That it will happen when it happens.

From the earliest days of the Church there where those who predicted the return of Jesus in their own lifetimes. There is nothing new with people predicting the end.

What the Catholic Church has taught from the earliest days is that you must seek to keep your soul in a state of preperation for the end. None of us know when our lives will end on this earth, but we do know they will. Be it at the end of the world, or our own individual end, it will come.

St. Paul warned of the danger of these predictions as in the early Church there where those who stopped working, and became a burden on the Christian community, as they lazed away the days waiting for Jesus, rather than working to support the poor, and contribute to the common good.

I remember in my childhood a local Protestant Minister who preached what the date would be, his congregation sold or mortgaged their property, gave all the money to spreading the word, and the Minister ran off with the funds. This was some 35 years ago, and it was nothing new then….

While Nostradamus works are not “Inspired” or “Biblical”, one can see how many times the reading of his works is dependant on what the reader wants to see. Most readers of Nostradamus, and books that print his “Prophecies” include what he could have been correct about. However what they omit are the numerous writings that in no way reflect anything that has happened over time. I can guess at what will happen over the next ten years, if you ask me for 1,000 predictions, and ten years from now we go back, and I only point out the one or even ten percent of correct guesses I made, I could be made to look like an equal of Nostradamus.

During the 1940’s and 50’s there where a couple of “Seers” Criswell, had a radio and TV program, he predicted a coupld of things that came about, but then again people don’t talk about his predictions that we would have flying cars in the 1980’s and that a race of lizard people would be found living below the streets of Los Angeles.

The way people support Nostradamus by only picking his correct, or ambiguous predictions is an example of how a person can read what he wants to into the Bible, and ignore other large portions of the Bible that disprove his points. We have had more than one person here who would isolate texts and make them sound as if they supported his positions, when in fact he ignored the entire text within the context of Bible. He continues on in other places on the Internet today. I just read one of his postings elsewhere today where he distorts Authentic Catholic Teaching, omits proper exlanations, and by making selective quotes bereft of context he pollutes the minds of both Non-Catholics and of Catholics who are not well instructed in the Faith.