Is The World About To End?

Are we at the End of Times?   Is the world about to end?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides us with a general order of events at the End [CCC 673-677]. Chronologically they are,

1. the full number of the Gentiles come into the Church

2. the "full inclusion of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of the full number of the Gentiles" (#2 will follow quickly on, in the wake of, #1)

3. a final trial of the Church "in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth." The supreme deception is that of the Antichrist.

4. Christ's victory over this final unleashing of evil through a cosmic upheaval of this passing world and the Last Judgment.

As Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) pointed out (in the context of the message of Fátima), we are not at the end of the world. In fact, the Second Coming (understood as the physical return of Christ) cannot occur until the full number of the Gentiles are converted, followed by "all Israel."

Approved Catholic mystics (Venerables, Blessed and Saints, approved apparitions) throw considerable light on this order, by prophesying a minor apostasy and tribulation toward the end of the world, after which will occur the reunion of Christians.

Only later will the entire world fall away from Christ (the great apostasy) and the personal Antichrist arise and the Tribulation of the End occur.

http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/endtimes.htm

See also:  Catholic View of the End Times and Tribulation:

http://taylormarshall.com/2015/01/062-catholic-view-end-times-tribulatoin.html