Jonathon Cahn has some interesting videos on YouTube. I gathered from one of them that when Jesus returns it will be in Israel. Do you think so?
It's understandably difficult for those Jews brought up with the Talmud to have a proper understanding of Catholicism, or Christianity in general. It would require a severe breach with many family members and friends. In this context, the graces accompanying it must be enormously powerful. Imagine the Power of Christ that will eventually lead to the final wholesale conversion of the Jews. I often wonder how many good Jews are converted on their deathbed? Death is a mystery and it is hard to define the final moment. A person might be deemed dead by all at his bedside, or other place of death, yet still not be quite there and experiencing one final 'assault' from Christ to see the light. The great Jewish anti-abortion journalist, Nat Hentoff, was a long-time professed atheist, but I read shortly after his death (it came through his daughters) that he had experienced several visions of God in his last illness. I personally would be confident that his atheism didn't stand a chance.
There is a really spooky place just outside Jerusalem called the Kedron Valley. It would make your hair stand on end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidron_Valley It runs from the Golden Gate to the Garden of Olives. Rich Jews pay a fortune to get buried there as Jewish Legend claims that at the Last Judgement those buried in the Kidron Valley will rise first. The Golden Gate is blocked up for when the Messiah comes he is supposed to enter Jerusalem through the Golden Gate and so many Christians believe that this is the way Jesus will enter. I suspect this is true https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...onflicts/0000017f-f45f-d5bd-a17f-f67f3d490000
There are going to be US soldiers on Israeli soil, with Russian and Turkish soldiers up the road in Syria. There are so many pieces falling into place. Taking into account Basto's meticulous detailing of the Russian assault on the Ukrainian Catholic Church and that Russia and Turkey can be plausibly identified as Gog and Magog, respectively, Ezekiel 38-39 makes interesting reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehenna this valley also must be so scary, its "hell on earth" (gehenna) where corpses were left to burn and rot in a time where burial was so important. Supposedly the "worm that dieth not" message was based on real worms who thrived on these unburied bodies
Sometimes, especially at certain Mysteries of the Rosary I wonder to myself; there are millions of Catholics all over the World praying and meditating on this very same mystery, I wonder if any other Catholics wander down the same weird track as myself? One Mystery were this is so in the Assumption of Mary, body and soul into heaven. I am always struck by the physical in this that her body went straight into heaven. I think often we concentrate on the spiritual and never think about the body. But one thing I noticed very much in the months after my conversion was the effects prayer was having on my body. I was so much more healthy , my body even felt lighter. It was as though I had lost ten years off my life. The thing about these mysteries which concentrate so very much on Mary is that they tell us so much about ourselves. For just as Mary went body and soul into heaven so too we, on the Last Day will go body and Soul there. So walking about the Kidron Valley reminds us of this. That one day our bodies really will rise from the dead and we will all go escorted by many angels to Jerusalem for the Last Judgement. Just imagine. Also if we go to Hell we'll actually take our bodies to Hell too. Imagine that.
It's so long since I heard a sermon about the Three Last things. When I was a child they used to preach about them quite a lot. https://slmedia.org/blog/deacon-structing-the-four-last-things Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell are what the Church refers to as the Last Things. Traditionally, they were preached about during Advent (as we begin to get all those readings about the end times), although I suspect most of us have never heard a homily about the Last Things.
I believe not till the end of the world. We are not there yet. What we are going through now is the end of an era.
Not Megiddo. Jesus will return to the Mount of Olives. That's the place where he proclaimed the Kingdom of God ((the Olivet discourse) and from which he ascended to Heaven. The Mount of Olives is higher than the Temple Mount. I'm not sure but I think that Megiddo is about 80 miles from Jerusalem. Here's what Jimmy Akin says about Armageddon: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-the-battle-of-armageddon . If I can find the charger for my Kindle, I'll probably buy his book on the Book of Revelation. It only costs $3.75.
I'm beginning to wonder whether Roy Shoeman ever fully converted. There were Syrian civilians killed in that Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy. The consulate was certainly part of the embassy compound and what the Israelis did was criminal. The Iranian retaliation resulted in no deaths and it wasn't a miracle. The Iranians had a back door agreement with the Americans that they would only strike military targets and the gave plenty of warning. They actually hit one of the most secure sites in Israel. Roy seems to believe that only Jewish lives mattee. I can see why Pope Francis needed to publish a document explaining Catholic teaching on human dignity. I didn't watch all the video. A couple of minutes was enough to exhaust my patience. Has he ever said anything about the sisters from Mother Teresa's order and the disabled people they care for in Gaza suffering from Israeli aggression or the two elderly Catholic women murdered by Israeli snipers? Lord help us from being influenced by those who use Sacred Scripture to gloss over evil.
I get where you are coming from regarding him, he is very much rooted in Jewish culture. The Catholic church is full of all kinds of people on many kinds of life journeys, so I try not to judge. Personally I don't agree with any kind of violence, regardless of where it is coming from. Yet I know that we as Christians will always experience violence. What I am more interested in is when Jesus comes back and think Roy's unique perspective might give some insight.
I fear that he is very much rooted in Jewish American culture and all that exceptionalism nonsense. We should be Catholic first. There's nothing wrong with nationalism or valuing our ethnicity but there's a limit to what we should be willing to tolerate in support of our nationalism. We saw what happened in Germany when they crossed that line with their belief in Aryan exceptionalism. That's a kind of pride which is the direct opposite of the virtue of humility. Quoting Pope Benedict: "....we have seen that the nucleus of Jesus' eschatological message includes a proclamation of the age of the nations, during which the Gospel must be brought to the whole world and to all people: only then can history attain its goal. " You can read part of what he said at this link: https://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources...holic/pope-benedict-xvi/b16-2011mar10gentiles The Gospel has yet to be brought to nearly half the people of the world. The Catechism tells us that there will be a great apostasy close to the end times. People who have never been converted cannot apostatise, yet we see Christians in secularised, formerly at least nominally Christian countries expecting Jesus to return because the apostasy has happened in their particular corner of the globe, and they try to fit Scripture to what they believe ought to happen. Some of them are even supporting genocide almost as though thry can summon Jesus to slay whatever or whomever they have decided is the Anti-Christ. I'm not inferring that you or anyone here is delusional but there is more than a hint of the delusional to what's appearing mostly on social media. It's like fortune telling with a religious twist. "The end is nigh" has always been a crowd puller and it seems to be click bait on social media.
