How much of 'signs of the times' do you want to understand?
What would you think if someone told you that ...
-- In less than ten years, civil wars will rage in several European nations?
-- By the year 2050, many of the magnificent cathedrals and holy places of Europe, including Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, will be either destroyed or remade into mosques?
-- Massive riots will destroy the existing infrastructure of countries like France, Belgium, Denmark and perhaps even Great Britain?
Fairly unsettling predictions, don't you think? Are these the words of a great Catholic mystic? Perhaps a few of the "secrets" revealed to the seers of Medjugorje?
No. Just a small part of the warnings from Mark Steyn, a Canadian humorist-turned-political observer, describing what he details in full in his new book, "American Alone: The End of Civilization As We Know It," currently riding in 4th place at Amazon.com.
Steyn says that a combination of factors have combined to lead to an almost inevitable future for much of the West. Included are low birthrates (a combination of the contraceptive and abortion mentalities rampant in practically every nation that used to call itself Christian); generous or non-existent immigration policies in which large subcultures of peoples who do not share the cultural, legal or religious norms of their host countries; politically correct policies which treat all beliefs and cultures as essentially equal, thus insuring that there is no required assimulation of newcomers into the culture, language or mores of their new countries; and perhaps most damning of all, many Western countries have populations that no longer practice their Christian faith.
At the heart of the matter, as you may have guessed, is the resumption of the old conflict between Islam and the rest of the "infidel" world, only instead of battering at Europe with scimitar-wielding armies on horseback or riding on ships from the Caliphate, the new conquest of Europe is being accomplished from within, The result is a recipe for a disaster, if not of biblical proportions, at least those witnessed during the worst days of the Second World War.
As we said, pretty grim stuff. Perhaps you would feel better if these predictions were the locutions of a religious mystic. Then you would feel justified in ignoring them?
Jesus marvelled at His apostles for their inability to understand "the signs of the times." "You know that when the wind blows from the west, it will rain," he said. "You know that when it blows in from the desert, it will be dry. How can you not, then, know the signs of the times?" Nearly 2,000 years later, in the so-called information age where almost no falling tree in a forest goes unnoticed, we still choose to ignore the obvious. We give no more credence to secular prophets than we would religious ones.
Will devastation such as this shot of Dresden from WWII come again to Europe?
What matters is how we work and how we pray, the latter being the more powerful tool upon which we can rely to invoke God's mercy -- as infinitely compassing as His justice -- and intercession. No prophetic scenario, secular or spiritual, is necessarily etched in the stone of time if God so chooses. That is a portion of the good news that we must not forget. The other is that the end of the story of humanity's battle against evil has already been revealed to us. God wins! No matter what happens between now and the last tick of the Divine clock, whether it's a day or a thousand years, our best course is to not to ask God to be on our side, but to make certain we are on His!
God's saving grace should allow the faithful to face the uncertainties of the future with confidencel, even when the "signs of the times" persuade the worldly to fret and worry or, as is most common, to ignore the signs, make no preparations, attempt no prayers, live in the moment and pretend that nothing is amiss. That is not the role of a committed Christian. We are to always assume that "the time is short" and that there are souls to be saved, a Church to continue to build even as we suspect the very foundations of the world as we have known it are being shaken by spiritual battles we cannot begin to conceive.
