Cronus and Kairos
We are used to interpreting History and our reality from space and human times. For example, through Geopolitics and Geoculture, we try to explain the Cronus of events that have taken place since earthly times. However, in our analysis, we do not take much into account the kairos, that is, the opportune time, a precise moment designed from Heaven that manifests on earth, where God intervenes in the lives of men supernaturally and powerfully.
Recently, a Catholic priest questioned me with the following phrase: “May God’s purpose be fulfilled in your life. According to God’s time and plan, all his promises will be fulfilled. God has a plan for you, to make you happy “.
At that moment I thought that no promise or prophecy expressed through the Word of God is going to remain unfulfilled. Of course, it will be at the right time, at the time that God decides and according to the perfect plan that he has for our life, humanity, the world, and the entirety of his Creation.
Recently, a friend lent me Luis Eduardo López Padilla’s book “God’s Great Warning of the End of Times” in its 2002 edition. Due to its interest in relation to the previous reflections, I would like to summarize briefly what the author develops magnificently in the aforementioned book and share it, with the aim of giving – from the Christian worldview – some light and hope in these moments of confusion and general ignorance about the Times of God and his Plan for the history of humanity.
The Great Hope
We are closing an era in which humanity has turned its back on God, to open another time of a new era, that of peace with God. We are entering, therefore, a stage where the Mercy of the Creator is manifesting itself in an extraordinary way to give us the opportunity for an authentic personal and integral conversion. It is a period of Grace.
In this way, from our freedom, we have the opportunity to look at ourselves as we are, from the inside out. The Spirit of God in these moments wants to instruct all created souls and illuminate the current world that has become spiritually a desert.
We are facing a spiritual emergency much more significant and profound than the climate emergency, without wanting to detract from the importance of this latest natural phenomenon that seriously affects our Common Home, planet Earth.
We find ourselves, then, in a period that the Holy Scriptures call the End of Times, defined as the successive period of Grace, which is marked by the different stages of Revelation.
From the Christian worldview, the History of Salvation can be divided into different times that have occurred from Creation to the End of the World. And precisely at this moment in which we live, we are at the watershed of said history.
- Following López Padilla’s scheme, the Times and that Plan revealed by God would be the following:
- Paradise Times (Adam and Eve before Original Sin).
- Times of the Patriarchs (until Abraham).
- Times of Israel (until Jesus Christ).
- Fullness of Time (until the Ascension).
- Times of Nations (2,000 years of Christianity).
- End of Times (until the Parousia).
- Darkness
- Silence
- Great Tribulation
- Messianic Times (Kingdom of Christ on Earth).
- Times of the End of the World (Final Judgment).
The Times of God
1.Paradise times
Our first parents, Adam and Eve, lived in a state of original innocence and familiarity with God. In the Garden of Eden, peace reigned among all creatures, order and harmony among all Creation. There was eternal peace and perfect love.
However, the man and the woman broke their communion of friendship with their Creator. His conscience darkened by sin could no longer “see” God and his will remained fragile and weak.
God’s work was thus profaned by man’s original sin and the devil – the ancient serpent – began his reign by building a “world” of which he wants to be the prince and which is radically opposed to the Kingdom of God.
It was, therefore, necessary to save lost humanity and for God to turn his gaze toward his Creation. This work of Salvation, through the Son, who is Christ, the true God and Man, will be carried out progressively in the following stages of Grace
2.Times of the Patriarchs
The only Light of Faith that illuminates the men and women of this time is the mysterious announcement of a Woman who, through her Son, will crush the head of the ancient serpent (Genesis III, 15).
This is the time of the unknown God, in which deeply religious men of great spiritual stature will emerge who will guide man towards salvation and good (Abel, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek…). It is to Patriarch Abraham, father of all believers, to whom the Creator revealed himself as the Living and Eternal God.
3.Israel Times
Faith was born in the heart of Abraham and began to be a revealed Faith. God is no longer unknown, he is Someone who speaks to the heart of man, either directly or later, through the Prophets.
This Living God will shape the hearts of an entire people in the descendants of Abraham, the People of Israel.
This is the time of Revelation or Time of Promise, because for centuries we will wait for the fulfillment of the Promise centered on the mysterious and virginal birth of a child who will be the Messiah and whose destiny will be to defeat the Enemy of man, sin and death.
4.Fullness of Times
The Word of God became Man and lived among us. It is the Time of the Messiah. Jesus Christ, Lord and our God “by whom all things were made.” This is the time of fulfillment of the Promise.
The Messiah did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Jesus thus founds his one and only true Church, the New People of Israel.
5.Time of the Nations or of the Gentiles
As part of the Mystery of Evil, which has been at work since the beginning of Time, the People of Israel rejected the Messiah himself and handed him over to the Romans to be crucified.
Thus, as this Christ Messiah was rejected by Israel, the inheritance of the Promise passed to all other Peoples or Nations. That is, to all the Gentiles. Faith in Christ spread to the entire world.
6.End of Times
However, this time of nations is coming to an end. Although Christ already reigns in the world, he does not reign over all hearts. Christians await the Parousia or Second Coming of Jesus Christ to Earth in all His Glory.
The Nations, like Israel in their time, after having received the Light of Faith “have turned against God and against his Christ” (Psalm II and CX) allowing the Adversary – the ancient serpent who has now become a Dragon – extend all his empire and all his power by subjecting men to all kinds of slavery.
It is prophesied that in Christ’s combat against Antichrist, Jesus Christ will defeat his Adversary by casting him into outer darkness. Then the Messianic Times will begin.
But first, at the End of Time, the Darkness of Time must come first, then the Silence of Time and the Time of the Great Tribulation.
6.1 Dark Times
In this stage of History, man walks with his back to the Light. He goes so far into the darkness and becomes so accustomed to it that he is unable to recognize any Light.
Currently, it seems that we are already experiencing this stage based on the seemingly irresistible and vertiginous escalation of the Mystery of Evil in the world.
However, Christian hope awaits in this dark stage of the Times a Great Light offered to all men and women in the world. A profound grace that God will give to human beings for their purification and repentance with a view to his own conversion.
This “illumination of consciences” will be for everyone, since the world is so far from it that only with this illumination will some remember and others know what true life is in the Light of God. It will be God’s Great Warning to all men and women of good will. These are our times, therefore, of Mercy.
6.2 Times of the Great Silence
In the very heart of this Darkness of the Times, from the Christian worldview, the Time of Great Silence (Rev VIII, 1) will take place, which will result in the temporary suspension of all signs, apparitions and messages from Heaven, and, therefore, of supernatural origin.
It will be the hour in which the Light will be darkened and God will remain silent, analogous to the moment in which the Father remained silent before his Son on the cross and which led Jesus Christ to say, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”(Mt XXVII, 46). It will be the hour of the power of darkness.
In this way, every man and woman will be at the mercy only of the Light of his Faith and the memory of his heart, thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit.
6.3 Times of the Great Tribulation
These are the Times of the Wrath and Wrath of the Lord mentioned by the prophet Daniel and in Revelation VII, 14. In those Times, all instincts and passions will be given free rein that degenerate into corruption until the Abomination of Desolation that is revealed. will be introduced into the Holy Temple of God itself (Dan IX, 27).
Then, the Mystery of Iniquity, of which Saint Paul speaks (Thessalonians II,3) will reach its maximum evil plenitude.
It is this Time of the Great Tribulation “which has not existed since the beginning of the universe that God created until now, nor will there ever be” (Mt. XXIV, 21) the Antichrist will reign with his False Prophet for “a Time, Times and a half Time” (Dan VII, 25).
Trinidad SatánicaIt will be in this dramatic combat where all the angelic powers will confront the evil forces – on an eschatological level – as well as a combat between men who follow God and those who reject him – on the historical level – and this combat will drag in their various phases to the entire universe, that is, both spiritual realities and natural elements.
7.Messianic Times
Finally, the last stage of the history of Salvation will come. These Messianic Times were also called by the ancient prophets as: the New Jerusalem, the Celestial Jerusalem, the Civilization of Love, New Heavens and New Earth, the Reign of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, etc.
Those times will be a Time of Grace never known since Creation. From this Christian worldview, Christ will reign not only in hearts, but in society itself as a whole.
That is, the “world” as a profane reality and opposed to God, will no longer exist. The “spirit of the world” rebels against divine laws, will be defeated and preeminent place will be left to the Holy Spirit who will once again make all things sacred.
It is the Time of the recapitulation of all things in Christ. Times of restoration and reconstruction of the New Creation.
God has created the perfect world, with moral and material perfection.“God saw that the world was good” (Gen. I, 31). Evil was not at the beginning, but later, although very soon in History and Time.
Unlike Good, Evil is spectacular and destructive. This combat is carried out by the Adversary of Christ on the terrain where all human existence takes place, which, moreover, is at stake. However, according to the Christian worldview, in the end Christ establishes his Kingdom of Peace and Holiness and manifests the Victory of his Cross.
In my opinion, it is in this period where we must place the prophecy of Fatima, in which the Blessed Virgin announces to us that: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” Our Lady also announces to us that, later, a long period of Peace will begin.
It is beautiful to imagine how the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary remain united, radiating multiple thanks to the hearts of human beings, in that Reign of Love restored in Christ.
8.End of the World Times
At the end of that long period of peace, prosperity and spiritual and material prosperity, the end of all human time will come, that is, the End of the World, the Final Judgment and the beginning of Eternal Life.
Final reflection
Many times we do not know how to read the Times and the Plan of God in our lives and in the development of the historical stage in which we have had to live our existence.
It is important to be aware of both Cronus and Kairos in the mysterious happening of the Divine Plan.
From the Christian worldview, we could summarize the Times and Plan of God through the timeless and infinite action of the Holy Trinity.
Holy TrinityThe Times of the Father are those of the Creation of the Divine Thought that has made everything. That is, the Times of Faith.
The Times of the Son are those of the Redemption of the Love of the Father expressed in the Man God. That is, the Times of Hope.
The Times of the Holy Spirit are those of the Sanctification of Love poured out on the world. That is, the Times of Charity.
Keeping this vision of history and evolution in mind can be useful for us to once again give meaning and purpose to our lives integrated into a narrative account of human history and in the History of Salvation itself. In this way we can understand that God’s Times are perfect.
(*) Article published in Frontiere. Geocultura Magazine on February 16, 2020.
