Pope warns he has seen ‘omens of even greater destruction and desolation’ for mankind

The Pope has offered a harrowing glimpse of the future, saying he has seen signs of an even darker time for humanity.

At a mass at the Vatican, the 85-year-old pope said Sunday he has a dire vision for the world with “even greater omens of destruction and desolation.”

The Mass was in commemoration of the feast of Our Lady Guadalupe, which fell yesterday. It commemorates the apparition of the Virgin Mary to a young man, Saint Juan Diego, in 1531 in Mexico City. The day is a national holiday in Mexico.

But despite the current difficult times for the world, including wars, particularly Russia’s conflict in the Ukraine, rising cost of living, poverty, famine and an international energy crisis, the pope said he has a vision of that things will get worse.

Speaking at a Vatican mass, the pope said Sunday he has a terrible vision for the world with “even greater omens of destruction and desolation.”

The Mass was in commemoration of the feast of Our Lady Guadalupe. Commemorates the apparition of the Virgin Mary to a young man, Saint Juan Diego, in 1531 in Mexico City

In his homily, the pontiff said that “it is a bitter time, filled with the roar of war, growing injustice, hunger, poverty and suffering,” but at this “dark and bewildering” time, there are “harbingers of a even greater destruction and loneliness’.

He added that at Christmas, “God’s divine love and his coming to us tell us that this is also a propitious time for salvation, in which the Lord, through the Virgin Mother, continues to give us his Son.”

He urged the Vatican congregation “to get involved with each other without delay, to reach out to our brothers and sisters who have been forgotten and discarded by our consumerist and indifferent societies.”

The pontiff recalled the biblical verse of John 3:16: “God, who so loved the world, sent us his son, born of a woman, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Attendees greet Pope Francis as he leaves in his wheelchair after celebrating Mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe on Sunday.

In celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Pope said that the Virgin Mary “invites us to leave behind all the prejudices and fears that inhabit our hearts and to trust in the true God for whom we live, turning with joy and confidence to reaffirm our belonging to the Lord’.

In 2031 it will be 500 years since the appearance of Mary to the young man in Mexico.

With this in mind, Pope Francis called on ‘all members of the pilgrim Church in the Americas, pastors and faithful, to participate in this celebratory journey that aims to promote an encounter with God through Our Lady of Guadalupe’.

“He wants to remind us that it was the Gospel that shaped the soul of Latin America, and that as believers in Christ we have the responsibility to be credible witnesses of the love of Jesus Christ and decisive protagonists in the construction of a new culture.”