A couple of articles that I think interesting:
Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser: An Age of Tribulation & Heresy
Margaret C. Galitzin
As readers of this series know, we are looking at Scriptures and approved prophecies that present a certain timeline that proposes we are in the Latter Times, which will be followed by a time of conversion and peace. Only after that will come the End Times and the Final Judgment.
The three points, which are confirmed by the prophecies of Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauzer, are essentially these:
- God will send a severe chastisement to punish the sins of the Revolution against the Church and Catholic Civilization;
- There will be a restoration led by a great Leader and a holy Pope, who will usher in a long period of peace when all mankind will give glory to God through Our Lady, a time we call the Reign of Mary;
- Only after this period will come the final decadence, which will be the dissolution of the Reign of Mary and the Final Judgment.
Model Priest & Prophet
Ven. Fr. Bartholomew Holzhauser
Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser is an important, although not well-known, prophet for our times. He was born in 1613, the son of a shoemaker near Augsburg in Germany. Gifted with intelligence and zeal, he was ordained in 1639 in the Diocese of Salzburg where he founded the Bartholomites (United Brethren), a religious Institute to correct the already lax customs and lukewarm faith of the secular clergy of those times.
Due to revolutionary influence already in the Hierarchy, the Order did not endure. But what has surfaced and found renewed interest in recent years are the remarkable prophecies of this holy man, who was described by reliable theogians as a man without guile, incapable of fabrications. Those same theologians declared his prophecies contain nothing contrary to Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition. (1)
He correctly identified the Protestant Revolution as the end of one Era and the start of the first Revolution. Further he predicted with the French Revolution and other revolutions of the 19
th century that sought to topple the monarchies and implant the Masonic principles of Equality, Liberty, Fraternity.
“During this period," he correctly foretold, "many men will abuse the freedom of conscience conceded to them. It is of such men that Jude the Apostle spoke when he said: 'These men blaspheme whatever they do not understand; and they corrupt whatever they know naturally as irrational animals do… They feast together without restraint, feeding themselves, grumbling murmurers, walking according to their lusts; their mouth speaketh proud things, they admire people for the sake of gain; they bring about division, sensual men, having not the spirit.'" (2)
He also showed the error of the Enlightenment and false science that would soon dominate society: “They will ridicule Christian simplicity; they will call it folly and nonsense, but they will have the highest regard for advanced knowledge, and for the skill by which the axioms of the law, the precepts of morality, the Holy Canons and religious dogmas are clouded by senseless questions and elaborate arguments.
As a result, no principle at all, however holy, authentic, ancient, and certain it may be, will remain free of censure, criticism, false interpretation, modification and delimitation by man.” (3)
The seven candlesticks in the Apocalypse signify the Seven Ages of the Church History
But it is his great work, the
Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John, that concerns us here. "I was like a child, whose hand was led, while I wrote," he later commented about the time when he was writing. The sublime work – which theologians of the time declared far beyond the natural talents of the German priest – was only printed in 1784, 134 years after his death. (4)
He interpreted the book of the
Apocalypse as follows: The seven stars and the seven candlesticks seen by St. John signify seven periods of the History of the Church, from her foundation to her consummation at the Final Judgment. To these periods correspond the seven churches of Asia Minor, the seven days of Creation, the seven ages after Christ and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.
A central feature of this apocalyptic commentary concern the Strong Ruler and the Holy Pope who would arise at the end of the revolutionary Fifth Period to usher in the Sixth Period, a time of peace when all nations will be united in the Catholic Faith.
The Fifth Age
Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser names the Seven Ages of the Church in this way: The First Church Age is the
Apostolic Age which begins with Our Lord Jesus Christ and lasts until the first persecutions. The Second is the
Era of Persecution with the martyrs, which lasted from Nero to Constantine the Great; the Third Age is the
Era of Illumination from Constantine to Charlemagne.
The Fourth Era, the
Period of Peace, is the glorious Middle Ages, when the Church and society gave rich fruit beginning with Charlemagne up to the heresy of Luther.
And so we reach the Fifth Age, which concerns us. It is the
Time of Tribulation, which he identifies as beginning with Protestantism. We are in this Era now, although it would seem its end is rapidly approaching.
A
Time of Tribulation that will see the triumph of Our Lord
“This,” says Holzhauser, “is a state of trouble, desolation, humiliation, and poverty for the Church. We may with just reason call it a state of purification, in which the Lord Jesus Christ has sifted His wheat, and will sift it again by wars, ѕєdιтισns, famines, epidemics and other scourges, by the tribulation and the poverty which He will suffer to weigh on the Latin Church, by means of heretics and bad Christians, who will take from her the greater part of her bishoprics and countless monasteries, especially the wealthier ones.
"She is oppressed even by Catholic Princes, and despoiled by means of taxes, imposts, and other extortions. ... The Church is become poor and miserable, because she hath been calumniated by heretics, because her ministers are despised by bad Christians, who render her neither honor nor respect. By all these means God will sift His wheat; He will cast the chaff away to be burnt and will gather the wheat into His barns.
"This fifth state of the Church is the state of tribulation, the state of apostasy, full of miseries of every kind. Few will be spared by the sword, by famine and by pestilence. We shall see kingdom rise against kingdom; empires will be divided in themselves, and brought to desolation; principalities and monarchies will be overturned, and almost the whole world will sink into poverty. The greatest desolation will reign over the earth.
"All this has in part been already accomplished (1656 AD); a part remains yet to be accomplished. These things will come to pass by the very just judgment of God, because of the accuмulated mass of our iniquities, whereof our fathers and ourselves have filled up the measure, at the moment when the mercy of Almighty God awaited our doing penance." (5)
Ven. Holzhauser likes this fifth period of tribulation to the fifth day of Creation, on which the earth brought forth birds, fishes and beasts of the field, Why? Because the men of this period will "give themselves up to license, sink to the level of the brute and wallow in lust.
"In this lamentable state of the Church divine and human laws are without force, and made of light account. The doctrines and precepts of the Church are despised; ecclesiastical discipline is not observed by the priests, nor political order maintained by the people.
Every one, like the beasts of the field,
believes what he pleases, and does what he wills.“ (6)
Infiltration inside the Church
It is interesting to see that Ven. Holzhauser predicts an infiltration of the enemy into the Holy Church, something he could have never imagined could happen in the 1600s, but which did, actually, take place during the 19
th century and did triumph in the 20
th century at Vatican Council II.
Evil times: Francis joyfully
receives a hammer and sickle crucifix from Communist President Morales
These times – our times – would be "evil times," he predicted, "a century full of dangers and calamities. Heresy is everywhere, and the followers of heresy are in power almost everywhere. Bishops, Prelates and priests say that they are doing their duty, that they are vigilant ... all are seeking excuses.
"God will permit this great evil against His Church. Heretics and tyrants will come suddenly and unexpectedly. They will break into the Church while Bishops, Prelates and priests are asleep. They will enter Italy and lay waste Rome. They will burn the churches and destroy everything." (7)
What will happen at the end of this
Age of Affliction? God will make a Judgment of Nations, a great chastisement, where a good portion of the people will die.
But this great chastisement will not signify the End of the World; rather it will signal the end of the Fifth Era and the beginning of better time. For from this age of misery and perturbation – in which Ven Holzhauser had placed himself and his generation in the 17
th century – will come the complete and glorious triumph of Christ's Church on earth.
We will look at this Sixth Age in the next article.
Continued - 1.Joao Machado, Prophecies and Visions of Ven. Fr. Bartholomew Holzhauser, Kindle Edition 2016, p. 26.
- 2.We Are Warned: The Prophecies of Marie-Julie Jahenny, p. 543.
- 3.Ibid., p. 535.
- 4.J. Machado, Prophecies and Visions, p. 28.
- 5.Ibid., pp. 49-51
- 6.Ibid., p. 51.
- 7.We Are Warned, p. 535
The Judgment of Nations - VIII
Ven. Holzhauser: An Unexpected Intervention
Surpassing All Human Imagination
Margaret C. Galitzin
A compelling argument favoring the prophecies of Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser is his description of the
Age of Affliction, (see
last article) which he identifies as beginning with the Protestant Revolution and continuing until the Great Chastisement. As he notes: "A part we have seen, but more is to come." (1)
Symbol of the Republic in the
Place de la RepubliqueDuring this long Revolution, Ven. Holzhauser foretells heresy inside the Church and the complete corruption of society. There will be the upset of monarchies and establishment of republics that, in turn, will be shaken by chaos and revolutions. At the end of this
Age of Affliction, all will be desolate with war, the bishops and priests lax and unfaithful, heresy rife inside the Church, monarchies destroyed and subjects oppressed by corrupted republics, riches extirpated and miserablism everywhere.
All this, as we have witnessed, has come to pass. We are seeing now the auto-destruction of the Church as a consequence of Vatican II, and the ruin of society as a consequence of the Communist and Cultural Revolutions.
Age of Consolation
But, at the very moment when all seems lost, God will intervene in an unexpected way. Ven. Holzhauser states: “When everything has been ruined by war; when Catholics are hard pressed by traitorous co-religionists and heretics,
then the Hand of Almighty God will work a marvelous change, something apparently impossible according to human understanding." (2)
This remarkable change will augur the start of "the
Sixth Period of the Church –
the Status Consolationis [Age of Consolation], which will begin with the Holy Pope and Powerful Emperor and terminate with the birth of Antichrist (Apoc. 3:7-10).
"This will be
an age of solace, wherein God will console His Church after the many mortifications and afflictions she had endured in the
Fifth Period, for all nations will be brought to the unity of the True Catholic Faith." (3)
A great leader sent by God
This era will be ushered in a by a layman, a great Monarch or Leader: “There will be a great and holy Pope, and a powerful Leader,
who will come to earth as the envoy of God to put an end to disorder. ...
A Great Monarch will end the Revolution & usher in the Age of Consolation
"He will root up every Republic. He will submit all things to his authority and will show great zeal for the true Church of Christ. All heresies will be banished into Hell. The empire of the Mohamedans will be overthrown to its foundation, and his dominion will extend from East to West.
"All nations will come and will worship the Lord in the one true Catholic Faith. Many righteous men will flourish, and many learned men will arise. Men will love justice and righteousness, and peace will dwell on the whole earth. For the Omnipotent will bind Satan for many years, until the advent of the one who is to come – the son of perdition [the Antichrist]." (4)
Of great interest is Ven. Holzhauser's prediction of a new Council, which we surmise will have the task of undoing the destruction worked by Vatican II and unmaking the false saints named by the conciliar Popes, who will have to be officially condemned by the Holy Pope to come:
"No one will be able to pervert the word of God since during the
Sixth Period. There will be an Ecuмenical Council that will be the greatest of all Councils. By the grace of God, by the power of the great Monarch, by the authority of the holy Pontiff and by union of all the most devout princes, Atheism and every heresy will be banished from the earth. The Council will define the true sense of Holy Scripture and this will be beloved and accepted by everyone.” (5)
A mighty Monarch & an enlightened Pope
In another prophecy in his Commentary on Chapter X of the Apocalypse, Ven. Holzhauser points again to "the mighty Monarch and an enlightened Pope."
The holy Pope will call the greatest of Church Councils
The mighty Angel who comes down from Heaven (Apoc 10: 1-7) with his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the earth is "the lofty description of that mighty Monarch sent by God. He is a mighty Angel, for no one can resist him,
the envoy of God. He will come down from Heaven ...
"The rainbow about his head denotes that he will bring peace to the whole earth. The solar luster of his brow signifies the splendor of his glory, his honor, his holiness, his talents, so that all princes will follow his example. The fiery pillars symbolize the vast extent of his power and fire of his religious zeal ...
"The spread of the Church over all countries will take place by the instrumentality of this strong Monarch, and
before the destruction of the world, Christianity will be preached to all the nations of the earth, as foretold in Mt 24:4, Is 2:2, Mich 4:2." (6)
This godly and powerful Leader will be assisted by a holy and divinely enlightened Pope. Ven. Holzhauser says: "And another Angel came out of the Temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat upon the cloud, '
Thrust in thy sickle and reap, because the hour is come to reap for the harvest of the earth is ripe' (Apoc 14:15)
"This Angel of the Lord," he explains, "is that great and holy Pope who, moved by God, will cry out of the sanctuary of the Church to that mighty Monarch to root out the tares of wickedness, for the harvest is over-ripe; the measure of sins and abominations is overflowing.
The Angel who will reap the earth will be an enlightened & holy Pope "Instructed by a divine revelation, the holy Pope will, by communicating the same, stir up the hearts of princes to a common war, and God will touch the hearts of the warriors so that, animated with one spirit, they will all adhere to the mighty Monarch." (7)
In another of his visions, Ven. Holzhauser saw two mighty thrones that overshadowed the whole earth, where on sat the mighty Monarch and the Holy Pope, the supreme representatives of the spiritual and temporal powers. (8)
As in the Middle Ages,
the balance of powers will be restored, with the Pontiff ruling supreme over the spiritual sphere, and the Monarch over the temporal sphere. It will be the restoration of Christian Civilization.
This
Sixth Period, or the
Age of Solace, coincides perfectly with that long period of peace which Scriptures announce will come after a great Chastisement from Heaven, when Muslims will be defeated and Jєωs will be converted.
Ven. Holzhauser affirms that the Jєωs will indeed be converted at the start of this period, after the great Chastisement: “The
Sixth Epoch of the World, which commences with the emancipation of the people of Israel and the restoration of the Temple and of the city of Jerusalem, will endure until the [Second] Coming of Jesus Christ…
Thus is this Age to come the complete and glorious triumph of Christ in His Church and in society. It is the restoration of Christian Civilization predicted by St. Louis de Montfort as the
Reign of Mary, a time of flourishing of the Church such as never has been known in History. In
True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis stated that, to establish this period, “the Almighty God and His Holy Mother are to raise up great saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs.” (9)
Age of Desolation
Only at the end of this long period of peace will come the
Seventh Epoch,
the Age of Desolation, which will be the fall of the
Reign of Mary and the coming of the Antichrist. This terrible apostasy will lead to the Last Judgment and the end of the World.
The Second Coming & Last Judgment will take place only after a long period of peace. Ven. Holzhauser writes that in this age the apostasy from the Faith will be general, and then will time come unto its end. To this period corresponds the seventh day of Creation, when God concluded His work and celebrated the Sabbath. So will God close the work of spiritual Creation with His Second Coming and the Final Judgment.
What will cause the fall of the
Reign of Mary? Ven. Holzhauser points to a lack of vigilance and general lukewarmness, the same vices that brought an end to
Fourth Age, the Middle Ages:
"
The evils of this age will be lukewarmness in Faith – coldness of love – perturbation of public order - folly on the part of pastors and rulers, who will be like unto autumn trees without fruit – wandering stars and rainless clouds." (10)
Ven. Holzhauser placed the battle of Enoch and Elias, and their subsequent deaths and resurrection in this last period. After his triumph, the Antichrist will attempt a mock ascension from Mount Olivet but will be precipitated to the earth and swallowed up alive into Hell.
After the death of Antichrist, the German seer affirms, the time will be short. The agonies of the dying world will come to an end with the blast of the Archangel's trumpet.
Conclusion
Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser (1613-1658)
According to Ven Holzhauser, then, today we are living through the end of the
Fifth Age of the world, which is the Latter Times. It is not yet the End Times, which be the
Seventh Age of the world.
The
Fifth Age that will end in a great Chastisement will give way to the
Sixth Age, which will be the greatest and most glorious triumph of the Church in all its History. It will be a long period, the thousand years foretold in Scriptures when due glory will be given to Christ on earth as well as in Heaven.
At the end of this period will come the Great Apostasy, the
Seventh Age, which will see the rise of the Antichrist, the greatest persecution of all Church History and the End Times, that is, the end of the world as we know it, to be replaced by “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Pet. 3:13).
It seems of interest for the English speaking world to know the fate of England in the predictions of Ven. Holzhauser, who had a burning desire to see the conversion of that country that was once the Dowry of Mary.
Therefore, in the next article, I will look at the destiny of England in the Latter Times.
To be continued
- 1.Joao Machado, Prophecies and Visions of Ven. Fr. Bartholomew Holzhauser, Kindle Edition 2016, p. 51.
- 2.Rev. R. Gerald Cullerton, The Prophets and Our Times, TAN, reprint 1974, p. 171. In 1634, Our Lady of Good Success promised her intercession at the very moment "when the evil will appear triumphant and when the authority abuses my power." This would "mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and accursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss." These words harmonize perfectly with the words of Ven. Holzhauser.
- 3.Ibid., p. 173 p. 55.
- 4.J. Machado, Prophecies and Visions, p. 57.
- 5.Bartholomew Holzhauser, Apocalypsin, 1850, p 68- 69 apud Desmond A. Birch, Trial Tribulation and Triumph: Before, During and After Antichrist
- 6.Ibid., pp. 62-63
- 7.Ibid, p p. 64-65
- 8.Ibid., p. 65
- 9.St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, No. 217
- 10.J. Machado, Prophecies and Visions,, p. 73.
- 11.“And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He cast him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, that he should no more seduce the nations til the thousand years be finished. After that, he must be loosed for a short time. (Apoc 20-1:3)
Topic: Venerable Fr. Holzhauser on the ages of the Church (Read 1187 times)