The End of the Present World and Mysteries of the Future Life

The End of the Present World and Mysteries of the Future Life

This was no less true in the late nineteenth century, when Father Charles Arminjon, a priest from the mountains of southeaster France, assembled his flock in town cathedral to preach a series of conferences to help them turn their thoughts away from this life's mean material affairs- and toward the next life's glorious spiritual reward. his wise and uncompromising words deepened in them the spirit of recollection that all Christians must have: the abiding conviction that heavenly aims, not temporal enthusiasms, must guide everything we think, say, and do.

When Father Arminjon's conferences were later published in a book, many others were able to reap the same benefit- including fourteen-year-old Therese Martin, then on the cusp of entering the Carmelite convent in Lisieux. Reading it, she says, "plunged my soul into a happiness not of this earth." Young Therese, filled with a sense of "what God reserves for those who love Him, and seeing that the eternal rewards had no proportion to light sacrifices of life." copied out numerous passages and memorized them, "repeating unceasingly the words of love burning in my heart."

Now the very book that so inspired the Little Flower is available for the first time in English. Let the pages of The End of the Present World and Mysteries of the Future Life fill you with the same burning words of love, with the same ardent desire to know God above all created things, of the faith that can often seem so mysterious, even frightening.