The End Of The Present World And The Mysteries Of The Future Life by Father Charles Arminjon

Paperback: Reading this was one of the greatest graces of my life. I read it at the window of my study, and the impression I received from it is too intimate and too sweet for me to express... All the great truths of religion, the mysteries of eternity, plunged my soul into a happiness not of this earth... - St Thérèse of Lisieux

All things pass. Glory fades. Nature groans in labour. The day of the Lord is coming and with it will come the end of the entire created order.

And yet so many of live with our eyes fixed on this passing world only, rather than on the everlasting world to come. Preoccupied with earthly pleasures and cares, we ignore our eternal destiny.

This was no less true in the late nineteenth century, when Father Charles Arminjon, a priest from the mountains of southeastern France, assembled his flock in the town cathedral to preach a series of conferences to help them turn their thoughts away from this life's mean material affairs - and toward the next life's glorious spiritual reward.

His wise and uncompromising words deepened in them the spirit of recollection that all Christians must have: the abiding conviction that heavenly aims, not temporal enthusiasms, must guide everything we think, say, and do.

When Father Arminjon's conferences were later published in a book, many others were able to reap the same benefit - including fourteen-year-old Thérèse Martin, then on the cusp of entering the Carmelite convent in Lisieux. Reading it, she says, "plunged my soul into a happiness not of this earth." Young Thérèse, filled with a sense of "what God reserves for those who love Him, and seeing that the eternal rewards had no proportion to the light sacrifices of life," copied out numerous passages and memorized them, "repeating unceasingly the words of love burning in my heart."

Now the very book that so inspired the Little Flower is available for the first time in English. Let the pages of The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life fill you with the same burning words of love, with the same ardent desire to know God above all created things, that St Thérèse gained from them. Let them also enrich your understanding of certain teachings of the Faith that can often seem so mysterious, even frightening:

• the signs that will precede the world's end
• the coming of the Antichrist and how to recognise him
• the Judgment and where it may send us: heaven, hell and purgatory
• Biblical end-times prophecy: how to read it and not be deceived

Jesus commands us to be ever-watchful for his return, and ever-mindful that we have no lasting city on earth. The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life is an invaluable aid to inculcating in your spirit that heavenly orientation, without which true human happiness cannot be found - in this world or the next.

The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life was originally published in 1881 in French under the title Fin du Monde Présent et Mystères de la Vie Future.

The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life is translated from the French by Susan Conroy and Peter McEnerny.

About the author: Father Charles Arminjon (1824-1885) was a priest from the town of Chambéry in the French Alps. After years as a seminary professor, Father Arminjon took up the mission of full-time preacher, and he went on to gain great renown for his ability to inspire in his listeners a deeper and more ardent love for Christ. Throughout France and abroad he delivered sermons, ran retreats, and preached at conferences – the most famous of which form the basis for The End of the Present World.