So if you are keeping up with my eschatology posts, you know that I’ve been considering two possibilities for the start of the tribulation:
1. the tribulation begins in 2013 with a nuclear attack by Iran on New York City, then the Warning, Consolation, Miracle occur in 2016, during the early years of the tribulation;
or,
2. the tribulation begins in 2016, with the Warning, Consolation, and Miracle (predicted at Garabandal and Medjugorje), then the War and other events follows afterward in 2016/2017.

As some members of my discussion group (Catholicplanet.net) have pointed out, the Fatima apparitions began in 1917. If we count 1917 as year one, then the 100th year since Fatima began would be 2016, not 2017. And that is exactly the year for the Warning and Miracle.

I believe that the Miracle will occur on the evening of May 12th, 2016, which is 99 years to the day from the start of the Fatima apparitions on May 13th, 1917. So this timing tends to support the year 2016 as the year of the Warning and Miracle. [edited 5/29/2013]

As for the start of the tribulation, it makes sense for the events of the Warning, Consolation, and Miracle to have a beneficial effect on the Church and the world, resulting in peace, not war. So the tribulation must begin a few years prior to the Warning and Miracle.

The first four events are War, Civil Unrest, Famine, and Death (2013 to early 2016). Then the events of the Warning and Miracle serve as a turning point, causing all four events to wind down over the next few years. The conversion of the Protestant and Orthodox Churches, and their unification with the Catholic Church is also a result of the Warning and Miracle. A brief respite follows, in the early 2020’s, as the Church rejoices in this new unity and in an end to the first four events of the tribulation. Then sin and suffering resume, and the tribulation continues and becomes more severe.

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.