Fr. Valentín Aparicio, Vice Chancellor of the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Toledo (Spain) and an expert in biblical archeology, points out that not understanding the Apocalypse is like missing the last chapter of a Netflix series.
Known as @curadetoledo In his social networks followed by thousands of users, Fr. Aparicio has recently published the work entitled “Survival manual for last times. Decoding the apocalypse”, Which in just two and a half months since its publication is already in the fourth edition.
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During a recent presentation in a central library in Madrid, Fr. Valentín brought together dozens of people who, from an hour before the start of the event, asked him to dedicate their specimens.
At the beginning of his exhibition, in which he was accompanied by the influencers Catholics Ana and Casilda Finat (@Anifin y @casildafinatmc), Fr. Valentín, after invoking the Holy Spirit, asked the attendees:
“What would you think of a person who has seen a whole season of Netflix, of those long, and only has to see the last chapter?” Without understanding that last episode, which is the Apocalypse, he argued, the Christians were “without placing the culmen to the Bible.”
In conversation with ACI Press, Fr. Valentín explained about the Apocalypse: “While our western mentality is rather analytical,” the semi -eastern mentality in which it was written by San Juan “uses a lot of colors, geographical locations, numbers, a symbolic universe that we, for living a very pragmatic culture, we have lost.”
This is the reason why Fr. Valentín has published this reflection, with the aim of helping to decipher the last chapter of this “series.” However, that is not the only difficulty that its reading presents: many associate the apocalypse with catastrophes, an interpretation that he considers wrong.
“Apocalypse, literally in Greek, means revelation,” the presbyter dates. That is, my natural knowledge capacity has a limit and then God reveals something to understand history. Because? Because the sense of history and the sense of evil and how the devil acts, all that is beyond my ability to reason. And then God reveals it to me. ”
Beyond its revealing dimension – as a key chapter of the history of salvation that should not generate fear – the apocalypse also contains a series of important warnings.
The author explains that “the Apocalypse tells us that we have to prepare”, not necessarily for the end of the world – “because nobody knows when it will happen” – but at least for the death of each one.
And not only refers to physical death: “For San Juan, the truly dramatic is not biological death, we will all go through that, but what he calls second death, which is eternal condemnation.” This preparation is specified, for example, in the letters to the seven churches, which function as “an examination of consciousness.”
Beyond the warnings, Fr. Valentín emphasizes that the Apocalypse is a text of hope that tells us: “Do not let yourself be overwhelmed by evil, because no matter how much we see that evil triumphs in history, it campaates at ease, and that the Church is like a fragile institution and increasingly persecuted, evil will fall, evil will sink, evil will never be overcome.”
Apocalypse tells us about the end of time
At the beginning of the last book of the Bible, it is pointed out: “Blessed who reads, and those who listen to the words of this prophecy, and keep what is written in it, because time is close.”
However, P. Aparicio points out, “the Lord did not give us a kind of timing about the end of time, as if we had a schedule and we know everything that will happen, but it did clear a series of signs” in the Gospel, “because 25% of Jesus’ preaching is apocalyptic, speaking of the end of the world.”
What signs are those? P. Aparicio affirms that the Apocalypse continuously speaks of it. For example, he points out that “before the end a universal apostasy would have to come, that is, that previously Christian nations practically renegades from faith, as if the world turned their backs on God.”
At the same time, it is preached on the appearance of an ideology “that divinizes man expelling God, and we see this constantly in our society.”
“Thanks to the drama of Nietzsche’s atheist humanism and from much of the contemporary philosophy that God says does not exist, man is that God,” adds the priest, who affects the idea that “man, our welfare society, becomes an object of worship, and this says Saint John that is also another sign of the end of time.”
Although we do not know when the end of time will happen, “we do not know when spring or winter will begin, but we see the fruits that the trees are emerging.”
The promise of the antichrist in the Apocalypse
So, are we really close to the end of time, or only seem to see how the beast of corrupted politics and the prophet of the false religion are increasingly visible in our day, as described by the apocalypse?
P. Aparicio replies that this reality “has always been, but at the level we live today, not so much.”
These figures present in the Apocalypse respond to “a very deep catechesis about how evil acts, how the demon acts, which is a total envious, and tries to reproduce God’s plan, turning it around.”
“If God is Trinidad, the dragon is accompanied by two beasts, forming a kind of satanic trinity.” In the first place we have “the beast that comes out of the sea” which means “the corrupted political power and that opposes God, which seeks to idolize man, idolatize politics and deny God.”
To this is added the corrupted religion, such as the New Age “that what they are looking for is that man is redimed by himself”, while “the key to the Christian religion is that I cannot save myself, but I have to lift my eyes to heaven and beg for a Savior, by a redeemer, which is God.”
“All the efforts of philosophy and the political programs of education of the last two centuries of the Enlightenment onwards, that is to say to man, you, through education, science, technology and progress, which becomes a religious dogma, you save yourself. But all that is the promise of the antichrist in the apocalypse,” describes the priest.
At the end of the book, Fr. Valentín reflects on a series of strategies that the Apocalypse offers us to face spiritual combat.
“Saint John what he is looking for in the Apocalypse is that we take care of our soul and our own spiritual health,” explains the Vice Chancellor of the Major Seminary of Toledo, who is sorry for the attitude of some:
“I am sorry when there are many Christians who are obsessed with decoding who will be, who will not be the beast, we put the name and surname to the Antichrist, when in reality in the apocalypse of what is treated it is about conversion, change of life, to return to love first, to overcome all aim and all spiritual warmth, to love Jesus Christ with a heart,” he says.
“All the Apocalypse is a catechesis about the Mass and the value of the sacraments, which is what saves: to grab God, to return to Him. In the background it is a catechesis about trust. And where there is love and there is trust, there is no fear,” he concludes.
Nicolás de Cárdenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish and journalist’s husband and father with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specialized in socio -political and religious information. I have worked more than 10 years in defense of human rights and I have accreditations in journalism and comprehensive communication. Since July 2022, I am a correspondent for ACI Press and Ewtn News in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.