The LORD addressed Job out of the storm and said:
“Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning
and shown the dawn its place
for taking hold of the ends of the earth,
till the wicked are shaken from its surface?”
(Job 38: 1, 12-13)
We thank you because your Son is to come again in majesty to
judge those who have refused to repent and acknowledge you;
while to all who have acknowledged you,
worshiped you, and served you in penitence, He will
say: Come, you blessed of my Father, take possession
of the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning
of the world.
—St. Francis of Assisi,The Prayers of Saint Francis,
Alan Name, Tr. © 1988, New City Press
THERE can be no doubt that the pontiffs of the last century have been exercising their prophetic office so as to awaken believers to the drama unfolding in our day (see Why Aren’t the Popes Shouting?). It is a decisive battle between the culture of life and the culture of death… the woman clothed with the sun—in labor to give birth to a new era—versus the dragon who seeks to destroy it, if not attempt to establish his own kingdom and “new age” (see Rev 12:1-4; 13:2). But while we know Satan will fail, Christ will not. The great Marian saint, Louis de Montfort, frames it well: