Paperback: The Seven Ages of the Church (2021) is a translation taken from two works: a Commentary on the book of Apocalypse written by Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser (1613-1658) and a portion of the important two-volume work De Ecclesia, a seminal work of Ecclesiology, by Cardinal Louis Billot (1846-1931).
Both of these men write about the seven ages of the Church: these seven ages are the seven churches of Asia contained in Apocalypse 2-3. The letters to these seven churches unveil the strengths and weaknesses of each period in the Church's seven ages, culminating in the fearful persecution of the Antichrist.
In an age when many Catholics are discouraged, The Seven Ages of the Church is important in revealing the coming age of triumph in which the Catholic Church will attain its greatest age of triumph in this world, and Christ's kingship over the nations will be universally accepted.
Cover art is from the Apocalypse tapestries presently held in Angers Castle, France.
Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser - a German mystic to whom God had revealed events that were to transpire in the future - wrote in the 17th century while Cardinal Louis Billot did so in the early 20th century, yet both are remarkably similar in their descriptions of the various ages through which the Church would pass until the end of the world.
In this present time of confusion in the Church and world, much comfort can be gained by the promised triumph of the Church to come in the sixth age (we are presently in the midst of Modernism and Liberalism or the Fifth Age), an age that corresponds remarkably to the time of peace promised by Our Lady at Fátima.
About the translator: Father Marshall Roberts was ordained a Catholic priest in 1996. A native of Kentucky, Fr Roberts obtained a BA in Religion from Berea College before continuing to Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota. Later, he studied Medieval History at the University of Cambridge, UK.
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