The corruption of the world is drawing to an end

Dear Brothers,

The corruption of the world is almost palpable…  

Commenting on Chapter 24 of the Prophet Isaias (in which Isaias foretold of the global apostasy that would exist at the first coming of the Messias),  Dom Guéranger wrote the following over 150 years ago in The Liturgical Year (Vol. I, 191-192).  His final remark here is what caught my eye; it expresses the real horror of apostasy:

“Thus was the earth in desolation when the Messias came to deliver and save it.  So diminished, so decayed, were truths among the children of men that the human race was bordering on its ruin.  The knowledge of the true God was becoming rarer as the world got older; idolatry had made everything in creation an object of its adulterous worship. The practical result of a religion which was but gross materialism, was frightful immorality.  Man was forever at war with man, and the only safeguards of what social order still existed in the world were the execrable laws of slavery and extermination.  Among the countless inhabitants of the globe, a mere handful could be found who were seeking God; they were [as Isaias had foretold] as rare as the olives that remain after careful plucking, or as grape bunches after the vintage is ended….”  

Guéranger continues:

“Now all this will happen again when the time draws near of the second Coming of the Messias.  The earth will once more be filled with desolation, and mankind will be again a slave of its self-degradation.  The ways of men will again grow corrupt; and this time the malice of their evil will be the greater, because they will have received Him who is the Light of the world, the Word of Life.  A profound sadness will sit heavy on all nations, and every effort for their well-being will seem paralyzed.  They, and the earth they live on, will be conscious of decrepitude.  And yet, it will never once strike them that the world is drawing to an end..."

Lee Ann