Dear Ryan:

Eschatology is not my area. It use to be when I was a Baptist, but I pay little attention to it since I became Catholic.

The reason I do not pay attention to this is that delving into eschatological issues is mostly for curiosity, in my opinion. This is about a future event that we cannot change because it is the culmination of God's Salvation Plan.

The urgency that people place on the "Last Days" is misplaced. After all, the end of the world for each of us will happen when we die. Those Christians who are alive at the time of the Second Coming will be able to handle the tribulation preceding Christ's coming by God's grace. There is nothing to fear.

What is pertinent is when we see the signs leading up to the Second Coming that seek to lead people astray and to produce a society that is anti-Christ. This will have the greatest effect on our children and grandchildren especially, who will grow up knowing nothing but such a society. To them it will be the norm. That norm will allow the anti-Christ to take over. We see the beginnings of this with Obama.

Anyway, from the Catechism we learn (excerpts):

THE KINGDOM IS MANIFESTED THROUGH THE CHURCH

As Lord, Christ is also head of the Church, which is his Body. Taken up to heaven and glorified after he had thus fully accomplish his mission, Christ dwells on earth in his Church. . . ." Already the final age of the world is with us, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real but imperfect." Christ's kingdom already manifests its presence through the miraculous signs that attend its proclamation by the Church. (CCC 669-670)

THE KINGDOM WILL BE FULFILLED WHEN CHRIST RETURNS TO EARTH

Though already present in his Church, Christ's reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled "with power and great glory" by the king's return to earth. . . . Until everything is subject to him, "until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass. . . Before his Ascension Christ affirmed that the hour had not yet come for the glorious establishment of the messianic kingdom awaited by Israel which, according to the prophets, was to bring all men the definitive order of justice, love, and peace. (CCC 671-672)

THE CHURCH WILL EXPERIENCE THE PERSECUTION OF THE ANTICHRIST

Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" 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 religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. (CCC 675)

MILLENARIANISM IS HERESY

The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that mesianic hope which can only be realized beyond history though the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism. (CCC 676)

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST WILL NOT BE FULFILLED UNTIL ISRAEL REPENTS

The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel," for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.". . . . The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles," will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," in which "God may be all in all." (CCC 674)

These are pertinent excerpts. Be sure read the entire section paragraphs 668-682.

The Catholic Encyclopedia's article on the General (Last) Judgement addresses the "Day of the Lord". There are nine signs leading up to the Last Judgment:

Here's an Excerpt:

II. SIGNS THAT ARE TO PRECEDE THE GENERAL JUDGMENT

The Scriptures mention certain events which are to take place before the final judgment. These predictions were not intended to serve as indications of the exact time of the judgment, for that day and hour are known only to the Father, and will come when least expected. They were meant to foreshadow the last judgment and to keep the end of the world present to the minds of Christians, without, however, exciting useless curiosity and vain fears. Theologians usually enumerate the following nine events as signs of the last judgment:

1. General Preaching of the Christian Religion

Concerning this sign the Saviour says: "And this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come" (Matthew 24:14). This sign was understood by Chrysostom and Theophilus as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, but, according to the majority of interpreters, Christ is here speaking of the end of the world.

2. Conversion of the Jews

According to the interpretation of the Fathers, the conversion of the Jews towards the end of the world is foretold by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (11:25-26): "For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, . . . that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob".

3. Return of Enoch and Elijah

The belief that these two men, who have never tasted death, are reserved for the last times to be precursors of the Second Advent was practically unanimous among the Fathers, which belief they base on several texts of Scripture. (Concerning Elijah see Malachi 4:5-6; Sirach 48:10; Matthew 17:11; concerning Enoch see Sirach 44:16)

4. A Great Apostasy

As to this event St. Paul admonishes the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:3) that they must not be terrified, as if the day of the Lord were at hand, for there must first come a revolt (he apostasia).The Fathers and interpreters understand by this revolt a great reduction in the number of the faithful through the abandonment of the Christian religion by many nations. Some commentators cite as confirmatory of this belief the words of Christ: "But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8).

5. The Reign of Antichrist

In the passage above mentioned (2 Thessalonians 2:3 sqq.) St. Paul indicates as another sign of the day of the Lord, the revelation of the man of sin, the son of perdition. "The man of sin" here described is generally identified with the Antichrist, who, says St. John (1 John 2:18), is to come in the last days. Although much obscurity and difference of opinion prevails on this subject, it is generally admitted from the foregoing and other texts that before the Second Coming there will arise a powerful adversary of Christ, who will seduce the nations by his wonders, and persecute the Church.

6. Extraordinary Perturbations of Nature

The Scriptures clearly indicate that the judgment will be preceded by unwonted and terrifying disturbances of the physical universe (Matthew 24:29; Luke 21:25-26). The wars, pestilences, famines, and earthquakes foretold in Matthew 24:6 sq., are also understood by some writers as among the calamities of the last times.

7. The Universal Conflagration

In the Apostolic writings we are told that the end of the world will be brought about through a general conflagration, which, however, will not annihilate the present creation, but will change its form and appearance (2 Peter 3:10-13; cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:2; Apocalypse 3:3, and 16:15). Natural science shows the possibility of such a catastrophe being produced in the ordinary course of events, but theologians generally tend to believe that its origin will be entirely miraculous.

8. The Trumpet of Resurrection

Several texts in the New Testament make mention of a voice or trumpet which will awaken the dead to resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; John 5:28). According to St. Thomas (Supplement 86:2) there is reference in these passages either to the voice or to the apparition of Christ, which will cause the resurrection of the dead.

9. "The Sign of the Son of Man Appearing in the Heavens."

In Matthew 24:30, this is indicated as the sign immediately preceding the appearance of Christ to judge the world. By this sign the Fathers of the Church generally understand the appearance in the sky of the Cross on which the Saviour died or else of a wonderful cross of light.

The evangelicals misinterpret the end days in serious ways. They confuse the Parousia (second coming of Christ) for the Rapture of the Church. These denominations actually teach three comings of Christ: 1) his coming 2000 years ago; 2) the coming of Christ to remove the Church (rapture), 3) and a third coming, which they call the Second Coming, that is when Christ ends the world and judges all.

As for Russia mentioned in the Bible, it is mentioned Ezek. 38:2 — "the land of Magog". (Magog was the second of the seven sons of Japheth mentioned in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10.)

The land of the Magog is north of the Black Sea according to the first century historian, Josephus. North of the Black sea is Russia and the Ukraine (a former satellite-state of the Soviet Union).

Tim LaHaye, an evangelical minister who wrote the Left Behind series, and who is a rabid anti-Catholic, says:

The name "Moscow" derives from the tribal name "Meshech," and "Tobolsk, the name of the principal state, from "Tubal." The noun "Gog" is from the original tribal name "Magog," which gradually became "Rosh," then "Russ," and today is known as "Russia." ("Will God Destroy Russia, in Storming Towards Armageddon: Essays in Apocalypse, ed. Wm. James (Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press, 1992), p. 260-261)

Given that LaHaye cannot be trusted to give accurate information, we should double-check with credible experts of Etymology. I haven't the time to do that. Nevertheless, Magog is the land that we now call Russia.

On the subject of Last Days, I recommend the following resources:

Article: General (Last) Judgement (also linked above)

Article: Eschatological Fact and Fiction: Catholicism and Dispensationalism Compared by Carl E. Olson

Book: The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth by Scott Hahn

Article: The Abomination of Desolation

Pamphlets: at Catholic Answers

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary