millennium. Thankfully, the Holy Father is trying to puncture a hole in the doom and gloom balloon by stating the facts in his weekly audience yesterday at Pope Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. In a story from CWN, Pope John Paul II attempted to put to rest all the "deceptive and erroneous" accounts of the final apocalypse. He acknowledged that life on this earth will eventually be no more, but he added that "Christ did not indicate any chronological framework." And neither has His special emissary He has sent to bring all His children back into the fold - His Blessed Mother Mary. He talked about the final coming of Jesus, reminding all of the prayer repeated at most Masses "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!" But when Jesus will come, as foretold in Sacred Scripture is not for us to decide, but God's alone. The Pope reiterated that the celebration he has been promoting of Jubilee 2000 is the two millennium anniversary of "the first historical coming of Christ." He urged all to celebrate that and not jump the gun by trying to calculate when the second coming will occur. He reminded his audience what Jesus conveyed to His disciples regarding the end times that "many events" would occur before that final time. Just as Our Lady as has cautioned us to to be preoccupied with the final end times, she refers to these times as "end times" in the sense of the "end of an era"...not the end of the world! Both the Pope and Mary, as well as Our Lord, caution us not to "look" for it, but to focus our attention on bringing back into the fold as many of God's children as we can as accomplices with Heaven before these times do occur for we do not know the hour or the day. As Jesus says in Matthew 24: 44, "Therefore you also must be ready, because at an hour that you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." The Holy Father prompted all Catholics to focus their attention on evangelization and loyalty to Christ and His Church for that is the specific mission of Holy Mother Church - "the profound transformation of human persons under the influence of the grace of Christ."

     Even within the Marian movement and those loyal to the Magisterium, there is confusion as to the "end times" Our Lady has spoken of to the visionaries and messengers in these latter times of the twentieth century. Some mistake her words as referring to the catalytic end of the world, but she is not. She is referring to the end of an era - the end of a time where sin reigns supreme and the beginning of a new era when her Divine Son will indeed come again, but not physically as He has promised in Sacred Scripture, but Eucharistically where those who believe will know Him without a doubt in their hearts. It will be a time when the promised "era of peace" will be a reality, when satan will be bound and chained and cast back into hell for a designated time. It will mark the end of the terrible afflictions that plague us in this latter part of our century such as abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, blasphemy, and all the seven deadly sins that the evil one assaults us with in his last ditch effort before his big defeat by the Two Hearts. That will mark the glorious Triumph of the Immaculate Heart which Mary predicted at Fatima when she said, "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph." This will usher in the ever glorious Reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus also referred to as The New Advent or the "Era of the Holy Spirit." Whatever it is called it will be a time of peace and spiritual prosperity. It will be a time when we return to basics - love for one another where all live in harmony - at least for a time, for God has said the world will eventually fall back into its old ways as history proves and satan will be unleashed once again and then, as many believe, will come the final Apocalypse - the end of the world as prophesied in Scripture.

     So relax, the world is not going to end until God says so, but the world as we know it will end in the sense that all the modern conveniences we depend on so much today will become irrelevant in a "new society" where love of God and neighbor will abide. But before we can have this "earthly utopia" there must be a purification - a cleansing of the evil that eats away at mankind like a deadly cancer today. Just as God cleansed the world with the great flood of which only Noah and a few escaped some 4000 years ago, just as He cleansed the world with the Birth, Life, Passion and Death, and Resurrection of His Only-begotten Son ushering in the New Covenant nearly 2000 years ago, so also the time is ripe - the two-thousand year increment - when once again He will do a major cleaning job on His creation. So while the end of the world is not imminent as the Holy Father so rightly reminds us, he does not discount the fact that the Blessed Mother, to whom his papacy is dedicated - Totus Tuus, has increased her appearances and pleas in these urgent times for we are close to the cleansing. Many, many visionaries and messengers have been told this over the last two centuries from Rue de Bac to Lourdes, from La Salette to Saint John Bosco, from Fatima to Medjugorje, from Amsterdam to Garabandal, from Akita to Betania, and the list goes on and on. Something is close to happening as we have been documenting in our on-going series on THE AGE OF MARIAN APPARITIONS and in our mega series on the Church today - WHERE IS HOLY MOTHER CHURCH HEADING AS WE NEAR THE MILLENNIUM? Blessed Mary has conveyed more than a few times to her beloved messenger Father Don Stefano Gobbi before his messages ended last December, that her Immaculate Heart would triumph before the year 2000. Our Lady gave no dates which follows with the fact that Heaven does not pinpoint the exact times but only the general area of when an event will take place. But she has narrowed it down within a three year time period - that it would happen before Jubilee 2000 becomes a reality. That has to be both tremendously encouraging and alarming in the fact that we have so little time and that satan is not going to go down without a fierce fight. Today is the feast of a great soldier of the Church, Saint George who slew the dragons of dissent from the True Faith. We can take a cue from this great military man of the Church to gird ourselves in the protective armor God provides as Saint Paul advises in Romans 13: 12, 2 Corinthians 6: 7, and Ephesians 6: 11-13. As members of the Church Militant this is mandatory, as members of Christ's flock it is vital, as members of God's universal Church this is the only course we can take.

      To borrow a few titles from the eloquent bard William Shakespeare, whose birthday and death the world observes today, while talk of the end of the world is "Much ado about Nothing", this world has become a "Comedy of Errors" and God knows that His "Love's Labour's Lost" means a cleansing is imminent and it is no "Midsummer Night's Dream" or "The Winter's Tale" that "The Tempest" will occur not "As You Like It" but as God deigns for "Measure for Measure" we must realize that in His Master Plan for His children "All's Well That Ends Well!"

Michael Cain, editor