A book that was said to have inspired St. Thérèse the Little Flower and was described by her as one that plunged into her heart "all the great truths of religion" and a "happiness not of this earth" did so -- one might speculate -- through its description of saintliness, sanctification on earth, and the afterlife.

The book was published more than a hundred years ago -- in 1881 -- by a French priest, Father Charles Arminjon. It was actually a series of cathedral lectures that have been recovered from obscurity and translated, for the first time, in English [see previous article]. It is called The End of the Present World (and the Mysteries of the Future Life). We are offering it for discernment.

But the focus of the book's first 72 pages are the end of the world, the anti-christ, and the Second Coming, as indicated by the title of this tome, making its first-ever American appearance.

It's not clear how much of the book's speculation on the end times and its conceptions of the afterlife St. Thérèse accepted. Nor is it known to what extent it influenced her entry into a convent, as asserted by the researcher who recovered the manuscript (the saint's sister had preceded her into religious life). But it seems to have had a profound effect. She called the book "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," she is quoted as saying.

What is clear is Father Arminjon's convictions about the end times begin on the book's first pages. Would the world last another hundred years, he wondered?

"Nations, too, like individuals, are destined one day to disappear," he said in a work first published around the time that Pope Leo XIII was warning about the apocalyptic rise of evil.

"The present world, precisely because it was created, necessarily tends toward its conclusion and end," he said, arguing that the finale would come with suddenness and fire -- after which would be a "transformation," a change of era to a "new and permanent order."

Father Arminjon reminds us that "providence has ordained that this day should not be known, and that nobody shall succeed in discovering it until it actually arrives," stating up front, in the book, that he would "steer clear of every perilous opinion, relying neither upon dubious revelations nor upon apocryphal prophecies, and making no assertion that is not justified by the doctrine of the Fathers and of Tradition."

But the priest then dove into the deepest waters of the prophetic -- discussing premonitory signs and indications of the apocalypse, some of which are unnervingly reflective of recent times.

"How will that great transformation be effected? What will be the conditions and the new form of our earth when, after it has been destroyed and completely transfigured by fire, it will no longer be watered by the sweat of man, and will have ceased to be the troubled, blood-stained arena of our strife and passions?" asked Father Arminjon.

"There shall be one continuous day, known to the Lord, not day and night, for in the evening there shall be light," he claims, adding that distinctive signs will precede this -- "not just calamities and revolutions in the stars (as have happened at all times), but events of a public character, pertaining to both the religious and the social order, which mankind cannot fail to perceive."

The final catastrophe -- stated this writer who was so admired by the Little Flower -- will take place when the world is at its "zenith," when it feels most rich and secure, when markets are "overflowing with money and government stocks will never have been higher," when "mankind, wallowing in an unprecedented material prosperity, will have ceased to hope for Heaven.

"Crudely attached to the basest pleasures of life," he warned, "men, like the miser in the Gospel, will say, 'My soul, you possess goods to last for many years. Eat, drink, and be merry.'"

Overflowing with money. Government stocks will never have been higher.

It is a bit of a jolt. Like all prophetic speculation, we have to pray and weigh it. Is it an accurate reckoning of Scripture? And does the reference to extravagance pertain to a future time or to the profligate era that may now be passing?

"[The catastrophe] will come at a time when the human race, sunk in the uttermost depths of indifference, will be far from thinking about punishment and justice," he says, adding that when Divine Mercy ends, "the Antichrist will have appeared."

Again, it is offered for discernment. Many are those with varied interpretations. Father Arminjon believed that the chastisement would come "amidst the darkness, and at that fateful midnight hour."

He relates what will occur to how, in the Middle Ages -- during the last great chastisements -- the whole valley where the present town of Chambéry, France, is now located (scene of the sacrilegious plundering of a monastery), "suddenly, in an instant, the earth was shaken by  a tremendous shock. Sky and ground seemed to be shaken by horrible whirlwinds, voices, and howling of storms, which you would have thought came from the caverns of hell; and, before the guests could rise to their feet, before they could utter a cry for help, they were buried alive beneath the collapsing mass of a gigantic mountain: one town, five hamlets, and a whole region of six thousand inhabitants were engulfed in chasms."

That was on November 24, 1248. It was the collapse of Mount Granier. A foretaste? The great plague would soon strike.

The cathedral where Father Arminjon gave his lectures?

[Next: anti-christ]

[resources: The End of the Present World and The Final Hour]

[see also: Mystery book 'endorsed' by St. Thérèse on 'end time' makes first U.S. appearance]

[Tampa retreat with Michael Brown: afterlife, prophecy, preparing for times]