Sunday Sermon

And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light.” Terrible are the signs of which today’s Gospel speaks as forerunners of the day of general judgment, the last day of the world. There shall he many such signs, some of which are to appear a long time beforehand, while others shall immediately precede the final catastrophe. Of the former class are those we have already known and experienced; such as the destruction of the Jewish nation: a people now without faith or king or commonwealth; the conversion of the heathens to the true religion, which has been already preached and accepted in all parts of the globe; the persecution of the Church by so many heretics as precursors of Antichrist; and besides these we have seen wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, the increase of wickedness and sin, men growing cold in the love of God, the want of reverence towards God in the churches and towards priests and spiritual superiors, and the fall of th