Pay Attention to the Signs of the Times! Pray to Persevere.

Matthew 24 offers a sobering picture of our era, perhaps of every era since they are all filled with both environmental, cultural, and spiritual challenges. We would do well to behave as if we were in the end times because, in the hour of death, we all are all in the end times. 

And when he was sitting on mount Olivet, the disciples came to him privately, saying: Tell us when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the consummation of the world?

4And Jesus answering, said to them: Take heed that no man seduce you:

5For many will come in my name saying, I am Christ: and they will seduce many.

CNS photo Paul Haring

Fr. James Martin and Cardinal Blase Cupich, seducers in clerics!

6And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not troubled. For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 

Ukraine - Russia War: Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians

War in Ukraine: members of Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion

and there shall be pestilences, plagues,

China lab created coronavirus ‘10,000-times stronger than usual’ as fears rage over Wuhan ‘leak’, scientists warn

Plague of grasshoppers and crickets in the West

and famines, 

Unprecedented European drought dries up rivers, kills fish, shrivels crops

Global Famine to Plague the Earth from 2022-2024

and earthquakes in places: 

Dozens of "significant earthquakes" around the globe in 2022

8Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows.

 (Mark 13:10-13; Luke 21:10-19)

9Then 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. 

Persecution of the Church in America

10And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and shall hate one another. 

11And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. 12And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold. 

13But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come.

And a final scripture passage:

Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a kingdom. Luke 12:32

Christ the King, Lord of the Universe, have mercy on us.