Is there a reason to fear suffering before it happens? In some ways doings so means twice the suffering (in anticipation and reality) and perhaps make it worse that it would have been if preparations had been made in prudence and patience.
What do we know?
We know that there will be a great apostacy and ask is this it? Don't think the current ignorance meets the definition. So we have to wait and see and not follow the crowd leaving the Catholic Church.
We know that there will be wars and ask is the Ukraine it? Don't think so, but it could be the start. However, in the past 40 years I've watched various conflicts that 'could have been it' yet fizzled out. So we have to wait and see and not follow the media (whatever their affiliation) in chasing the latest fad.
I can go on, but it comes down to "wait and see", act prudently, patiently, and for the rest place your trust in Divine Providence.
P^3
The Apostles of the End Times
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort gives to those who consecrate themselves completely and utterly to the Mother of God in the end times a special name, “Apostles of the end times”, and he describes the manner of their response, their qualities and the disposition of their hearts.
In doing so he is quite aware of the role of Our Lady in the final battle. It is a question of mankind’s return to God in a particular hour of human history, namely the last hour.
Jesus’ discourses about the parousia, various passages in the epistles, and especially the Book of Revelation disclose these times to us as the apotheosis of Satan’s power, his last rebellion.
In the midst of the seemingly total victory of the Adversary appears the “King of kings, the Lord of lords”, who brings about the final victory, who immediately inaugurates the Last Judgment and eternity.
It is only logical if Our Lady is the way by which God comes down to us, she is also the way by which we return to God, and most important stage of this journey is certainly the final one.
The first mark of the true Christian in the end time is the apostolic spirit. In Fatima the Mother of God herself trained the little children to be apostles by snatching them away from their “private” personal religious life and placing them in the midst of the greatest concerns for souls, for the Church and for the whole world.
Two hundred years earlier St. Louis-Marie foresaw how the “servants, slaves and children of Mary” would go out into the world to preach True Devotion to Mary and thus crush the head of the devil. “They will be like thunderclouds, which fly abroad at the slightest breath of the Holy Ghost so as to shower down the rain of God’s word and of eternal life.”
This mission as knights and apostles of the Immaculata takes shape concretely as participation in the final struggle, the decisive battle in the end times between the devil and the Immaculata, who crushes the devil’s head. The “plunder” that is at stake consists of souls.
Not by accident did Mary show the children of Fatima a vision of hell and the souls that go there as though in a whirlwind. The whole message of Fatima is a mother’s cry of alarm, which shows her children the great danger and tries to save them from it.
The apparition on July 13 describes the apotheosis, the almost total victory of Satan through his accomplices, the materialistic atheism that rules the world. Opposing this is the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the sole escape given by God and the sure victory.
St. Louis-Marie clearly points out that this battle is a terrible one: “Lastly, Mary must become as terrible as an army in battle array [Canticle of Canticles 6:3] to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times. For Satan, knowing that he has little time [Apocalypse 12:12]—even less than ever—to destroy souls, intensifies his efforts and his onslaughts every day.
“He will not hesitate to stir up savage persecutions and set treacherous snares for Mary’s faithful servants and children whom he finds more difficult to overcome than others. It is chiefly in reference to these last wicked persecutions of the devil, daily increasing until the advent of the reign of anti-Christ, that we should understand that first and well-known prophecy and curse of God uttered against the serpent in the garden of paradise: ‘I will place enmities between you and the woman’.”
For this reason, the apostles of the Mother of God will be a sign of contradiction: “They will bring to the poor and the lowly everywhere the sweet fragrance of Jesus, but they will bring the odor of death to the great, the rich and the proud of this world.
“They will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God’s word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life or for death they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God’s word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God.”
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