111. God’s definitive victory over evil will be visible.

God’s definitive victory over evil will be visible.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 111

Ave Maria series

111  What will it be like when the world comes to an end?

When the world comes to an end, Christ comes—for all to see.  [675-677]

The Last Judgment, by Michelangelo (1541)...111

The dramatic upheavals (Luke 18:8, Matthew 24:3-14) that are foretold in Sacred Scripture—the wickedness that will be plainly manifest, the trials and persecutions that will put the faith of many to the test—these are only the dark side of the new reality:  God’s definitive victory over evil will be visible.  God’s glory, truth, and justice will stand out brilliantly.  With Christ’s coming there will be “a new heaven and a new earth”.  ‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).  164

…men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken… .  Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.  
Luke 21:26, 28

[675-677]

The Church's ultimate trial

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers (compare Luke 18:8; Matthew 24:12).⁵⁷⁴  The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth (compare Luke 21:12; John 15:19-20)⁵⁷⁵  will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh (compare 2 Thessalonians 2:4-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3; 2 John 1: 7; 1 John 2:18,22).⁵⁷⁶ —Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism (Compare Denzinger-Schönmetzer 3839)⁵⁷⁷, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism (Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, condemning the "false mysticism" of this "counterfeit of the redemption of the lowly"; compare Gaudium et Spes 20-21).⁵⁷⁸ –CCC

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection (compare Revelation 19:1-9)⁵⁷⁹.  The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven (compare Revelation 13:8; Rev 20:7-10; Rev 21:2-4)⁵⁸⁰.  God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world (compare Revelation 20:12; 2 Peter 3:12-13)⁵⁸¹. –CCC

Second Coming