Was the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima a Warning for the End Times?

On October 13, 1917, Our Lady made her final visit to the Cova de Iria in Fatima, Portugal. She produced the promised miracle. Not only did the sun dance, but it appeared to plunge toward the earth. Many of the terrified witnesses dropped to their knees and began to confess their sins and make a fervent act of contrition. The sun did not hit the earth that day, it returned to its place in the sky. But was that solar event a warning that a future chastisement would come through the activity of the sun?

Is the "Twilight of Christian Civilization" upon us?

Pope Paul VI

I recently read an article in The Wanderer by Raymond de Souza, Our Responsibility to Defend the True Faith. He used several terms that struck a chord. First, he described the "historic moment" we are living in, as a "moment of apocalyptical magnitude: the twilight of Christian civilization." He went on to say, in the words of Pope Paul VI, that the Church has entered a "process of auto-demolition." It's ironic that the very pope who did so much to create the auto-demolition later lamented it. Physician, heal thyself, eh?

I have a hard time considering Pope Paul VI a saint. One good document, Humanae Vitae, published rather late into the push for approving contraception, does not a saint make, does it?

But must I call Pope Paul VI a saint? After reading Peter Kwasniewdki's article, Why We Need Not (and Should Not) Call Paul VI ‘Saint’, I think the answer is no. As he says, "The infallibility of canonizations is not taught by the Church, nor is it necessarily implied by any de fide doctrine of the Faith." He went on:

"Once in a Civilization Event...."

Will the 2013 "once in a civilization" comet herald the Second Coming next Christmas?

The last gigantic comet in 1680 didn't, but it sure gave folks a good scare:

[M]ost people throughout the civilized world, the learned as well as the multitude, feared that the end of all things was at hand. Every church in Europe, from the grandest cathedral to the humblest chapel, resounded with supplications, and in the province of New York a day of fasting and humiliation was appointed,in order that the wrath of God might be assuaged.

As Fr. Z says, "We could use more of that all the time and not just in moments of crisis."

Amen!

So all you faithful out there, imagine that the end of the world is coming tomorrow. If you do that every day, one day you will be right because the world will definitely come to end for each one of us even if we aren't here for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ on a cloud of heaven.

Pray for the grace of final perseverance. In the end, that's all that will matter.