The Anti-Christ Will Come after THESE 2 Things Happen
The Anti-Christ Will Come after THESE 2 Things Happen
The wood-paneled office of the rectory was silent save for the rhythmic, metallic ticking of an old grandfather clock. Outside, the May afternoon had dissolved into a gray, heavy fog that blanked out the Hudson Valley, turning the trees into pale, ghostly shapes. Inside, the single green-shaded desk lamp cast a pool of amber light over scattered books, dynamic blueprints of pastoral plans, and two teacups that had long since gone cold.
Father Julian sat with his chin resting in his hands, his eyes fixed on a glowing laptop screen. The screen displayed a popular online forum where parishioners were anxiously trading survival strategies—lists of solar generators, dried food freeze-pack suppliers, and map coordinates for deep-woods bunkers. The digital air was thick with panic. For months, the news cycles of 2026 had been filled with geopolitical instability, collapsing financial markets, and systemic talk of a coming global surveillance network. To the laypeople of St. Jude’s, it felt like the shadow of the Antichrist was actively stretching across the modern world.
The heavy oak door swung open, and Father Thomas entered. He looked tired, his cassock slightly damp from the fog. He glanced at Julian, noting the tight, white-knuckled grip the younger priest had on the edge of his desk.
“You’re reading the survivalist boards again, Julian,” Thomas said, his voice dropping into its usual calm, grounded register. He walked over to the bookshelf, pulling down a thick, leather-bound volume with yellowed pages. “You look like a man who expects the electrical grid to fail by nightfall.”
“Look at what they’re saying, Thomas,” Julian said, turning the screen toward him. “Good, devout Catholics are spending thousands of dollars prepping for an apocalypse. They’re terrified. They think the beast is at the door, and they’re building walls of canned goods to protect themselves. Honestly? Part of me doesn’t blame them. The anxiety in the air is suffocating.”
Thomas set the heavy volume on the desk, right over Julian’s notebook. The title on the spine read Scivias, authored by the 12th-century mystic and Doctor of the Church, Saint Hildegard of Bingen.
“If you want to move from intense anxiety to absolute peace right now about the future coming of the Antichrist,” Thomas said, pulling up a chair, “then you need to close the web browsers and look at what the true mystics have actually revealed. Specifically, Hildegard and Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerick. They give us two crystal-clear signs that will precede his arrival—and their advice on how to prepare is the exact opposite of what your survivalists are doing.”
The Untouched Sanctuary
Julian closed his laptop, the blue light fading from his face. “What kind of signs?”
“The fathers and mystics of the Church tell us a reality that our modern scientific minds completely ignore,” Thomas began, leaning forward into the warm lamplight. “They reveal that the Terrestrial Paradise—the literal Garden of Eden—was never destroyed. It still exists right now, in all its pristine, original beauty, entirely untouched by the historic waters of the global deluge. We simply lost physical access to it after the Fall.”
Julian blinked. “Eden? Still on earth?”
“Yes, but mystically sealed,” Thomas explained. “When Adam and Eve were expelled, Saint Hildegard saw that a massive wall of pure, blinding light was raised around it, and the divine power erased every single mark of human sin from its soil. God fortified it so that no earthly enemy or corrupted technology could ever reach it. And within that hidden sanctuary, two historical figures are currently waiting: Enoch and Elijah.”
Thomas flipped open the volume of Hildegard’s visions, running his finger along the Latin text. “The scriptures tell us they were transported away from the ordinary world without dying. Why? To await the specific hour of the Antichrist. When the beast finally manifests his global deception, these two witnesses will literally emerge from the mystically sealed Garden of Eden. They will reappear upon the earth to preach openly to the nations and announce the word of salvation to the Jews. That is your first infallible sign.”
“People look at the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation as a metaphor for the Church’s preaching,” Julian noted, his theological training kicking in.
“Modernists take it metaphorically because they lack the faith to believe in extraordinary physical miracles,” Thomas countered directly. “But Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerick, writing nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, confirms Hildegard’s literal vision. Enoch and Elijah are in paradise right now. Because of the state of original justice that preserves that place, they have no need for corporal food. Hildegard writes that just as a soul wrapped in deep, ecstatic contemplation of God has no necessity for mortal things while in that state, these men are sustained entirely by the pristine vitality of Eden.”
Thomas tapped the table for emphasis. “Think about the implications, Julian. The plants, the trees, the very atmosphere of Eden belong to a higher order of matter—elevated as far above our current degraded earth as the uncorrupted body of Adam was superior to our fallen posterity. Yet, it remains a physical, material place connected to our human nature and to the earth itself. In fact, Hildegard reveals that the earth actually receives its supreme vitality from paradise, like a body receiving life from its soul. The corruption of our sin cannot entirely choke out that beneficial, hidden influence.”
The Illusion of Material Prepping
Julian looked out the window at the fog-covered cemetery. “Alright, so Enoch and Elijah return. That’s a spectacular public sign. But how does that relieve the anxiety of a father who is currently hoarding grain in his basement because he’s afraid his children will starve under a global totalitarian regime?”
“Because it exposes the absolute futility of anxious storing,” Thomas said, his tone sharpening with a helpful, peer-like directness. “Look at how the secular world and many modern Christians prepare for future catastrophes. You see it on television shows about doomsday preppers. They focus entirely on earthly infrastructure—hoarding food, stockpiling medicine, setting up advanced security fences. And what happens? Every single system has a hole. Your food eventually rots or runs out. Your security fence has a blind spot. Your medicine expires.”
Thomas leaned closer. “If the descriptions of the Antichrist are true, he will control the global systems—the food distribution, the electricity, the security grids. There is absolutely nothing you can build on a purely material, earthly level that can withstand that level of systemic power. Anxious hoarding is a symptom of a lack of faith. It assumes that your survival depends on your own cleverness.”
“Then what is the alternative?” Julian asked. “Starvation?”
“The alternative is to store up heavenly treasures through the exact two things the mystics tell us we must do: sufferings and privation,” Thomas said clearly. “Anne Catherine Emmerick notes that baptismal innocence actually confers a hidden, mystical right to the extraordinary privileges that Adam possessed before the Fall. Look at the great saints. They had access to the original gifts of human nature—healing, bilocation, levitation, infused knowledge, and the ability to survive without eating. God wills to restore these gifts to His elect in times of severe trial to renew the spirit of faith.”
Thomas gestured toward the glowing lamp. “Think of Padre Pio or Saint Catherine of Siena. They survived for years consuming nothing but the Holy Eucharist. If God bestows the mystical gift of spiritual sustenance upon you, will you care if the grocery store shelves are empty? Will you care if the global supply chain collapses? No. You will need absolutely nothing from their system. But those material and spiritual favors of paradise are not given to the comfortable. They are merited as a recompense for fidelity—merited specifically through intentional suffering and voluntary privation now.”
Treasures from the Storehouse
Julian shifted in his chair, processing the radical shift in perspective. “You’re saying that instead of seeking comfort and storing up junk, we should be intentionally depriving ourselves to spiritualize our souls?”
“Precisely,” Thomas said. “Man, even while living in this fallen flesh, can be conducted to the spiritual borders of paradise, and its supernatural fruits are brought to him through pain and self-renunciation. The path to those heights is open only to those who have been refined in the fire of affliction. Let me show you an example.”
Thomas reached for a second historical text on his desk, flipping to a bookmarked chapter on the life of Saint Lidwina of Schiedam, the great 15th-century Dutch mystic whose entire life was a monument to intense physical suffering.
“It is recorded that a very virtuous woman who was a prey to the deepest, most suffocating melancholy came to Lidwina begging for her spiritual help,” Thomas recounted. “Lidwina received her with profound kindness and promised her relief. A few days later, through the efficacy of Lidwina’s intense prayers and offered sufferings, this poor, depressed woman was mystically admitted with Lidwina into the Terrestrial Paradise.”
Julian watched Thomas, captivated by the historical narrative.
“Even surrounded by the breathtaking wonders of Eden, the poor woman could not stop weeping and lamenting her earthly sorrows,” Thomas continued. “So, Lidwina led her to a specific locality within paradise that seemed to serve as a mystical storehouse for the entire world. Inside this region were supernatural perfumes, health-giving spices, and celestial healing herbs. The moment the woman was exposed to them, her melancholy was instantly cured. She was so inundated with celestial consolations that for several days afterward, her body was so perfectly sustained that she could not bear even the smell of ordinary earthly food. Her sickness was completely erased by a material favor from Eden.”
“And that was a direct result of Lidwina’s voluntary embrace of her own cross,” Julian whispered.
“Yes,” Thomas said. “The cure for the anxieties and sicknesses of our age exists in that untouched realm, and we unlock access to it through the currency of sacrifice. Look at Saint Colette, the great reformer of the Poor Clares. It is a verified historical fact that during the entire season of Lent, she abstained completely from food, accepting nothing but a few crumbs of bread. She had a profound, burning reverence for the Holy Cross and ardently longed for a physical piece of the true wood upon which Christ died.”
Thomas smiled, his eyes alight with the wonder of the miracle. “Her extreme privation was miraculously gratified. A small, golden cross—not made by the hand of man, but a natural, unblemished production containing an authentic particle of the True Cross—was brought directly to her from the Garden of Paradise by an angel. Colette carried that heavenly relic on her person for the rest of her life. Traditional histories say it came from heaven, but Anne Catherine Emmerick clarifies the reality: it was heavenly in its origin, but it was drawn directly through the material reality of the Terrestrial Paradise.”
The True Strategy for the Future
The grandfather clock struck four, its deep chimes echoing through the quiet rectory. The fog outside had begun to lift slightly, revealing the solid, unchanging stone architecture of the church building.
Julian looked down at his laptop, then back at the ancient texts sitting on his desk. The paralyzing anxiety that had gripped him all morning had been replaced by a strange, sharp clarity.
“So the fear is a lie,” Julian said, his voice steadying. “The panic over digital currencies, food shortages, and political shifts—it’s all based on the assumption that we are trapped inside the enemy’s sandbox.”
“We are never trapped, Julian,” Thomas said firmly. “When the Antichrist arrives, his system will appear absolute to those who rely on earthly infrastructure. But to the devout, practicing, sacrificial Catholic, his power will be a joke. The two signs will be unmistakable: the public, miraculous return of Enoch and Elijah from Eden, and their subsequent conversion of the Jewish people. You won’t need an internet connection or a survivalist newsletter to know what’s happening. It will be as clear as the sun in the sky.”
Thomas stood up, closing Saint Hildegard’s book and placing it back on the shelf. “Therefore, our preparation must not look like the preparation of the world. We don’t need to buy property in the mountains or hide boxes of freeze-dried rations. We need to keep our baptismal innocence unsullied. We need to intentionally practice self-denial, fasting, and voluntary privation right now. We need to choose the fire of affliction voluntarily today, so that our souls become spiritualized. That is how we obtain the spiritual armor and the material favors of Eden that will make us completely untouchable.”
Julian stood up as well, closing his laptop and sliding it into his bag. He felt a profound sense of relief—a total, absolute peace regarding the future. The unknown days ahead were no longer a terrifying abyss of survivalism, but a structured spiritual battlefield where the weapons had already been forged centuries ago.
“I think I need to change the topic of my sermon for this Sunday,” Julian said, a confident smile appearing on his face. “No more talks on navigating cultural anxiety. We’re going to talk about Saint Hildegard, Saint Colette, and the absolute necessity of mortification.”
“Good,” Thomas said, walking him toward the door. “Teach them to stop storing up earthly junk that will only rot. Teach them to store up the treasures of paradise. If our people learn to fast and suffer with Christ now, they will have everything they need, no matter who holds the keys to the kingdoms of this world.”
