Letter from Broadstairs. January 2026.

LETTER FROM BROADSTAIRS – January 2026

Nova et Vetera

Enoch and Elijah [taken from ‘The drama of the End Times,’ by the Pere Emmanuel Andre, 1885]

The wonderful events which we are about to recall are not imaginary scenarios; they are truths taken from Holy Scripture and it would be temerous to deny them.

Before the end of time, and during the persecution of the Antichrist, two extraordinary characters will re-appear, namely Enoch and Elijah.

I/ The Patriarch Enoch is one of the descendants of Seth, the son of Adam. He is the head of the sixth generation of men. The book of Genesis says that he lived for 365 years and walked in the ways of the Lord, before being taken up still alive by the Almighty to a place known to God alone.

As to Elijah his story is better known having lived during the time of the kingdom of Israel less than a 1,000 years before Our Lord. He is the great prophet of the Jewish nation.  His dramatic life, as told in the third and fourth Book of Kings, is a prophecy in action concerning the state of the Church in the time of the persecution by the Antichrist. 

He is constantly on the move, threatened with death, but always shielded by the hand of God. Sometimes hidden in the desert, where he is nourished by ravens, and at other times he presents himself before  King Ahab who trembles before him. The Almighty gives him the power to open the skies for rain or lightening, He endows him a mysterious vision on Mount Horeb, like another Moses,  with whom he will accompany Our Lord on Mount Tabor.

Elijah’s disappearance corresponds to his singular life.  Walking with his disciple Elisha he opens a passage through the Jordan river by hitting the waters with his cloak, and then announces that he will be taken up to heaven. All of a sudden a fiery chariot pulled by fiery steeds separates the two and Elijah is swept up to a mysterious region in the heavens by a whirl-wind where he joins Enoch his ancestor.

No-one can say where this hidden region is, whether it be in some inaccessible place upon earth or in the skies above. One can only confirm that they are for the time being outside the constraints of the human condition, unaffected by the passage of time.

II/ Their reappearance on the worldly scene is no less certain than their disappearance, as described in the Book of Ecclesiasticus in accordance with the entire Jewish tradition: ‘Enoch was pleasing to Gd, and he was transported to paradise, to preach penance to the nations,’ (chapter 44). In the Book of Job we read: ‘Who can think himself your equal O Elijah? Thou who wast taken up in the whirl-wind of flames and by the fiery chariot; thou art inscribed in the judgements  of the future ages so as to appease the anger of the Lord, so as to bring the heart of the father to the son, and so as to re-establish the tribes of Israel,’ (chapter 48). 

These words from Holy Scripture state clearly that Enoch and Elijah have a last mission to accomplish. Enoch must preach penance to the nations, so as to bring them to repentance, whilst Elijah must re-establish the tribes of Israel to their proper place in the true Church.

The doctors of the Church unanimously understand that this double mission will be realised towards the end of the world. Elijah in particular is considered to be the fore-runner of Our Lord, coming from the heavens as a judge, as stated by the Gospels themselves, (Mt. 17, Mk. 9).

So it is that  the time will come when men will see, and not without terror, Enoch and Elijah descending into their midst with an extraordinary brilliance in order to preach repentance. Saint John names them as the two witnesses of God, and he describes them in chapter 11 of his Apocalypse: ‘They will prophecy for 1,260 days garbed in sack-cloth. They are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks which stand in the presence of the Lord. If anyone would want to harm them fire will flow from their mouths and will devour their enemies. They will have the power to close the heavens so that it will not rain during the time of their preaching. Furthermore they will have the power to change the waters into blood and to strike the earth with all sorts of plagues as often as they would want.

We see in this description the Elijah of the Old Testament who had closed the skies for some three years and who then made lightening strike the soldiers who had come to arrest him.

The 1,260 days denote the duration of the final persecution, hence the coming of the two witnesses will coincide with the persecution of the Antichrist. Again we see how the assistance  promised to the Church will be proportionate to the gravity of the perils.

Garbed as austere penitents the two witnesses will go everywhere with invulnerability, preaching with full liberty even in the presence of the enraged Antichrist himself.

[To be continued]