Rather amazingly, Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, has basically confirmed the theory I present in my book concerning the dangers of the World Wide Web in relation to the appearance of the Antichrist. Below is a report taken from The Daily Telegraph:
The Russian Orthodox patriarch has warned that the popularity of smartphones is paving the way for the coming of the Antichrist.
In an interview on state television for Russian Orthodox Christmas on Monday, Patriarch Kirill warned that the widespread use of gadgets connected to the Internet has opened the possibility for “universal control over humanity”. The “devil acts very wisely” in offering people such a “toy”, he said.
"Such control from one place forebodes the coming of the Antichrist,” Patriarch Kirill said. “The Antichrist is the person that will be at the head of the world wide web controlling all of humanity. That means that the structure itself poses a danger. There shouldn't be a single centre, at least not in the foreseeable future, if we don't want to bring on the apocalypse."
The patriarch maintained he wasn't categorically against gadgets, but warned that people should be careful not to “fall into slavery to what's in your hands”.
(See here for the full article.)Even though Patriarch Kirill does not explicitly mention anything to do with the link between www and the number 666 in Hebrew gematria, there are clearly quite strong suggestions that the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church is a lot more informed on this subject than he is revealing on the surface. His remarkable claims are clearly based on something much more deeper than a mere "gut instinct" reacting against the dangers of modern technology.
I go into the link between the number of the beast and the letters www using Hebrew gematria in some considerable depth in my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: The Final Passover of the Church, and I even studied the Hebrew language at university level in order to better grasp the significance of this connection. My theory on this subject received the support of the late Catholic theologian Stratford Caldecott, whose studies also concentrated on the Apocalypse and Hebrew gematria. Stratford, whose work is widely lauded by many Catholic intellectuals, cited my theory in his book All Things Made New: The Mysteries of the World in Christ (Angelico/Sophia Perennis, 2011) and he alludes to my theories in several blog posts (see here and here for example). A whole issue of Humanum Review in which Stratford both edited and contributed to was based around the dangers of the internet and modern technology (see here).
In my book, I argue that given that we already have the very real possibility that all future commerce will be conducted electronically through smartphones, we don't need to look any further than this recent technological development to find the fulfilment of the prophecy of the "mark" of the beast. Given the fact that this prophecy was deliberately formulated as an antithetical parallelism of the Jewish practice of wearing phylacteries - small boxes containing pieces of Scripture worn on the forehead and arms, we can dispense with the more popular idea that this prophecy will only be fulfilled when the world's governments start forcing their populace to accept RFID microchip implants in order to participate in electronic commerce.
When I first developed this theory during a Hebrew class in 2005, the possibility that all future commerce would be conducted through smartphone devices was only a distant and somewhat abstract thought. Now that the use of smartphones in this capacity is an already widespread practice, we can clearly see this as rapidly approaching reality.
This doesn't mean that we should all collectively abandon our technological devices and suddenly retreat to self-sustaining farms in the countryside. It is only during the coming of the Antichrist that this technology will be exploited as a means of systematic control, as was pointed out by Patriarch Kirill. I have already argued extensively elsewhere that the time of the Antichrist is not imminent, since the period of the restoration of the Church foretold by many Catholic saints and mystics has to occur before the appearance of the Man of Sin. But given the non-neutral aspect of such technology, we must acknowledge that there are inherent dangers already built into the use of these devices, such as the corruption of childhood innocence, the use of explicit images to blackmail and peer pressure/psychological abuse on social media contributing to higher suicide rates, etc.
Now that the inherent dangers of the use of the world wide web and smartphone technology as a means of totalitarian control has been spelled out by one of the most important Church leaders in Christianity, it is surely only a matter of time before the Roman Catholic Pontiff will have to properly address this exact subject in a magisterial document. Patriarch Kirill has obviously carefully considered this rather controversial assessment of the risks of modern technology, and if an eventual consensus among Church leaders begins to develop on this issue in a similar vein, we could very well expect that its use will be condemned at some point in the future, when it becomes fully evident that the Antichrist will harness it as a means of control.
Below is some material on this subject that I have recycled from an older blog post:
I recently received a comment on the post A Cashless Society - Closer than you may think... which requires a rather lengthy answer, so I thought I would post it on the main section of the blog so that everyone can read. It concerns the primary argument I forward in my book Unveiling the Apocalypse - which attempts to show how the prophecy of the mark of the Beast may have already been fulfilled in the advent of internet-enabled mobile phones. The answer to the question below addresses a number of points that have been raised recently, mostly by people asking that if the prophecy of the mark of the Beast has already been fulfilled, then what are the direct spiritual implications of using these devices now in the present. The original question is given below:
OK--this is my question. If the Mark of the Beast is the cell phone as you say... well... aren't we all now under the mark of the Beast? (Or most of us. I actually don't have a cell phone--but I use a computer!) Aren't we all being decieved now? And does this mean we are putting our salvation in jeopardy if we use one? This is just not clear to me why using a cell phone (and I understand it's not quite up to the sophisticated level you are explaining on your blog--but it's coming along with a cashless society) is somehow sinister and evil. I understand the lack of interaction with people although that's happening now. Families are falling apart, sin is rampant... it's here already!
I also understand that your every move can be detected by someone by these devices, but we're really not that far from that now also. So... I need something to see how spiritualy this sophisticated cell phone Mark of the Beast is going to make me lose the salvation of my soul. Thanks for the interesting blog.
The most fundamental question raised above is that if the mark of the Beast has been fulfilled in the advent of cell phones, then how could the use of mobile phones cause spiritual harm? To answer this, we first need to deconstruct the question itself. The quite reasonable objection that it "is just not clear to me why using a cell phone... is somehow sinister and evil", can just as easily apply to receiving a microchip implant as the mark of the Beast. The word "cell phone" (underlined above) can justifiably be replaced with the word "microchip implant", to form the statement "is just not clear to me why using a microchip implant... is somehow sinister and evil" - since the same logic applies to both. The sole difference is that we have become psychologically conditioned over the past twenty years (since the theory was first introduced) to envision the reception of a microchip implant as the mark of the Beast. This conditioning has generated a considerable amount of fear around the act of receiving a microchip implant itself, to the point where this act has become inextricably equated with the reception of the mark of the Beast, and no other possible fulfilments of this prophecy have been considered. In fact the focus has been concentrated on microchip implants so much that it has blinded the vast majority of Christians to considering any alternatives, allowing for the implementation of the prophecy to be "sneaked through the back door" in a manner which is much more consistent with how the mark of the Beast would have been conceived by Jewish Christians in the first century AD - i.e. as a diabolical inversion of the practise of wearing phylacteries - physical objects bearing the name of God which were only worn temporarily during prayer services. But both the cell phone and the postulated future microchip implant are merely pieces of technology, and both are therefore essentially the same thing. The difference resides solely in how they are worn - if you were to somehow shrink a cell phone and pop it under the skin on your hand it would basically be a much more highly sophisticated version of a "mircochip implant".
One of the primary psychological factors which has enabled the mircochip implant to be perceived as the mark of the Beast is that it is a more permanent mark, and there is also a certain fear over the bodily intrusion this would cause - as if it would be like some form of technological parasite. Over time, the equation of the mark of the Beast with its original inspiration in the Jewish practise of wearing phylacteries was forgotten by Christians, as they became more distanced from their Judaic roots. This led to the development of a more literal conception of the mark of the Beast as the actual number 666 being branded or tattooed onto the subjects of the Antichrist - and these forms of brandishings are permanent and indelible marks. So gradually, the mark became considered to be permanent, and when the barcode hypothesis surfaced in the early 1980's after the publication of Mary Stewart Relfe's books When Your Money Fails and The New Money System, which was then combined with the RFID implant theory by Peter Lalonde in his 1991 book One World Under Anti-Christ, this appeared to provide a solution as to how the Antichrist could covertly brandish his subjects with a permanent mark that would be necessary in order to engage in commerce. This idea was then wildly popularised by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' bestselling Left Behind series, and has since become so deeply entrenched in Christian apocalyptic thought that it is almost impossible to grasp any other alternative way in which this prophecy could be fulfilled.
Yet the advent of non-intrusive biometric mapping (which is already being rolled out en masse in India) renders the use of RFID implants for identification purposes completely redundant. The use of iris and fingerprint scanning by the inbuilt camera in smartphones is already being touted as the most effective way of safeguarding NFC transactions from taking place through a stolen phone (see here). By using biometrics, the smartphone would automatically scan your iris or fingerprint before allowing any transactions to take place, bypassing the need for PIN codes.
When we look to the original practise that the prophecy of the mark of the Beast was based on, we find that phylacteries are physical box-shaped objects worn externally on the person, and they are only used temporarily. The idea of tiny objects containing barcodes being inserted under the skin (so that they would effectively be invisible), would have been extremely foreign to the mind of the original author of the Apocalypse. On a symbolic level, the mark of the Beast was meant to be understood as an open, fully visible display of allegiance to the Beast, just as the practice of wearing phylacteries was a public show of allegiance to God. This is why some Jews indulged in "keeping up with the Jones'" type behaviour, wearing ever bigger and more elaborate phylacteries to show that they honoured God more than anyone else - a practise which was condemned by Jesus:
They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.
(Matt 23:5-7)
There is nothing in the original Greek text of the Book of Revelation which would suggest that the mark of the Beast would be worn invisibly inside the hand. In fact we find the complete opposite. The original Greek of the Apocalypse concerning the mark of the Beast reads "ἵνα δῶσιν αὐτοῖς χάραγμα ἐπὶ τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῶν τῆς δεξιᾶς" "hina dosin autois charagma epi tes cheiros auton tes dexias". The word epi used here has the primary meaning of "upon" or "on", giving the meaning of "on" or "upon" their "right hand", rather than "inside" (which would require the word mesa). Moreover, the word charagma, as well as meaning a "mark" or "stamp", can also be translated as "sculpture", or "graven image". The NAS Greek Lexicon gives the definition of the word charagma as follows:
- a stamp, an imprinted mark
- of the mark stamped on the forehead or the right hand as the badge of the followers of the Antichrist
- the mark branded upon horses
- thing carved, sculpture, graven work
- of idolatrous images
And in the one of the other instances in which this word is used in the Bible, in the Book of Acts, we find that charagma is also used in the sense of "graven image".
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image [chargama] formed by the art and imagination of man.
(Acts 17:29)
Also the word dosin "to give" is usually translated in the sense of the giving of an object, rather than branding with a mark. So the word we have translated into English as "mark" was quite probably originally intended to mean "graven image". Indeed this translation makes better sense in context with the earlier reference to the image of the Beast which is fashioned by the False Prophet:
It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.
(Rev 13:13-15)
The only difference being that the word used for "image" above is εἰκόνα eikona.
So the true translation of the passage concerning the "mark" or charagma of the Beast can just as easily be (and was most likely originally intended) as follows:
Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be given a graven image on the right hand or the forehead...
(Rev 13:16)
The significance of the mark being given in the "right hand" (dexias - from which we derive the word dexterity), could suggest that the "graven image" was in some way usable - as a tool for instance, since the vast majority of people are right-handed. And if the charagma of the Beast is to be directly identified with the image of the Beast fashioned by the inhabitants of the earth at the behest of the False Prophet in Rev 13:13-15, then we are informed that this graven image has the ability to speak, and would in some way lead to a persecution of the Church (to "cause those who would not worship the image of the Beast to be slain"). But those who remain steadfast during this trial to the point of martyrdom would eventually conquer the Beast, along with its image and the number of its name (which are directly linked here), through the reckoning of the seven bowl judgments:
And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands.
(Rev 15:2)
Furthermore, the "mark" or "graven image" of the Beast is presented in the Apocalypse as a parody of the sealing of the saints after the opening of the sixth seal in Rev 7. The first time the Seal of God is alluded to in the Apocalypse is in the letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor, which is described as a white stone with a name inscribed upon it - meaning that it is a physical object like the Jewish phylactery:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.
(Rev 2:17)
We find that this theme of the sealing with a name recurs a number of times in the Apocalypse, and that it is parodied by the mark of the Beast, which is said to contain a number which represents the name of the Beast.
The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.
(Rev 3:12)
“Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel...
(Rev 7:3-4)
Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.
(Rev 14:1)
On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
(Rev 19:16)
Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.
(Rev 13:16-18)
So once we examine the textual evidence, we find that the mark of the Beast is presented as a diabolical inversion of the Jewish practise of wearing phylacteries, which are worn in a manner to symbolically represent the name of God as El Shaddai. In addition, the original Greek wording can just as easily refer to a graven image, which directly links it to the image that the False Prophet deceives the inhabitants of the earth into constructing for themselves, just as the Israelites were deluded into fashioning the Golden Calf. The image which the False Prophet incites the people into constructing has the illusion of life, and also the ability to speak. It also contains the number of the Beast, which by using the process of Hebrew gematria, can also be used to determine the name of the Beast itself. And the Greek word for "beast" - therion, has the numerical value of 666 once transliterated into Hebrew.
The mark is also the demonic counterpart to white stone engraved with a name in Rev 2:17 - which is to be identified with the Seal of God given to the saints after the opening of the sixth seal in Rev 6. And the opening of the sixth seal, during which these acts of sealings takes place, is marked on earth by a series of astronomical and geophysical signs, including an earthquake, a total solar eclipse, a total lunar eclipse and a meteor shower - all of which occurred around the turn of the millennium at the exact moment of the marriage between cell phone technology and the worldwide web (www) with the introduction of WAP - which will allow for the future of commerce to be conducted solely through the www and mobile phones (see the post Signs in the Sky). In addition, some private revelations have suggested that the prophecy of the sealing of the saints took place during the turn of the millennium (see the post The Seal of God), and Fr Stefano Gobbi predicted that the prophecy of the mark of the Beast would be fulfilled in a time period which would begin in the year 1998 - which is 666 x 3 (see the post Fr Gobbi on the Mark of the Beast).
When we take into consideration that the three letter acronym for the worldwide web (through which all future commerce will be conducted via cell phones) - www, is the numerical equivalent of three sixes once transliterated into Hebrew (using the exact method which the number of the Beast was originally encoded - gematria), then we can conclude that the modern use of mobile phones fulfils every last aspect of the prophecy of the mark of the Beast (for additional information on the equation of www with 666 see the earlier post Hebrew 666?).
Like phylacteries, they are a physical object, temporarily worn externally on the person, and as the original Greek word charagma can suggest, they are a crafted object - or "graven image". In a further correlation to the image which the False Prophet causes the inhabitants of the earth to fashion, they have the appearance of life, and also the ability to speak.
So, in answer to the question if this means that we are "all now under the mark of the Beast?", then we would have to conclude, yes we are - and have been since the first merging of cell phone technology with the worldwide web in the year 1999 (which has a further symbolism in the fact that it resembles three sixes turned upside down - and this was the year after 1998, which is 3 x 666). I understand that this can be a frightening prospect, especially in light of the verses which appear to suggest that those who accepted the mark of the Beast would be eternally condemned to hell, but we have to take into consideration that there is also a symbolic layer to this prophecy which depicts those who have accepted the mark of the Beast as all the evil people who have ever lived - they represent "those whose name was not found written in the book of life" (Rev 20:15). So there is a certain amount of hyperbole included in these verses.
We have to remember that forgiveness is one of the cornerstones of Christianity. It would be extremely difficult to reconcile theodicy (the righteous of God) with the notion that someone would be eternally condemned to hell for accepting the mark of the Beast without any possibility of salvation, especially when they have been tricked into doing so.
Since this is a Catholic blog, I assume that the majority of the readers are of the same religion. As such, Catholics are required to believe that the keys to heaven and hell - the very means of salvation, reside solely in the papal magesterium - which is protected by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, especially so when speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals. Whatever form it would take, the mark of the Beast would have to be formally identified as such by the Church before it could be considered to have any spiritual effects as to the destiny of the soul. Until it does so, think of the material presented here as the "case for the prosecution". So I don't believe that using cell phones will have any immediate spiritual effects until the Church reaches a formal decision on this matter. For now, as far as I'm aware, no one of any authority in the Church is aware of these arguments - so any decision on this subject appears to be very far off indeed. So technically speaking (in theory at least), if you own one now (and the vast majority of the readers of this blog almost certainly do) it should be possible to continue using one until the Church issues a verdict itself.
For Protestants however, who adhere to sola scriptura, unfortunately there is no such protection offered - they would have to form their own decisions in the present.
As to the question concerning how the use of cell phones could be evil in itself - this is fairly simple to answer. If the cell phone can be definitely established by the Church as the fulfilment of this prophecy, this identification alone would make using it inherently evil - since it would be tantamount to accepting the mark of the Beast. There is nothing that would distinguish using a cell phone from accepting a RFID microchip implant - the sole difference being that a large number of Christians already expect the mark of the Beast to be the latter.
Yet the use of microchip implants seems to be positively morally benign compared to the propensity of the cell phone for evil purposes. The cell phone can be used as a medium to browse and upload material onto the www, viewing anything from violent and pornographic images, to arranging hook-ups with random strangers for sex. The lack of face-to-face social interaction often leads to a lack of inhibition and breaking of taboos. A recent article in the Huffington Post has highlighted the increase in the trend of "sexting" (the sending of intimate photos to partners via cell phones) amongst teenagers - which are very often shared around school yards, and the resultant humiliation and bullying can in turn lead to suicide (see here). And paedophiles are exploiting this craze by pretending to be school children themselves, encouraging children to send them explicit photographs they have taken with their cell phones - which are then circulated around paedophile rings.
The use of mobile phones is changing the way we act and live; slowly breaking down social boundaries through desensitisation and deforming the concept of moral behaviour. A microchip implant could never achieve such a capacity for leading people into immorality.
Yet, unlike a mircochip implant, everyone actually desires to have one. As well as being central to daily business operations and allowing us to keep in contact with family members, they have also become a fashion statement, with the use of older models often being met by sneers and derision - which brings us back to Jesus' condemnation of the ever more elaborate phylacteries worn by the self-aggrandising Jewish leaders in the 1st century. They have become a "catch-all" device, with in-built functions including internet gateway, gaming, camera, video recorder, and calculator. And this level of covetousness is even before they become central to engaging in commerce. The strong inclinations that will undoubtedly prevail in favour of keeping these devices means that a large number of people will already be programmed to automatically reject the idea that the cell phone could be the ultimate fulfilment of the prophecy of the mark of the Beast. They truly are a temptation worthy of the wiles of the Devil.
488 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 488 Newer› Newest»Chris, I take it you're not a part of that stupid sheep crowd? So if it wasn't the driver, nor Oswald , nor bush, just who actually did it?? enlightened us all.
I include myself in that group mark.
after learning cell phone during that time did not work from a plane at that altitude.
going 500 mph is IMPOSSIBLE at near sea level
the first showing of the tragedy showed the nose of a plane exiting the building in tact
MANY others
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/baby-jesus-statue-cries-tears-14153371
Baby Jesus statue 'cries tears of blood' and locals think it's message from God
if I knew the person or persons I would be dead.
the directing power is evident the specific people have probably been offed
but turn on your tv the owners are part of them
look at your government they are paid by them
look at your dollar bill their codes and name is printed on it
their names are the ones you can't reach
anonn get some spunk id required
It was almost sixty years ago; does it really matter at this point? Evidence may have been destroyed (after all these years, with an officially closed case, it has almost certainly been destroyed, and even if JFK's brain isn't missing, it's so decomposed by now they probably wouldn't be able to learn anything from it.
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That having been said, there is merit to the idea that his conversion may have led this country in an entirely different direction from the one it actually took. Don Belisario, of NCIS fame, knew Oswald personally from their time in the Marines together, and says this of the man: He was working for the Soviets for some time before JFK was killed, and he was entirely capable of acting alone. Belisario puts forth that the Russians assigned him to assassinate JFK, and then, fearing that he might spill the beans, sent another shooter to kill Oswald. From this, my own opinion is that, after his conversion, the Soviets were very afraid of him, because he was taking a very aggressive stance toward Communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular. In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union would have stood no chance against America, and they knew it. While they may have had the numbers on us, their technology couldn't hold a candle to ours. So, to their way of thinking, the only solution was to get rid of JFK. Then (and remember, this is nothing but conjecture on my part) when his brother RFK ran, they were probably afraid he would pick up where his brother left off. Americans were still, at that point, mourning the loss of Jack, and Bobby probably would have won by a landslide, and the Soviets couldn't have that, so they shot him, too. I admit I don't remember too much about JFK. I was only six at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, and nine when he was killed; who pays attention to news, especially politics, at that age? But I do remember that I, personally, didn't like Bobby at all. I was 13 when he was killed, and very aware of his stance on the issues of the day. He was far too left-wing for my taste, though by today's standards he probably would be considered positively conservative.
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Just my take on that whole sordid mess. ;D
5 jmc
the last I'll say on this because the info is now available.
OSWALD NEVER FIRED A SHOT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
there is a picture of him in the library doorway as JFK's car goes by!
there is evidence that there are no fingerprints on the supposed rifle. there is proof the rifle was placed in Oswald's hands while he was in the morgu.. ink stayed on the body.
and what really can we believe about all these post decades books/ haven't we learned about fake news..
some of these guys are still alive and in power hence the nonrelease of papers.
jmc his brain was never kept.it was lost per killing day.. was the sure-fire evidence they could not cover up. that's why the upper trajectory theory is imp
and Belisario is a plant without a doubt. i'm sure the government loves his stuff
@Mark,
Maybe these words "lazy and stupid" are to harsh.
And I don't think that this is the reason anyway.
I think we have to replace these words by "of bad faith".
Because to have seen the debris of an airplane in a field in Pennsylvania or in the pentagone on 911, we have to be of bad faith.
People do not want to be disturbed; bad faith is a way to achieve that.
But accepting lies knowing they are lies does not lead you to Jesus.
People today are of bad faith as it was in the days of Noah.
This is why Christ's return has to be very soon.
We have to pray the Holy Rosary asking for Our Lord to return as soon as possible.
I know it may seem like now-irrelevant ancient history JMC, I'd always felt that myself, but that book written through a Catholic lens that focused not on the hows of the assassination, but particularly the whys, especially in regard to "Pacem et Terris" and the writing of Thomas Merton, etc., it's impossible to convey all that the book has to say, but, again, if anyone already has some interest in this topic, I just can't recommend "JFK and the Unspeakable" enough, as something to read and draw personal conclusions from... if Oswald was the actual killer or not in a way is almost superfluous to what the book's focus is. Even though the book doesn't mention Fatima, you can almost see the fingerprint of Fatima all through the book anyways.
I didn't mean to put a stick in a hornet's nest, just pass a book recommendation along, sorry if I got carried away, it was just a truly mind-blowing read for me and wanted to share that a bit. I feel like I see the "big picture" of the last days more clearly since reading it, like, I'm even wondering if the Marian Period of Peace spoken of at Fatima might not have been designated (conditionally) from around or shortly after 1960 right through to 2000, that is, if the consecration was done early enough, there might have been a period of peace for that entire 40 years, but maybe our actual period of peace was a short one, from perhaps only 1989-1991 as the beginning to the end of millenium, because of the relative lateness of the consecration in 1984 (I know many contend that it wasn't done at all, but just for the sake of argument, supposing it was).
Whether a nuclear holocaust would have happened in 1985, none of us will ever know, but Kennedy had taken a hard turn away from cynical cold-warrior and really was a changed man nearing the end of his life, becoming a real man of peace (he saw clearly that unless we rid the world completely of nuclear weapons, it is only a matter of time before a nuclear war that would kill more people in 20 minutes than every other previous conflict in history out together, and Khrushchev was of the same mind... they were absolutely going to work at banning all nuclear weapons, this is well-documented stuff, not just speculation as abounds with other aspects of Kennedy's death).
This would have thrown a real monkey-wrench into certain world-wide plans that are still seeing their fulfillment today, as in, even as I write this on March 20, the beginning of Purim, behind the scenes there are giant moves toward a new peace deal for Israel, brokered by Jared Kushner with the Saudi heir-apparent and Bibi, that could radically accelerate things, as foreseen in Revelation, with the building of a Third Temple maybe coming after that, the stars are all aligning in the necessary ways setting the stage for the arrival of the Son of Perdition. And maybe things are further along already towards that end than most of us usually think we are? I don't buy conspiracy theories portraying Kushner as a possible candidate for the Antichrist, but can see that moves he is making are setting the necessary stage, as John the Baptist did, whether it's done knowingly or unknowingly is another superfluous detail almost.
https://thenewsrep.com/115532/a-meteor-unleashed-a-173-kiloton-explosion-in-earths-atmosphere-and-nobody-noticed/
the third largest explosion of its kind in recorded history, with the 1908 Tunguska event taking the top spot and Russia’s highly-covered Chelyabinsk event from six years ago ranking second.
jason
thanks for the info and I will get the book. all the info can't be written in a few sentences and time has cemented our opinions one way or the other.
I agree with your comments. kennedy thought peace was an option. and then remember Eisenhower's warning about the military Industrial complex. they were the killers.
peace the most dangerous word in our vocabulary. imagine all the dollars made lost if weapons were no longer built. if missiles and planes were not needed.
then throw in the control of the Vietnam opium by governmental bodies as was the airport setting in Arkansas during Clinton.
I guess it is as simple as understanding evil is the devil's grip on earth.
Because to have seen the debris of an airplane in a field in Pennsylvania or in the pentagon on 911, we have to be of
anon you are missing the point
YOU DID NOT SEE ANY DEBRIS IN PITTSBURG OR AT THE TRADE CENTER. THERE WAS NONE.
IN PITTSBURG IT WAS THE FIRST TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY A PLANE WENT STRAIGHT INTO THE GROUND. MADE A NICE HOLE AND LEFT NO WRECKAGE
"THE FIRST TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY A PLANE WENT STRAIGHT INTO THE GROUND. MADE A NICE HOLE AND LEFT NO WRECKAGE"
"THE FIRST TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY..." How convenient!
Easier to believe there was no plane there at all.
And since, there has been so much lies that only Jesus can bring back the Truth because He is the Truth.
And I think He is returning in glory very very soon because without Him, mankind is completely unable to do the right things.
All the prophetic signs we are witnessing now are pointing to His return soon and this is my ultimate hope.
We have to pray more than ever the Holy Rosary!
Well-stated Chris, on some of these in-depth subjects are opinions are shaped and formed over years, if not decades, but I am definitely picking up what you're putting down, haha.
On a total separate note, I'm on a prophesy/private-revelation hunt, and I remembered how quickly MightyRighty found the last one(s) I was looking for, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try again.
I'm looking for it in the context of the possibility of a supernatural and immovable/indestructible sign of the reality of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, which is referenced in different visions and apparitions, but, I seem to remember one that specifically said that it will be the actual physical Cross that Our Lord was crucified on, that would appear during the Second Pentecost (I believe, I can't remember if the private prophecy was that specific as to the timing, but that's my sense from what I recall), or a Marian Era of Peace after the conversion of the whole Earth (I guess after the Minor Chastisements have ceased), as a miraculous and much-needed means of bolstering the faith of believers through a very difficult time, so I took that to mean it would be visible to at least every Christian, but I'm guessing to everyone in the world.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I know some people think a visible sign will appear in Herzegovina or in Portugal, but I believe part of this prophecy was that the Cross will appear in exactly the same spot as it was on Calvary on Good Friday, in Jerusalem. I would likely have read this in either Emmett's book or here at his website, the short Dupont one, or that big one with the red cover, I forget the author's name, but the one that is almost like an encyclopedia of Catholic private revelation regarding the Eschaton. Thanks in advance if this fires any neurons out there!
hi Jason
St Faustina records something like what you are asking about--here is 1 link i picked because it also relates a similar "sighting" from 4thcentury by another Saint (plus Doctor? or Father? of the Church
https://spiritdaily.org/blog/mystics/saint-faustina-and-the-second-coming
On a different topic altogether now, I just read an article over at 1P5. It gives the entirety of an essay written by Bp. Athanasius Schneider, "On the Question of a Heretical Pope. They were words of great comfort, much needed in a turbulent time. Go read!
https://onepeterfive.com/bishop-athanasisus-schneider-on-the-question-of-a-heretical-pope/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Onepeterfive+%28OnePeterFive%29
thanks JMC great link--just read the 1P5 (glad to see them publishing an article which is both so articulate and yet non-inflammatory). So easy to forget WHO is really in charge. I too got a real boost to both my faith and my membership Body of Christ reading Bishop A (hope there's not an exam though). sidebar but related there is also a link to Bishop A's teaching site--went there quickly to check it out, read one article re divorced living and banging new partner and still being allowed to licitedly (according to their bishop) receive Communion-again love reading this guy using the old test of St Paul There is also a beautiful note from him re monthy Mass celebration and blessings for all visitors to his site (I need all th blessings i can get) will go back tomorrow to "do" video 1 (of 3) on the Faith-thanks again JMC
Thanks for the link Brian, I've had the diary of Sr. St. Faustina on my bookshelf for years but have been intimidated by the sheer volume of it that I'm embarrassed to admit I've still barely cracked the spine on it. I wonder if this huge luminous cross she writes of will be related to the gift of conscience of the impact of one's sins that will serve as a warning?
I did eventually find the prophecy I was looking for, it's regarding the Great Monarch, where the True Cross is almost a tangent from the main prophecy, but it's in there:
St. Methodius of Olympus (d. 311)
"...when the Son of Perdition has arisen, (the Antichrist), the King of the Romans will
ascend Golgotha upon which the wood of the Holy Cross is fixed, in the place where the Lord
underwent death for us. The king will take the crown from his head and place it upon the cross and stretching out his hands to heaven will hand over the kingdom of the Christians to God the Father. The cross and crown of the king will be taken up together to heaven. This is because the Cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ hung for the common salvation of all will begin to appear before him at his coming to convict the lack of faith of the unbelievers.
The prophecy of David which says, "In the last days Ethiopia will stretch out her hand to God" [Psalm 67:32] will be fulfilled in that these last men who stretch out their hands to God are from the seed of Chuseth, the daughter of Phol, king of Ethiopia. When the Cross has been lifted up on high to heaven, the King of the Romans will directly give up his spirit. Then every principality and power will be destroyed that the Son of
Perdition may manifest (himself)..." (E. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte, pp. 89-94)
I wonder what the reference to Ethiopia might mean? Has anyone ever come across any commentary, or have thoughts of their own, on what it could mean? I know the Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims to have the genuine Ark of the Covenant (link:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/keepers-of-the-lost-ark-179998820/), the veracity of the claim I'm not really sure of, but could they also possess the True Cross? It doesn't seem that St. Methodius could be talking in an allegorical way.
Among other things that I'd read long ago, but I've gotten a big refresher on is the visions of Marie-Julie Jahenny (d. 1941), which were approved by her bishop... what she had to say about the revolution starting in France, the chastisements from God (she sets out a very precise timeline for how long the tribulations of an Islamic invasion that overturns all the Western democracies of Europe and whatever is left of the world after what sounds very much like a nuclear attack), with the 3 Days of Darkness coming at the end of a period marked by a plague that burns the skin (which she lays out remedies for, a tincture made from the flowers and leaves of the White Hawthorne, St. John's Wort, and touching an image of Our Lady, especially in the form of the Miraculous Medal, to one's forehead will help ease anxiety over the catastrophic happens), and the coming of the Great Monarch generally in more detail than I've found anywhere else, and the particular book I read this stuff in has a pretty comprehensive list of all the prophecies made over the ages about the Great Monarch.
(cont...)
I got the information from a free e-book "We Are Warned: The Prophecies of Marie-Julie Jahenny" by E.A. Bucchianeri, though I'm sure there is plenty of info on Emmett's blog though I haven't searched for it yet. The author has a rather unconventional idea that the Great Monarch will be Henry V of France, the last of the Bourbon line from King Louis XVI following Hebraic rules of succession anyways, will be resurrected from the dead just as Lazarus was, and will return as the Great Monarch, not reincarnated or reborn, but as a foreshadowing of the General Resurrection, just as his very life will be a foreshadowing of Our Lord's physical return someday, a new John the Baptist. I'm not sure if I agree, but it's an interesting thought (the tomb of Henry V, who turned down the throne of France because he would not reign under the Tricolour, but only the flag of Fleur-de-Lys on a white background, the flag of the Ancien Regime.
As a side-note, I've always found it ironic if this is the flag under which the world will be converted, that the Fleur-de-Lys is so very prominent on the flag of Québec, even though since the Révolution tranquille, Québec has very much led the way in Canada as far as an abandonment of the teachings and morals of Christianity (and Catholicism in particular... maybe that shouldn't be a surprise, for I'm sure Satan hates the symbol of the Fleur-de-Lys and would work overtime on anyone living under that symbol. But anyway, again, this is a pretty good book on all things "Great Monarch", including a pretty comprehensive list of all prophecies over the centuries concerning the arrival of this greatest of all earthly leaders and herald of Our Lord.
At the risk of getting flamed, haha, and on another tangent, with all the worry over Pope Francis, this one line from Marie-Julie really gave me some comfort... it is not authoritative, but considering how much of what she saw lines up with so many other visionaries when it comes to the Angelic Shepherd and the Great Monarch, it at the very least is something to ponder, something told to her by a vision of Gregory the Great, Pope, Saint, and Doctor of the Church (who probably himself I'd imagine ruffled some feathers in his own day for the general revision of the liturgy of the Pre-Tridentine Mass he inititated):
"...Pray for the Church threatened by a conspiracy hatched by a horrible jealousy of perverted minds banded together to overthrow it. The storm is terrible, but THE CHURCH WILL REMAIN INFALLIBLE (note: my emphasis)and its walls shall not be shaken. But there will be martyrs ... Pray for the Church and ask God for the return of a lost family, a people
corrupted, a degraded society. All are our brothers in the Lord. They are souls redeemed at
the price of His Blood."
So let the flaming begin, haha, but seriously, after reading the complete account of Marie-Julie Jahenny's visions (and there were a lot of them, I've been reading since yesterday morning non-stop almost, first trying to hunt down the particular prophecy of the True Cross on Golgotha, but on to many other thing... all of the other things Marie-Julie Jahenny saw and had recorded really ring as true to me, then this passage giving me comfort that the Church will never fall into open heresy, no matter if a particular Pope is even personally evil (and we've admittedly had some very power-hungry, fornicating, and other nasty traits in some of our Popes), well, yes, it was very comforting in our present days for me.
Whoops, I forgot as I was writing to include where the tomb of Henri V of France is, in Slovenia... I know it seems a real stretch to think that he could be resurrected, but there are many saints and mystics who have predicted the Great Monarch would come from the East, and this would seem a good fit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_Gorica ... and also that during the chastisement (including the Day of the Lord, which seems in MJJ's visions to be the day when the great earthquakes, that continue to build in intensity for 40 days I think it was, start) many of the signs of the end of time would occur, including specific resurrections from the dead as happened with Lazarus.
Heard recently that JFK's car was taken away to be repaired following his assassination- in Michigan. Replaced windshield because of bullet hole and all the upholstery. No investigation on the car as usually the case.
Interesting about Satan and the Fleur-de-Lis, especially regarding Quebec. Half of the paternal side of my family comes from Quebec, and your remark about Satan paying special attention to those living under the Fleur-de-Lis certainly has the ring of truth to it, considering the problems that side of the family has always had, down to this very day, three generations removed from Quebec.
Yes, I am from Québec.
It is amazing to have witness a very catholic society becoming such a totally "secular" society.
Most of the young French-Canadians are not even baptized.
Only the seniors are going to Church on Sundays, but not all of them, just a minority among them.
And the youth in their 20's, 30's, they don't care anymore about their identity, being religious, national, etc...
That is why the parti Québécois, the political party who wanted independence for Québec is almost extinguished; because among the youth, nationalism and religion does not mean anything to them in our days.
The only thing they know now is money and consumerism. And they say that they are "citizens of the world". And all religions are the same.
They were asking a young woman in her 20's about removing the crucifix from the City Hall in Montréal.
She answered that she does not care about the crucifix so the city Council can do as they want in that matter.
And in the last election in Québec, they elected a political party (CAQ) that talk only about money and consumerism, nothing else. That is why they won.
I have been saying to some to do not vote at all because since 9-11, I believe the ruling elites of the Western world have lost all legitimacy and I recommand to do not take part in the élections these corrupted elites organized.
To take part in not only wrong, I think it is a sin.
But it seems the corruption is also touching the general population and they elected empty politicians because they are themselves empty, especially the "golden youth".
No wonder we have to pray the Holy Rosary hoping Jesus will return soon... and pray to St Jude for the lost golden youth of Québec.
(I say "golden youth" because in the 1990's in Québec, it is a fact that the poor have had less children than the more privileged social class, so the today's youth of Québec comes more for the privileged class.)
And I forgot to say that this "golden youth" of Québec, not only does not have any religious or national identity but they even do not care anymore about the french language.
Many of them will switch from french to English in a 5 minutes conversation.
And in my younger years, they told us that the french language was one of the most beautiful language in the world.
Times have changed.
Pray always the Holy Rosary and if possible St Jude also.
Not to mention the Habs are nowhere near winning a Cup again
I think French is beautiful. It's downright musical. I don't speak or understand it myself, but I still love listening to it. ;D
anon above re Quebec--I also live in QC(built house same time Rene+PQ won '76-figured they needed a little Irish Quebec input--still here but now in Mtl (NDG) where i moved specifically last September to join parish St Ignatius. Stig.ca is english so I am definitly NOT contradicting any of the above statement re franco youth etc as they all (on the bus, on the sidewalk walking tc0 do switch back and forth from french to english. on subject of french language, all the prophesies of french monarch etc. when french revolution occured and lacademie francais re-engineered the french language Quebec DID NOT!! what is mockingly called by france french "jouyal" is in reality the legimitate langue francais!!! Montreal is originally MONT Royal" --the numbrs forfrancophones are dreadful this is just one Gatineau dioces (across the river from Ottawa so most are federal emplyees, or companies selling to Feds but stillvote separtist most of the time-go figure anyway my parish which was an amaglmation of two, each with 11,000 population, lastyear averages 200 per parish (total for each of 2 masses) andfor ash wednesday we had one shared service-85 total--do the math!!!! even France does better Masonic influence is HUGE here with giant temples cross th street from seminaries (empty, brag that they do the Rosary-every month!!) major blvd QC city Jean Gauvin aka John Calvin!!! (illumanti for sure part of invasion planCromwell-question wher does a "no-body" get the cash for 1600 ships? to take down catholicism(and royalty inengland--if any QC'ers onthis blog want to get in touch i am nam above with michaeljoseph inbeteen brian and keane good news priest stabbedyesterday at St Jo Oratory in good shape (knife broke after first stab) God blssus all
ps hard to get a grip on new provincial govrning party-combo of "nationalists" (which I am very much OK with) but half are independist nationalists and other halfare Canadian nationalists
@ Brian,
Yeah, but the CAQ, they all believe the fairy tale of 9-11 that was done at the time to protect the "SYSTEM" against the threat the elite perceived from the anti-globalization protests at the end of 1990's and the beginning of the 2000's and to establish a police state, which we do have in 2019 and have been having for almost 18 years.
And the elites want a world of consumers only, no identity, no nation, no religion, everybody speaking English etc...
So, they do not want you to be what you are, i.e. a proud Irish Catholic.
As they do not want French Canadians to be proud descendants of Catholic Normans and Bretons.
How different from the Blessed Mother when she appeared to Bernadette in Lourdes respecting who she was to the point of speaking to her in the patois or dialect of her region of France.
Jesus is coming soon. We have to pray more than ever the Holy Rosary!
hi Anon-cannot disagree with anything you wrote but with one possibl caveat--many DO NOT KNOW and so believe RDS or CBC--think back in your own case, however long ago it was beforeyou began to connect the dots and realize how fenainism, frankfurt school, feminism, etc all sounded so reasonabl t the time---go back to Mike Pearson winning the Nobel peace prize for the innovation of "Peace Keepers" o his justice minster Pierre Trudeau how reasonable "state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation" sounded, or th so called settled debate on abortion (there NEVER WAS ONE) I spent 6 months one time trying to com to grips with Jesus, Whom I knew would never lie, saying to the Father "Forgive them for they know not what they do"--many/most people do not realize they have been lied to their whole life by the vry instituitions they thought they should be defending. There is VERY good reason why th catholic Church is the postr child for child abuse/pedophilia because they (who ever the HELL they are) know they must crumble its influence-partially from within a la Bella Dodd (great read to understand the tactics in play in NA since 20 or 30's still to this day i.e total capture of what books gt purchased for public libraries, almost all universoty campuses etc. Rene Girard who was anatheist before his conversion and becoming great buddies with Pope JPII writs about how so much of our lives are "imitation" but we convince ourselves we ar thinking ofr ourselves. This is why it is so critical at times like this (actually ll times) that each and evryone of us go deep into ourselves and recognizes God's Mercy in giving the Grace for whatever little light we do have, and realizing this rtain our Faith that God KNOWS what HE is Doing!!! soon or later someone will see your tranquility of being and ask you what gives you this---and yes for sure such lowly peasant like activities lik praying the Rosary, novena to St Jude, Divine Mercy chaplet and off course frequent confession and Holy Eucharist are the power sources God bless us All--btw quite a few posts up r Irish Catholic. Brton Frnch etc there is link to a rescent Michal A jones who agrees fully with you--first and last minutes are especially good re Catholic Faith and identity etc
Brian, is it possible to get books to learn Quebec French anywhere in the US? Being descended from Quebecois myself, I'm quite interested in this.
REALLY TOUGH ONE re Queb french--this is a pretty/really good explanation:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9rh3lqdtT0
the guy touchs on (but understates how bad it really IS!!!) sacriligious words are common; there are also youtubes by a lebanesse born in Quebec that really truly explains the use of tabernac etc (it really is bad. like some saying you know, or the famoue english canadien one "ai/eh?pronounced like the first letter of the alphabet is " "
not the answer you asked for but...
@Anonymous,
I think the best way to learn Québec french language is to come to Québec and stay in a city like Québec City for a while.
If you are among French-Canadian people, you will learn faster how they speak their french language in Québec and the accent.
I send you a link. This is a French Canadian traditional folk song that makes the French Canadian in me cry everytime I listen to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNSVMIvcms
Take care and do not forget to pray the Holy Rosary!
exactly1 NOT Montreal (where I liv0 great city, go Habs etc BUT walking down town hear every language including french); for inexpensive trip to europe defintely ville de Quebec (great restaurants, art and everything in french--good french easily useable in France (lot of bilateral deals, students, work exchange etc and Quebec city as provincila capital lots of european french; for REAL langue francais the Saquennay-Lac St Jean is always used by genetic researchers as there has been so little cross-fertilization (some with Indigenous like les Montagne (very intelligent!) but very much like visiting a community separated from outside influences-the french there is combo of old language, some dialects etc. I will listen to song (thanks in advance and then off for last 3 decades God bless
is this what Revelation speaks of to come??
AI ‘Deity’ To Preach Buddhism In Japanese Temple
http://www.technocracy.news/ai-deity-to-preach-buddhism-in-japanese-temple/
I.E. The Image of the Beast
it's all connected isn't it.
“For the Coming Man” – Hitler’s Last Words
https://www.alankurschner.com/2013/05/28/for-the-coming-man-hitlers-last-words/
@Chris I followed your link "Hitler's Last Words.."; I get all confused with the multiple Protestant versions re end times BUT on the site linked the host is one the school(s) that the Mystical Body of Christ, New Covenant DID NOT replace/supercede the nation of Isreal. I sure Emmett has addressed this multiple place but don't know best links; some of the other Catholic guys also have the requisite theological backgrounds; listen to them not me but I would be very wary--as Aristotole said, a very mis-direction (this one is HUGE) at the begining can end up completely wide of the mark some distance later despite all the good steps along the way (these guys with their backgrounds in greek, hebreb (aramatic?) ancient epistimology etc
HELP EMMETT PLEASE
I didn't go to the link, but Hitler's focus on "the Coming Man" has always creeped me out so much, even moreso after reading Emmett's argument that Hitler was the Beast from Revelation. I have no doubt Hitler was speaking of a specific individual, the Antichrist, or perhaps whoever the Mahdi will be in Islamic Eschatology (his characteristics sure read exactly like Mohammed lifted them right out of Revelation from the description of the Antichrist)... but, this Mahdi, I suspect may be the leader of the Islamic forces that will nearly take over the world until the Great Monarch comes, just as the Great Monarch is a precursor of Our Lord's return, maybe the Mahdi will be a forerunner of the Antichrist, similar to how Hitler, Napoleon, and others were as well. Just spit-balling, but I've been reading a lot of Islamic eschatology and I'm seeing how their ideas mesh into Emmett's reading of prophecy, and Catholic eschatology in general... could there still be a truly Satanic leader coming to lead the forces of Islam prior to the Antichrist?
If anyone has a familiarity with Islamic eschatology I'd love to hear it, like could their
Antichrist, the Dajjal, maybe not be referring to the physical return of Our Lord, but maybe they will identify the Great Monarch with the Dajjal? I'm certain that some non-Catholic Christians may falsely identify the Great Monarch as the Antichrist as he will be the leader of a revived Roman Empire... but then again, taking into account the Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire, over 60% of the former territory of the entire Roman Empire is currently held by Islamic nations, perhaps Europe as a revived Roman Empire headed by the Antichrist or any yet-to-be revealed forerunners of the Antichrist, will be head of an Islamic revived Roman Empire? This stuff gets confusing, haha, there is so much information that it's hard to keep it all straight sometimes.
It seems to make sense if all those Catholic visionaries saw a civil war at the time that Muslims in France are in the majority (some think it will be Freemasons manning the guillotines in Paris again, but the prophecies all seem to suggest to me that it will be radical Islamists), with a subsequent war/invasion of the West by a united Islamic military that there would be a charismatic leader (the Mahdi?) who would be a uniting force. I suspect that after an all-out civil war between Shia and Sunni, whoever comes out on top with a robust and seasoned military backing them up will soon turn their sights on the (formerly) Christian West. Maybe I'm paranoid from all the reading of end-times prophecy, but it stands out to me that the foreseeing that the bulk of the French military will be overseas (fighting in the Middle East?) when the civil wars start in France and quickly spread to Italy suggest that their will already be an all-out war going on in the Levant when these civil wars/Islamic revolutions occur in Europe, perhaps the Third World War as the Pope has even said has already begun with the war in Syria/Iraq.
I get very stressed out about it all sometimes, but when I touch an image of Our Lady or the Miraculous Medal to my forehead, that stress really does instantly dissipate. Whether it is just my own mental health issues, or something more, it really seems to work.
(cont...)
I'm so glad now I brought up how the devil seems to have paid special attention to those that currently still live under a flag of the Fleur-de-Lys, the comments afterwards are sooo spot on and insightful (and I was happy to see more fellow Canadians posting, yay!). I don't so much anymore, but I used to know a lot of Fransaskois, one of my best college friends was from Domremy (I love that we have a place in Saskatchewan with a connection to the birthplace of Jeanne D'Arc), and I was engaged to a woman who was Fransaskois as well for a number of years.
But, one thing that always bothered me was how incredibly pervasive the cursing in French is here (like, as in every few sentences), even in my fiancee's family, and her father was formerly a priest that was released from his vows in the late 60s and went on to have a family, and they were very Catholic (though going to Mass at their parish in Regina was horrifying to me at times, with stuff like liturgical dance during the Mass, the Our Father being said during mass in gender-neutral language, and other serious liturgical abuses), but even among supposedly devout Catholics, the curse words against the Tabernacle, the Host, etc., I always found so disturbing. I would say a Glory Be every time I heard someone I know use these words, and I certainly wracked up a lot of them.
OH, I forgot to link the flag of yet another people who still live under the flag of the Fleur-de-Lys, the Fransaskois, and yet another people that seemed to have gone from being the most moral, most traditional, most Catholic people in my province now leading the way in Modernism in the Church here. Again, Satan sure seems to particularly hate this symbol of the Trinity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fransaskois#/media/File:Bandera_dels_Fransaskois.svg
also Jason
I have the opinion that Islam will be defeated and Israel will become a middle East power before the antichrist reveals himself. i think he will be a part of the military decisions that defeat them.
As for calming down the instant you touch a Miraculous Medal or image of Our Lady, I maintain that it probably doesn't have anything to do with your problems. The same thing happens to me when I'm feeling anxious about something; in particular, I remember reading one fictional novel a few years ago that left me severely shaking and nearly gibbering to myself, it frightened me so badly. I then noticed I had forgotten to put my Brown Scapular back on after showering; I picked it up, and just upon touching it, before I had even put it on, the anxiety instantly vanished.
.
Most times, the waters of Lourdes do not afford miraculous cures, but the strengthening of the soul to endure the affliction you went there for is every bit as miraculous. Our Lady does the same thing for anyone who touches her image asking for help. ;D
https://sputniknews.com/world/201903231073479183-mike-pompeo-jerusalem-third-temple-model/
ompeo’s VIDEO Shows ‘Third Temple’ Model, Sparks Fears Over Biblical End Times
it seems many think this quatrain might be for this time period because of Trump
Century VI, Quatrain 22
Within the land of the great heavenly temple,
Nephew murdered at London through feigned peace
The bark will then become schismatic,
Sham liberty will be proclaimed everywhere.
nephew murdered........ the monarch in play????? let's watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVU8bhbQInw
The Virgin Mary's Apparition in Zeitun - 1968
looks like this could escalate
https://israelpalestine.liveuamap.com/en/2019/25-march-israeli-forces-firing-flares-near-jalazun-camp-north
gaza skyline live
https://www.reuters.tv/l/PO4F/2019/03/25/gaza-s-skyline-after-6-hurt-in-rocket-attack
@Chris,
A sign of the End times is the fact that the US, which are the pillar of the System, are not able to stand strong in face of adversity as they were able to do in the 1960's for example.
They are fragile to the point that they have to tolerate the Russian presence in South America for example contrary to the Cuban crisis in the 1960's.
And it is now impossible for them to go to war for example in Iran like they did in 2003 in Iraq because it will immediately cause the fall of the US because too much people will be angry at Trump for going to war and you will have civil disturbances all over the country.
So, now the System is just communication but no action is possible for the System.
It shows that we are very close to the Return of Jesus when the System is paralysed like this and impotent.
No Wonder St Malachy said that Pope Francis is the last pope before the "dreadful Judge" (Jesus) judges his people.
Here we are!
Let's show devotion to the Holy Rosary while waiting for Jesus!
God Bless
@anon
ok most NB first absolutely we All have to keep saying the Rosary-daily
there is a post above re book Kennedy Missile crisis and video link--i did NOT read the book but did watch the video--I believe this is the same "swamp" Trump is up against (last big aligator is off course FED, B of England the whole world banking Mammon (another reason Sddam, gaddafi and Syria attacked (maybe also N Korea not sure about it)as they all had their own (reall) National bank and controlled their own money supply. anyway hoping this is true--w22report doesdaily video with narrative that Trump, Putn Orban et al working together to take down "deep-state aka one world government/new order"--
d*mn got a great photo of Fr with Pres Trump lady of Fatima statue @whitehouse after exorocism! looks like the Donald has somthing dear in his hand; i have copies and pasted to outlook email no problem but can't here-is there a HTML tag required to paste? (if Emmett doesn't want us pasting images PLEASE somebody let me know
Brian;
Thanks for the heads up and warning regarding the Hitler site. I agree it is a dangerous maze that must be traversed to splice this information into our arguments but yet leave the errored theology alone. that was the first time I saw the Hitler quote so i had to post the link. thank you for looking out for me and please continue to do so in future posts .
thanks
chris
Brian, after Vatican II, the Catholic Church has adopted a "soft supercessionism" towards Judaism as opposed to the "hard supercessionism" pre-VII.
Jason, I argue that Hitler was the False Prophet mentioned in the Apocalypse as the forerunner to the Beast, so that article about the "coming man" is of some resonance. The imagery of the False Prophet is lifted from the "little horn" of the Book of Daniel, who persecutes the Jews before the restoration of Israel towards the end of the world, much in the same way Antiochus IV Epiphanes unleashed a Jewish persecution before the land of Palestine was restored to Jewish control under the Maccabees. Also, when you crunch the numbers of the "days" given in the Book of Daniel, they all point to the restoration of Israel in 1948 and the capture of Jerusalem in 1967.
Brian;
You are perceptive with your comments regarding the banking systems of those countries. please notice even more specifically, ALL those countries informed the USA they would not use the US dollar to buy and pay for oil as per Nixon agreement with the Saudis. they were going to use their GOLD BACKED currency to bypass this requirement. look up what Qadaffi was doing. He had set up a gold backed deal for his ?? oil. think and realize the ramifications of this.. this is America's weak point. This is how it will be destroyed. take away the power of the dollar and the US cannot send its power around the world. A repeat of why ROME fell. This is why Russia and China agreed to a currency agreement to trade oil. all to weaken the dollar.. look how small foreign bond purchases have become. And the real tell is how no one in the press is warning us what is just around the corner.
the fall of the usa is very close and why I think the euro will be adopted or another currency will take over.
Ah whoops, my apologies for misquoting you Emmett! I found your arguments for the identity of Hitler as the False Prophet, not the Beast aka Antichrist (I think Beast from the sea vs. Beast from the land mixes me up) very convincing, so I feel dumb for mixing it up. JMC, thanks for sharing you experience, it makes me feel less crazy touching my four-way medal to my forehead so often.
In light of Hitler likely being the False Prophet, I wonder if Hitler's ideology, Nazism/fascism, might not be the world system that will be
HQ'd from the Third Temple, or have an insipid part to play in the chastisements that come first around the arrival of the Great Monarch? I have a really strong sense that Nazism/fascism still will have a 2nd round on this planet, they aren't systems condemned to the dust-heaps of history.
I hope no one gets angry at the suggestion, but it does seem like at least crypto-fascists (if not outright ones i.e. Brazil) are starting to control more countries around the world, and we were well warned by papal homilies and encyclicals as to the huge danger that ideology holds. As an aside, I don't really understand Christians/Catholics supporting the building of a physical Third Temple that we know will be the throne of the Antichrist when scripture is pretty clear we have the Third Temple already as the Church, and Our Lady as the new Ark of the Covenant as well, etc... the building of a physical Third Temple, isn't that contrary to what Jesus taught and handed down to his Apostles?). I understand it as being a sign of the times, but seeing Christians (it seems mostly US Evangelicals) even donating money to build it, or how prominent the Third Temple was during Pompeo's visit, it makes me scratch my head a bit.
We would do well to remember that not only did Pope St. JPII help to bring down Communist/Marxist totalitarianism (I can almost still hear his "Silencio!!!" to the Sandinista still ringing and reverberating now, if you've never seen the video for that, I'd recommend it... it's like you can hear in his voice the full authority of the Church in that one word!), but also far-right totalitarian regimes (which should be seen as very distinct from Catholic absolute monarchies, which have Our Lord's blessing and Our Lady's protection and follow the teachings of the Church), like Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, whose downfall was really cemented by the Pope's visit there in 1988 (Paraguay was still a major haven for wanted Nazi war-criminals, and Stoessner had an open affinity for Nazism/fascism).
I think many Catholics even (certainly the Lutherans did) saw the Nazis as the lesser of two evils prior to the war compared to Communism, and I'd hope history has taught that both systems are completely incompatible with Catholic teaching, but fascism certainly seems to be in an ascendancy, especially in the one country above all others that one would think it would never rear its ugly head, with Israel now defining who is and who isn't a full citizen on the basis of religion (like, isn't that exactly what Hitler did to them??). Fascism feels to me almost like a counterfeit absolute monarchism, like how Islam is considered a sect and schism from Catholicism (or used to be) with the divinity and sacrifice of Our Lord, the priesthood, and the sacraments removed, fascism has some of the trappings of absolute monarchy, but it does not have the divine blessing right from God (e.g. Constantine, Clovis with St. Denis and the Holy Spirit descending as a dove at his coronation). That's what makes non-monarchist totalitarianism, even nominally Christian ones, so very enticing I think (and also so dangerous, they do not have the necessary anointing, not like the old monarchs of Europe did).
Something that kind of struck me recently reading a book called "The Occult Roots of Nazism" (Goodrick-Clarke, 1985), a scary eye opener as I can see some of the exact same things happening now in the world today as between 1890 and 1935 in Germany, and it was that the three defining things all the sects in Germany and Austro-Hungary that formed as forerunners to the NSDAP combined notions of (1) populist nationalism, (2) the exceptionalism of it's race/citizenry, and (3) a proclaimed need for world rule by their nation in the interests of global peace... these are uniformly the three ideological thrusts that brought the Nazis to power. I can't help but be reminded of a few other powerful countries on the world stage that share these three defining traits (I'll leave it to the imagination as to which I'm thinking of to avoid any unnecessary arguments, but it sure does seem to fit as a herald for potentially extremely bad things to come soon). No matter how frighteningly strong the adherents of Marx get, fascism is a terrible remedy as bad as the disease.
Brian, as far as I know, you can't post an image here (just think of the bandwidth that would take up on poor Emmett! ;D), but you can just block and copy the URL into your comment. From what I've seen, this site doesn't accept links, either, so everybody just does the block-and-copy thing. ;D
.
Jason: Glad I could be of some help.
@Emmett
re:Brian, after Vatican II, the Catholic Church has adopted a "soft supercessionism" towards Judaism as opposed to the "hard supercessionism" pre-VII.
Emmett I don't understand these terms and when I have tried to dril down seem to get so many conficting responses---have you addressed this anywhere? or if you haven't can you recommend a link--I for example obviously have it wrong that new nation Isreal etc DOES correate with Daniel (per your comment) thanks so much in advance
@Jason--just saw 2things here;1 )for some reason Question @Emmett comes from Anonymous-it me and signed in same way as aways. 2) and much more impotant, Jason I read all your letters in my inbox at gmail and didn't realize unti I got here that you had chosento delete them all having said that, re your VERY strong impressions and strong sense that you have received gift of "discerning spirits" from the Hoy Spirit/Ghost I can recommend a couple of things---first as per Peter etc Go to a Priest!!! as it is realy tough predicamint in that you DO NOT want to spurn a gift from the Holy Spirit but neither, as you very wel express, want to sin re calumny, gossip etc (#8) that Pope Francis has warned repeatedly about--so go to a Priest re a your very legitimate concerns---
sidebar but I have aways wondered why everyone says "the Church which is OVER 2000 yrs old"--i kind of go with your date of 2030 (or 2033)--I think Biblica schoolars with all the calendar adjustments etc now majority Jesus born 2-3BC so therefore Pentecost 2000 2030 counting like the Jews count with no zero like three days in the tomb so in my mind Church will be 2000 yrs od circa 2030??
anyways take your very real and poignant concerns to a Priest---God bless us All
hi Jason
I think if you go to a priest along the general. on-going, of getting VERY strong pemonitions, reactions of evil, and therefore you are seeking guidance to determine if these are 1)from God e.g a real charism in which case these (see St Paul) are intended for the good of the community/church, in which case this is a Grace from God, or 2)just my imagination as I study/read a ot in the fields of... or 3)from the evil spirits (Devil) who appears as an angel of light but...St John of the Cross doctor, saint, spiritual director to another doctor, saint (T of Avila) writes a ton about the deception of all of these BUT also the reality of these inner movements. Nosteramous who you have quoted a couple of places I believe was ex-communicated??A classic book. easy to find is "Authenticity" Fr Dubay, so asssuning you are frequently going to Confession, Holy Eucharist etc. that might be a good next step WHILE you search out a Priest--try your local guyn ot with the details nor the plot lines (God seldom speaks in detaied blueprints) but along the lines at top of this post; God Bless us All. online discerninghearts has a ton Fr Timothy Gallager(sp?) discerning spirits Ignatius of Loyola audio that are very understanable BUT again be really good to have a Priest to talk to about at last at the re-occuring theme level
Thank you Brian, I got over my, ummm, initial stubbornness would be a nice way to put it, and really took your advice to heart. It was sound advice. :)
hey Jason TOO COOL==I lit a candle for you at St Joe O yesterday!!! there are different prayer stations. each with their own rack of candles--i went to the bas-relief Joseph oursomething or other in suffering: (some of the other gus here might like it as well, espeically all getting twisted into knots with the current state of the world)
Joseph, our Solace in Suffering
Compassionate Joseph, one with us in our human condition,
together with Mary and Jesus you experience exile, hunger
and violence. Refusing vengeance, you choose mercy.
Your forgiveness breaks the circle of violence.
Through your goodness, God’s hope for our humanity is preserved.
Joy is yours, for the Kingdom of God is your inheritance.
Open our compassionate hands in times of war, famine and exile.
Keep us from developing a victim’s mentality, and make our pain a source of growth.
Sustain us in fulfilling our responsibility of cultivating inner peace, joy and serenity.
In your wisdom, counsel us to close all doors to bitterness, so that, watched
over by God, we may dance for joy.
Amen.
After Mass (english 12"15) there are special prayers and songs to St Joseph as well as to now Saint Bro Andre---wow Jason you made my day!! thankyou
this is the main bank of candles, all the prayer stations flank it on both sides, Bro Andre's tomb is right behind this giant bank of candles/statue
https://www.saint-joseph.org/en/spirituality/saint-joseph/prayers-to-saint-joseph/#consolateur_souffrance
Thank you so much Brian, you certainly made my day! St. Joseph the Worker is my family's patron saint, on my mom's family from Flanders, and has been for many generation, so you bringing my intentions to St. Joseph couldn't be more apropos. It's difficult when I'm struggling with my mental illness (with a definite lean towards a religious mania where I have delusions and have even hallucinated at times during Mass of all times) to know what is real and what is the product of my illness (or even maybe demonic suggestion when I am definitely at my most suggestible), and I so appreciate a fellow brother in Our Lord helping me separate truth from delusion, yet in a very kind way. I so appreciate it!
Jason, I think you would benefit greatly from finding a spiritual director who specialises in psychology and Ignatian spirituality. It's great that you have such an enormous amount of insight into your mental illness - that is half the battle!
I think you're right Emmett, the best I've ever done mental health-wise was when I used to have an awesome spiritual director (Rev. David Cottingham, a Redemptorist rather than a Jesuit, but a remarkable priest). I don't know how to go about finding one again, but I'm going to look into if it might be a possibility. Sorry as well for filling the comments section up with my ravings, I'm very embarrassed about it and feel like I disrespected the wonderful space you've created here Emmett. Thank you for your patience, I'm so sorry.
Short of having a spiritual director, do you think my reading (and trying to practice) "The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius" might be helpful, or without direction could that just make me more spiritually confused? I just know the resources in my archdiocese are spread so thin already that any resources as far as spiritual directors are dedicated to those discerning vocations... unless maybe there is some way to have one online.
Jason, I would suggest praying specifically for the intention of finding a good spiritual director; it may take some time, but eventually God will provide. In the meantime, might I suggest Father Broom's blog? He writes about Ignatian spirituality, and if you can contact him through the blog, he might be able to help you. Here's the addy:
http://fatherbroom.com/
God bless!
I was just rereading some of your older posts, Emmett, and an interesting thought occurred to me in relation to Our Lady of Light, or Our Lady of Zeitoun as she is also known. She is currently retracing the homeward journey from Egypt, and I can't help but wonder, given that we are in the end times, what significance, if any, could be attached to her reaching the starting point of the journey, either where the first apparition appeared in April of 1968, or perhaps even over Nazareth, where the Holy Family lived after they returned from Egypt. Given that they returned after those that sought to kill the Messiah were dead, I can't help but wonder if perhaps a reversal of the laws permitting abortion might not be at hand...which just might signal the beginning of the Second Pentecost?
Brian;
I think you will find this article meaningful.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-30/why-russia-dumping-dollars-and-buying-gold-fastest-pace-decades
Why Russia Is Dumping Dollars And Buying Gold At The Fastest Pace In Decades
Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
by Tyler Durden
Mon, 04/01/2019 -
But perhaps the most notable aspect of Putin's rhetoric about de-dollarization is how it's apparently influencing leaders of states that are still - at least nominally - friendly toward the US. French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview late last year that Europe is too dependent on the greenback, declaring it "an issue of sovereignty" (this from one of the most ardently pro-EU politicians on the Continent). And last year, Poland and Hungary surprised the market by making the first substantial purchases of gold by EU member states in more than a decade.
So the next time you hear an analyst on CNBC categorically dismiss the notion that the loss of the dollar's reserve currency status isn't something that markets should take seriously (even as several credible voices have warned that it should be), you'd do well to remember this chart.
more info showing how and why China , Russia enters the middle east and why turkey is not a u.s. friend and ally anymore. and how /why turkey becomes part of the ezek 38 invasion
And Erdogan put the kibosh on that after his country was nearly destroyed by U.S. incompetence in atomizing Syria. He has now emerged as a key political opponent of Brussels, as important as Viktor Orban in Hungary, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio in Italy or Vladimir Putin in Russia.
So it should come as no surprise that Turkey is emerging as the emerging market that comes under currency duress during this period of great uncertainty about the EU’s future.
Markets are finally taking these threats much more seriously now than they did last year. I told you then Turkey would survive. Qatar, China and Russia all came to Erdogan’s side to help Turkey through the shock.
But it was only a test of his resolve. It was a crucible to see if he could be brought back on side. And once Pastor Andrew Brunson was returned, the pressure on the lira mysteriously subsided.
But it’s clear with the way things have gone in Syria and with his opposition to Israel’s decisions recently that Erdogan is not redeemable as a NATO asset anymore. And the only reason Turkey hasn’t been kicked out of NATO is because treaties outlast leaders.
That’s why Brussels wants this Brexit deal and none other. It is a treaty which ensures the U.K. as a vassal state in perpetuity.
https://theisraelbible.com/2600-year-old-seal-bearing-name-of-servant-of-the-king/?utm_source=Israel365&utm_campaign=e04231054d-I365_Daily_Email_4_1_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb2894f273-e04231054d-46053621&mc_cid=e04231054d&mc_eid=4bb0fcd09c
A clay seal bearing the inscription “Natan-Melech, servant of the king” (found in the City of David in early 2019) dates back to the First Temple period – its Biblical roots cannot be ignored.
Natan Melech is mentioned in the book of II Kings as a servant of King Josiah. He lived near the entrance to the temple, close to the courtyard where the horses had been kept that were used in sun-worship before Josiah disposed of both the horses and the chariots that they had pulled.
The name is mentioned in the Bible once:
He did away with the horses that the kings of Yehuda had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance of the House of Hashem, near the chamber of the eunuch Nathan-melech, which was in the precincts. He burned the chariots of the sun. II Kings 23:11
But like you JMC, last night I was perusing some of Emmett's posts from when I first started reading here, around 2011 or so I think, right after I read the first edition of his book, and this comment from one of his posts hit me across the face like a wet-fish:
"St. John of the Cross, one of the greatest doctors of the Church, had visions of Jesus Christ, Angels, the Devil, and eventually wasn't sure if a "Heavenly" visit was of Jesus, or the Devil himself, and asked the apparitions to cease. This is one of the greatest mystics and minds of the Church - imagine what chance a layperson has of discerning the difference between a heavenly or diabolical voice that descends upon them. Soon as they hear a voice unfortunately they think God is speaking to them. Be discerning friends."
Wow, this woke me up!! If a renowned and holy saint such as John of the Cross didn't have discernment purely from within, what hope do I have? And I saw all at once that it was my own pride, that I want to share what I've seen and heard and experiences (seeming prophecy, seeming miraculous things happening, seeming full-on visions, three in total since the late 90s). None of them have seemingly been bad, they all were involved with the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the Cross, but one was in a way that seemed to be linked to future events on the Earth. So on the surface, they seem "good"... but I now fully realise that my wanting to share these things without following the precepts of the Church regarding such (and that is borne partially out of a frustration that other than my spiritual director, any other priest I've tried to talk to about these things have immediately discounted them, not because I lead a bad or particularly sinful life, I try very hard to do what's right, pray that I recognize my own sins (boy, praying the Chaplet sure seems to help with that; Emmett's comment that I have a good capacity to recognizing the manifestations my own mental illness, I fully believe that is not from my own efforts, but a grace God has given me that even at my most depressed or most manic, when I pray the Chaplet sincerely and as an ongoing devotion, my sins are really revealed to me very clearly, if I am in denial about some sin, that denial drys up and blows away usually quite quickly). It helps me so much to move towards fully forgiving and forgetting any wrongs done by others, too, but also through seeing my sins clearly, I can see what has not come from God, like my maniacal ranting about the identity of the Antichrist, I can see clearly that was not from Our Lord because of my sin in trying to spread something that I should not have been... fuller recognition my sin through the Chaplet seems also to illuminate what are clearly the symptoms of my mental illness... but I'm left with the other stuff.
p.s. And thank you also for helping me feel less isolated... you have no idea hiw much better it makes me feel emotionally.
To what evil end, you ask; I submit that you may have given the answer yourself in your own posts. If it is a manifestation of the devil, then he may well be trying to increase your pride.
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There are many visions out there, some of them genuine, that we have never heard of, because the priests these people talked to told them to say nothing about them to anyone. This is a very prudent bit of advice. Many, many times priests have told visionaries to say nothing and do nothing in regard to visions that may have instructed them to spread a particular message, or do something in particular. In many cases, the priest never passed the message on to the bishop. Often years went by. In every case, when the vision was truly from Our Lord, the visionary was always instructed to obey their confessor or advisor; that the Lord would eventually send someone who would listen AND transmit the message to the Bishop. Sometimes it takes years. But when it's from God, eventually the vision will be approved by the Church. Obedience and patience are the keys. So if you think you may have a had a true vision, and the priest dismisses it, simply keep praying. If it's real, eventually you will find a priest who will truly listen.
so first the flood THEN the antichrist!!!!!!!!!
Seventy periods of seven are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there is seven periods of seven and 62 periods of seven; the streets shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the 62 periods of seven Messiah will be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the prince who is yet to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood and until the end wars and desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week; but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the overspreading of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation which is determined, and that shall be poured out on the desolator.
–Daniel 9:24–27
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa5R9Q7aekc
ew Documentary interview about Third Temple with Sanhedrin Spokesman Prof. H Weiss. Not all views discussed in this video are held by the producer. This group are still seen by some as fringe. The goal is to see the rebuilt third temple, and the group are closely linked with other groups with the same interests. The next Altar Dedication is set to take place at Passover, at a location that is closer to Temple Mount.
Hi everyone,
I have a favor to ask.
I've been in the working world for 34 years now. The past 3 years I've been rather badly under-employed. I have a job, but I haven't had a real pay raise in 5 years. (It's a long story.)
Tomorrow after lunch I have probably the biggest job interview of my entire professional life; if it goes well, there will be another, I'm sure. I'd just like to ask for some additional prayers from here. I really need this, but I also want to follow God's will for me. I think this is it, but... Anyway, if anyone here, in a moment of kindness, could spare a few seconds for an extra prayer, I'd very much appreciate it.
And I'm sorry I haven't been around much of late. I've been working two jobs for the past few months, and am currently looking for a third. When you try to live a simple life in a material sense, not getting a raise in 5 years can make things rather difficult at times. But if I can land this job, all that will change.
God bless you all,
Mark
hi Mark,
got you, can't go until Friday but will light candle then at St Joseph Oratory;(https://www.saint-joseph.org/en/spirituality/saint-joseph/prayers-to-saint-joseph/#modele_travail) meanwhile here is the prayer in front of the bas relief for workers:Joseph, Model of Labourers where I will light candle
Good Saint Joseph, when God wanted a
family for his Son, He looked among the
labourers, and chose you along with Mary,
demonstrating His esteem for human work.
You put your heart into your work, and share
your workshop with Jesus. Your work, like that
of other humans, found new meaning in the presence
of God.
Sustain us in the hope of finding work when we are
confronted with the desolation of unemployment.
Counsel business leaders to create an equitable
division of labour that is respectful of individuals,
and promotes our growth and happiness.
Help us to perform our work joyfully, conscientiously,
fairly and honestly. Prepare our hearts to recognize
your Son in our colleagues at work.
Amen.
God bless us All
Brian
JMJ
I gotcha too, Mark. God bless.
Any comments on our Pope meeting with Arabs in Morroco and telling the Arabs to join him in the goal of keeping Jerusalem a universal city not controlled by the Jews.
Add this to France and Germany becoming more Moslim.
Maybe Europe becomes totally under the control of Moslim thought thus the need for the Great MONARCH?
prophecy alive right under our eyes!!!
I think an argument can be made that a worldwide political structure i.e. the United Nations is in place to function as a world control power.
However, I do not recognize as yet the establishment of a world accepted religious entity accepted worldwide.
It seems that the attempt to minimize the importance of country boundaries, ie Sovern identity is the beginning of this along with something like World trade, World health, ETC. submission to a governing body because of global warming caused by humans.
Socialism my dear fellow readers.
how a religious entity, a world entity becomes part of this plan will be interesting as well as clandestine.
https://www.coe.int/en/web/programmes/un-2030-agenda
UN Agenda 2030
The Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was launched by a UN Summit in New York on 25-27 September 2015 and is aimed at ending poverty in all its forms. The UN 2030 Agenda envisages “a world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination”. It is grounded in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and international human rights treaties and emphasises the responsibilities of all states to respect, protect and promote human rights. There is a strong emphasis on the empowerment of women and of vulnerable groups such as children, young people, persons with disabilities, older persons, refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants.
The Agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and their 169 targets, aim at eradicating poverty in all forms and “seek to realize the human rights of all and achieve gender equality”.
The contribution of the Council of Europe
The Council of Europe contributes to achieving these goals through most of its sectors through work funded by the ordinary budget as well as with extra-budgetary contributions. SDG number 16 "Peace, justice and strong institutions" is particularly relevant for the Council of Europe, with virtually every sector of the Organisation being involved in achieving the goal.
The sustainable development agenda is particularly important for the Organisation’s development co-operation programmes. The Council of Europe’s new Project Management Methodology is also there to ensure that methods as well as substance of these programmes contribute to achieving the agenda, including through a human rights approach. Overall, the cooperation programmes carried out via the Office of the Directorate General of Programmes are currently worth €200 Million. For more information, see the Council of Europe's them
can you recognize the function of news programs presented daily into your homes.
ORGANIZED PROPAGANDA
one of the things I have noticed as I have grown older is the power of people to conform.
have you ever noticed how people are so proud to become parrots of last nights news.??
how things can be fabricated and presented as fact??
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/war_peace/media/hpropaganda.html
Media's Use of Propaganda to Persuade People's Attitude, Beliefs and Behavior
http://www.usccb.org/about/leadership/holy-see/francis/pope-francis-encyclical-laudato-si-on-environment.cfm
puts this into a different perspective. religion becoming a political power or
why I was elected /chosen to be Pope.
trump wants United States sovereignty.
he took us out of the Paris Climate change treaty.
he wants us out of the un.
he wants bourder defined..
can you start to see why he is mocked on tv??
the power of persuasion to make him look as a fool.
Thanks, guys. The interview went well. It's too soon to tell about next steps yet, but I should know more my the end of next week.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-threatens-drop-dollar-153000287.html
possibly the largest story of our lifetime
Above by chris
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-benedict-xvi-the-church-and-the-scandal-of-sexual-abuse-59639
WOW what an amazing essay, thank you so much for posting it Mark W!!! I have been "man down" all week so did NOT get to St Joe O like I said but was thinking of you--not to be negative (in the secular/material sense) but was 1) obviously hoping you get good news on the employment front but/and 2/ if not (from a secular/material) that your Faith holds true and you recognize that this too is a great blessing and a Good.
hope all the guys take the time to read this!!!
God bless us All
Brian
ps I never realized Job was a type of Jesus---
Thanks JMC, I talked to my Archbishop at the Mass where all the priests of the archdiocese renewed their vows and all the hoky oils for the year were blessed on Monday, and fully understand now why as well now the extreme danger of sharing anything of an unusual nature outside of a spiritual director, how I could inadvertantly lead people away from God, I get it now on a spiritual level after talking to my Archbishop that just wasn't getting through fully before. I feel very ashamed of myself, but the hope of a new beginning, too.
And you are bang-on correct that my disobedience is a result of my pride. I'm praying for the grace of humility in a Novena to the Sacred Heart... I think with God's grace I'm on the right path again, and the intercessory prayers of others. Thank you!!
Mark W., so excited/relieved with what our Pope Emeritus released... I was disappointed that the recent gathering didn't look at root causes of the abuse scandal, God bless that living saint of ours for speaking out as he's done... it was like a doctor treating symptoms without a proper diagnosis, and Benedict finally has given the diagnosis instead of the prognosis alone. I think the so many theologians that are knee-jerkingly attacking Benedict's essay so quickly and viciously may be exposing some of the alleged sheep as the wolves they really are!
p.s. Has anyone here read the collection of homilies by Father Arminjon called "The End of the Present World" from the end of the 19th century? If so, is it a good one to read? It looks interesting but I don't want to be led astray as I almost was by those books promoting a millenialism (or milleniarianism, I forget the right term) that Emmett luckily warned me away from. Thanks in advance.
I haven't read the entire essay, but I did read some highlights of it. While there's a lot of good stuff there, there are also a couple of troubling statements; for example, in one part he says there may be some validity to a hypothesis of some theologians that papal infallibility should be limited to faith only, not both faith and morals. Say what??? Maybe I've missed something by not reading the entire essay yet, but I find that deeply troubling. He did point out that Humana Vitae was written in direct response to those who first put forth that hypothesis, which is why there was so much dissension when HV was promulgated, ie, that hypothesis gave the dissenters their impetus.
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In other parts, where he says some possibly troubling things, I suspect he may have been speaking in some sort of code, like St. John when he wrote Apocalypse/Revelations. The "critic" I read took exception to his remark that starting another Church had been tried, claiming that he couldn't make head nor tails of what he meant by that, when I found it a clear reference to the Protestant Rebellion, usually known as the "Reformation."
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Basically, I saw both good and questionable things in the highlights I read; I suppose I really ought to take the time and read the whole thing so I have more information to base an opinion on... *shrug and sheepish grin*
Update: I just finished reading the whole essay, and it is indeed an powerful piece. Anyone reading just the highlights presented in critics' analyses is certain to be confused, because every one of the selected "points of contention" is taken completely out of context, and when you do that, of course you lose the meaning. The essay absolutely MUST be read in its entirety in order to be properly understood.
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The only "troubling" statement I found anywhere I it was his remark about possible validity to the hypothesis that proposes limiting infallibility only to faith, not faith AND morals. It does not really connect to anything around it, so the suggestion that it bears discussion may be code for something like, "We really need to take hard look at this hypothesis and see the reasons behind it." In fact, the way he then goes on to talk about the tidal wave of dissension that followed Veritatis Splendor seems to support that.
.
I stand firmly against any critics of this document. Every word of it is solid truth. God bless Benedict!
hey Jason that is so wonderfuyou talking to your Archbishop--as Jesus said "who listens to you (Bishops/apostles) listens to Me!!"--must have taken a little to approach him like that-good on you; chill on the "ashamed of myself" devil happy to do that, your trust is in God's Mercy and Grace, not your own cognition, etc so what's to be ashamed about--you get the drift
re the ps yes I read them, they are notes from a number of retreats or spiritual exercises --both Little Flower and one of her sisters attended many of them and there is a lot of correspondence about the talks between the girls in separate publications
Jason, I'm so glad to hear you got some solid advice. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You're clearly sorry for that mess, I'm sure Jesus has forgiven you. Trust in Him and put it behind you. God bless you, and know you're in my prayers.
Ann Barnhardt's view of the papacy and the mess it is in makes a lot of sense to me. The Church is supposed to undergo the same Passion as Jesus did and her explanation of the Passion the head of Church is experiencing is the best one I have seen to date. See here under her Letter to an Absentee Father at https://www.barnhardt.biz/. What do you all think?
Nope. Not buying it. Whatever else we think about Pope Francis, he is the Pope, validly elected. I post again the link to Bp. Schneider's essay on heretical popes:
https://onepeterfive.com/bishop-athanasisus-schneider-on-the-question-of-a-heretical-pope/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Onepeterfive+%28OnePeterFive%29
This essay settled the question once and for all for me. We pray and endure until God sees fit to step in.
April 19th. THE satanic day of the year falls on Good Friday this year. I think all the devils on earth will be agitated Let’s see if anything worldly happens Fridayor Saturday the 20th
Thank you JMC and Brian, and I understand now as well the dangers of beating myself up too badly, especially when there may be reduced culpability when I am not in a rational state of mind. I thought it was just, as in, not a castigation without purpose, but one mixed with a righteous fear of the Lord, a full acknowledgement and really grieving over my sin as to help make sure I never do it again. But in praying this Novena to the Sacred Heart, it is as if I am being fed spiritual food and insights with each of the graces I have prayed for, especially the ones I struggle with the most, that of chastity, charity, humility, and temperance.
I see that self-flagellation can lead very easily to the sin of scrupulosity (I'm sure my parish priest would agree, I think he is sick to death of how often I go to confession, to the point that instead I go for periods when I am fully aware I'm in a state of mortal sin, and while attending Mass as much as I can, I won't receive the Eucharist when I know I'm in a spiritual state where that itself would be a mortal sin, but anyway).
I see now much more clearly than I have before that spiritual growth will sometimes mean making mistakes, struggling through problems of conscience, and a plethora of other tough issues. To expect perfection in myself not only slows this process to a crawl, but may even cause setbacks and discouragement that is not from Our Lord. It puts me in a very anxious and guilt filled state of mind that wreaks havoc coupled with my struggle with PTSD, and even more dangerously perhaps, I cannot but help to begin to expect a certain perfection in others and impossible standards in the people in my life that is at least as equally destructive. This attitude interferes with the growth of others, and will lead to them feeling ashamed.
We are all human, and all very vulnerable, much more than most of us let on, and that is a wonderful thing. Seeking self-perfection is in a way denying the need for the salvation that the Cross provides, I see it now. I should instead accept and cherish the idea of how irredeemably imperfect I am, for that heightens my awareness of just how much I need the grace given through the sacraments, and of their power. I'm also watching oodles of old episodes of Bishop Sheen's old TV show on YouTube, and they are speaking so directly to my heart this Lenten season and teaching me things that I have puzzled over for decades, in flashes of Bishop Sheen's particular way of conveying such great truth in such a digestible way.
Expecting perfection in myself again can't help but lead to expecting that of others, and that puts me in serious jeopardy of adopting a sense of moral superiority that is a temptation from Lucifer and his fellow fallen angels, a false pride that was Lucifer's essential sin in itself. I feel like a blind person who can see for the very first time in this area with this self-realization, and other-realization. In seeking perfection (which I now see also is me, still the little boy, trying to please a father who could not be pleased, no matter how good my grades, how big my accomplishments, I was living my life still trying to please him every right up until he died a few years ago and even still since), I have become increasingly rigid and instead of feeling better about myself, I instead have felt more and more inferior deep inside, no matter how arrogant I present myself to the world.
(cont)...
But now I am letting go of both ideas, of expecting myself never to make mistakes, even really big ones, and of expecting perfection in those around me (which I coached in the guise of trying to "help them", or "teach them". I still will vigourourly defend the faith in apologetics, but in a new way which puts understanding and listening to another first and foremost. I reacted badly with a woman I was just new friends with when she scoffed at praying the Rosary as vain repetitions, and that as a Catholic it was her right to believe so... I got, not angry, but very defensive, and made her cry and she felt judged by me (I tried to explain it to her that when you insult a man's mother, you need to be prepared to expect a very strong negative reaction, and that the Rosary saved me from a life mired in drug-addiction... but I should have explained that if you are praying the Rosary the right way, reflecting on the Mysteries, it is anything but vain repetition, but instead one of the most beautiful and ancient devotionals and forms of Christian reflection, spiritual meditation, etc., so I blew it, thinking I was doing something noble.
But I'm not either going to go to the other extreme and just expect quietly anything that is thrown at me, or accepting people into my life that I know are or will be vexatious to my spirit based on my past experience (is that being judgemental, or just wisely precautious? I'm not sure of that one still), or lowering the bar for myself where I don't expect appropriate, responsible, and above all, obedient behaviour for myself. But I see I can afford to loosen up quite a bit as far as beating myself up after making mistakes, even grievous ones, because I am in very good company, the company of all mankind other than Our Lord and Our Lady.
And I see now as I stop expecting other to be perfect and castigating them when they aren't, I will see that they are doing much better than I think, and more often than not much better than myself. And in that I will more clearly see the beauty in them, and maybe then a beauty of some kind in myself somewhere. Please pray for me that I will practice acceptance, tolerance, and love of others just as they are, that I may learn finally to love myself, I would appreciate that so, so much. And that I may find the right balance, the balance God wants of me, between the extremes of expecting much too much and expecting much too little, both of others, and of myself. Thank you for taking the time to read what is probably more than a bit of a self-centered post, but I know I need a lot of help by way of your prayers. I think I have felt more acceptance among the group of folks who frequent these comments sections than I have ever before felt, and it seems always right when I need it the most, when feeling rejection in my own church community because of a terrible reputation due to, well, I'm sure people know how things can get so ugly when a marriage breaks up, and sometimes the easier way out than facing the embarrassment of the truth of things is to make up a false narrative when one or the other is purely the hero of the story, and their former spouse purely the villain.
Also, if I may share, this hasn't to do with current events, or prophecy, but this in this short 25 or so minute video, Bishop Sheen broke through walls of mine that I wasn't even aware I had, just amazing to me, and maybe if it was to me, it may be amazing to others?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAW2I0pTlsw
Oh, also, thanks for the feedback on the lectures from Fr. Arminjon, I ordered the book today and am really looking forward to reading it.
Also, I was thinking of what you wrote JMC, and I re-read Benedict's essay on the roots of the abuse crisis, and I see how it seems strange that he would question the infallibility of the Magisterium on matters of morals. This is kind of a guess, and maybe I read too much between the lines, but it seem that maybe Benedict was getting at that teaching on morals are so completely and inextricably linked to matter of faith, that morals inform the faith so much so that in accepting that teaching on matters of faith are infallible, there is an almost logical and direct link from that to matters of morals as well, because without teaching on morals there cannot be any teaching on faith, that morals are almost a starting point?
Another also, I was thinking of ways that Emmett's research and enlightening writing could reach more people and the audience it truly deserves, and also help sell many more of his books... Emmett, have you ever considered making YouTube videos? Videos on prophecies of the end times, and of the more esoteric visions and prophecies of so many saints and blesseds in this area, those videos seem to garner so many views on YouTube I've noticed, which could spread your work to such a vast audience I believe, and in a way that you could monetize as well to further your other goals.
Just a suggestion, but I truly believe it could be a great avenue and pulpit, and many videos in this area of study don't necessitate being on camera, or even necessarily needing a voice-over (a lot of the videos I've watched are just text upon text to read with maybe some music in the background, or images of the particular subject matter. I don't mean to be pushy or overbearing, and maybe it is something you've previously considered and decided it just wasn't for you, but I felt an almost compulsion to bring it up because of how deeply I believe in the work you've done, and how it's just a shame that more people aren't exposed to it.
I'm a big believers in cliches and folk-sayings (they are usually cliches for a reason, because they contain a lot of truth), and one of those being "forewarned is forearmed"... with a Christianity like reflecting in things like prosperity gospel, fuzzy warm books like "The Shack" that show Christ as perfectly merciful, but leaving out that He is also perfectly just (a mystery of faith I suppose because it's hard for the human mind to reconcile those two aspects of His nature), etc., I have a fear that people who have that slightly warped view of Christianity, if and when all of us are put to the test, they will feel God has abandoned them and may falter at their time of trial (Dear Lord, please if it be your will, spare all of us from being put to the test)... but if people know what may be on the relatively close horizon, when it comes they will understand, and will not fear or falter because of their understanding.
If this is something you may be interested in Emmett, I would be more than willing to help out as much as possible (I'm no YouTube guru or anything, but my background is technical so I'm sure I could figure things out)... maybe it could be as simple as taking the content from your blog posts and just turning them into all text videos, and try to build up a following of viewers? I feel a debt of gratitude towards you that I'd be delighted to repay if I can help you in any way in spreading your work.
p.p.s. I'm a blabber-mouth tonight, haha, but I wanted to mention I'm trying to tackle things in a way that's more digestible to my mind right now, and I got this great book that includes morning and nighttime readings and reflections, things to ponder in your heart all day long, etc., teaching spiritual lessons from some of the real greats and in a way I'm used to with working a 12-step program. The one I got is called "Let Nothing Disturb You" and focused on the spirituality of St. Teresa of Avila, but there is a whole series of them. Starting Divine Mercy Sunday my new goal for the liturgical year is to read and practice with my whole heart one of these books every month for a year if I don't get lazy... excited!
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=30+days+with+a+great+spiritual+teacher+series
Veritas,
Let's say you're correct and that Benedict is still pope. Would he be guilty of neglect in not informing the world, that Jorge is not, thereby leading astray even more catholics?
sam
So, Emmett...
Will we look back, in six months, or a year, or two years, and say, "this all harkens back to the day Notre Dame burned"?
Mark
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47941794
I don't know, Mark. The symbolism is huge and the tragedy unfolding immense. It feels like a big moment. Like Chernobyl or 9/11. I can feel it in my stomach. But nonetheless it's important to stay steady and remember that many a church and cathedral was gutted by fire in the Medieval era. People are unfortunately dying in house fires all across the works even as I type. So let's pray to Christ and Our Lady for the Pompiers and for Paris. Let's not rush to put an eschatological slant onto this disaster. Let us trust in God.
La grace de notre Seigneur, Jesus Christ, l'amour de Dieu le Pere, at la communion de L'Esprit Saint soient toujours avec nous.
Sorry, I meant 'people all across the world.'
Still not a Nostradamus believer? look at quatrain I-40
Egypt:Libya/Egypt
Let’s see what happens
Chris
Could you give us a quote of that quatrain? I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has no idea how to find a single quatrain among the hundreds he wrote.
I've seen a Nostradamus quote floating around, but it looks like a hoax. I haven't found the original. Do you have it, Chris? Are you talking about the one with yellow jackets?
Look up the website zero hedge and look for the article about half star HAFTAR and if you follow the rules of Anagrammes or do a little homework you’ll see how he fits in this “train so looks like somethings up and turkey with the change of money and I’ll post more as I get it
Also there might be a reference to Notre Dame’s fire in Brussels in Nastradamus but it’s difficult to figure this stuff out as we all know so I’m reading and trying to find out information and I will post it when I find it
If you Google Nostradamus quatrains in French you’ll be able to find the correct our use the blue one it’s century 1 quart train 40 in this gentleman will appear and you can look up the laws of any grams or just trust trust it and there’s so much information and depending on who you read but you’ll see why this is obvious that this guy can be Hartford and as I said if you go to zero hedge it’s a story about him
I think the danger of putting this sad fire immediately in an eschatological context is a wise one... but I have to admit as soon as I saw the fire on TV this morning, I couldn't help but immediately think about LaSalette.
Oh, and the fact that a blaze broke out (though was quickly put out) at the mosque on the Temple Mount at the "exact same time", I've read reported today. That seems like quite a coincidence.
I just watched the first EWTN report from this morning, and the moving context of what is quickly coming to a sort of boiling point for the Church in France is IMO critical to understanding just how significant the burning of Notre Dame was today, especially if it turns out to be a case of arson as with the other historical church in France that was torched last weekend. A persecution really is underway in France against the Church it seems, which I wasn't aware of before watching this, again, truly moving reporting, and doing some independent research. In the context of all the troubles beginning in France, and Paris in particular, presaging a persecution of the Church not seen since the reign of Emperor Diocletian, in not a few prophecies of, if not approved by the Church directly, still come from so many saints and blesseds, what I read today of the quickly ratcheting up physical vandalism and looting of churches, only over the last two months drastically escalating in size and prominence of our places of worship in France, directly coinciding with an absolute plummet in Mass attendance and many nominal Catholics renouncing and denouncing the Church over the sexual abuse scandal (which has a particular slant all it's own in reporting, but that's another topic) in France, where Church officials have been speaking of France as having collectively and completely pushed Catholicism out of the public sphere, a true apostasy in every sense of the world.
I always though over-react to almost everything, so I'm not a good judge of this, but is this information unsettling to anyone else, or is it just me? The Church where I live is very much rooted in the French Canadian/Metis Church, which is kind of like a baby brother to the Church in France, so I know we here are all feeling quite shaken up by this, an auntie of mine almost cried when it came up as a topic of conversation chatting on the phone with her today. I cannot even begin to imagine how every Catholic, and even many, many non-Catholic in their nation must be feeling right now. The comparison of the Statue of Liberty being destroyed I don't even think would scratch the surface in comparison... I can't think of any real comparison except perhaps St. Peter's Basilica in Rome burning. :-(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGLVx2jGf50
@Jason--the Catholic Church has been pushed out of the public square in France since the Fr frevolution!! specificto the French revolution and Notre Dame, the jacobians (masonic etc) turned it into their HQ with some whore literally pulling a gang-bang on the main alter!!! then Napoleaon basically imprisoned the pope and forced his participation in Napleon's crowning as Emeror--there was a genocidal persecution/wipe-out of the Vendee region --things settled down a little, church got back some property etc but again circa 1905 this was all confisccated, religious schools were closed, seminaries forbidden to admit new novices etc; then they rolled-over WWII; France tanked a loong time ago!! EWTN sure croped the crowd cene-maybe, maybe a thousand people?? more like a hundred or so. "My Kingdom is NOT of this world"
re Fr Cdn -Metis phone your aunt back-today in Canada is feast of Kateri Teckawitha Lily of the Mohawks (d. 1680)--I have seen, been blessed by the Monstrance donated by the Sun King Louis of France in front of which kateri would have spent long hours adoration. In USA St kateri feast is celebrated mid jUly (14, 15th?) and countless miracles are still being reported due to her intercession. Since the Fr revolution there has beena disconect France and Quebec; St Pope Pius X was prescient and dedicated St Jean Baptiste as patron of french canadiens (not just Quebec) but like France we (Quebec) now have worse Mass/Communion attendance (4%?) highest male suicide, first province to push through euthansaia, highet abortion rate etc. there are signs of a revival in Quebec, especially non-french speaking 9aka english, italien, greek etc) so pray for us!!
https://marie-juliejahenny.blogspot.com/2017/09/18-chastisements-will-begin-with-paris.html?m=1
Remember the weekend 19 and 20 April are satanic dates of importance Be careful
Sorry for the late reply Jason, it's been a while since I checked in here. Yes, I have thought about branching out into creating YouTube content. I'm not that tech savvy myself though when it comes to creating that sort of media content. But I'm sure it would be worth a go. Do you think you would be able to put something together based on some of my blog posts?
Okay, what makes April 19 an important Satanic date? This is stuff I've never heard of before; though I do recall reading here about certain dates being known for bad events...
Carlos Caso-Rosendi has a few insights on the symbolism of the burning of Notre Dame, which is all the more significant in the fact that a fire broke out at the site of Solomon's Temple on the exact same day (as Jason noted).
https://casorosendi.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/the-temple-and-the-tree/?fbclid=IwAR1PyEFwSUw2TJvAJx-jPaXz-EhJbk8bgF5hSADFUONyjXoErCq4lzWyuXs
I will work on it Emmett and see if I'm able to at least duplicate some of the all-text videos I've seen on YouTube that still garner a lot if views and likes... your interpretations so deserve a wider syduence, not just for others' edification but so as the coming storm appriaches whatever the exact time frame perhaps faith won't be as shaken.
p.s. Does anyone think that what happened to Notre Dame could be a late (and maybe final) warning meant to prompt France towards repentance and renewal? Those first shots from that drone as it entered, and the high visibility of the cross and altar that seemingly miraculously survived unharmed seemed to me to harken to this being a sort of chastisement, yes, but to also awaken a big part of French identity thst has been mostly asleep for a long time, far too long. I so hope the French people respond by re-filling empty pews, and turning back to Our Lord's face and Our Lady's protective mantle in the laws of the land as well as individual hearts in an equally astounding way.
jMC
April 19th is the occult day of The Blood Sacrifice to the Beast. This begins the 13-day countdown to the second most sacred day for Satanists, The Beltaine Festival on May 1st, which requires a “fire sacrifice”.
April 20th is Adolf Hitler’s birthday
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/apr2012/pattic421-1.htm
April 19/20 info
The Video Authorities Don’t Want You To See: Mystery Person & Flash Of Light Before Notre Dame Cathedral Fire
The Video Authorities Don't Want You To See: Mystery Person & Flash Of Light Before Notre Dame...
If it had only been a singular incident involving a Catholic church in France the burning of one of the most well known human monuments to all of Christianity could be understandably classified as an...
dcwhispers.com
This came up in my suggested videos on YouTube, it definitely made me think even more about the context of this sad fire (and coming after the high profile sentencing just on Friday of a woman who had been part of a conspiracy to destroy Notre Dame). Though it's much too early to blame the fire on arson, it also seems much too early to patently rule it out, as there seems to be a rush to do (even as the fire was still burning and the fate of the entire cathedral was still very much in question...), especially with the string of increasing vandalism against Catholic places of worship in France since the beginning of February.
It's nothing most of us haven't read or watched or known of before this, but it is a good synopsis maybe for those without any background knowledge in the crucial role France may play in the future (depending of course on the conditionality of the private revelations), and I consider Dr. Marshall as an eminently qualified and trusted source personally, not someone who would rush to judgement based on his previous endeavours, or engage in hysterics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmcF_itamnI
Thoughts about possible arson at Notre Dame...just a few hours ago, in New York, they caught a guy trying to get into St. Patrick's with two gas cans. We've had a bunch of church burnings in recent weeks; it sounds like now they're going after the big, iconic churches, especially since another iconic church in France (I forget the name of it) was targeted recently. The way Europe has been frantically hushing up any of the incidents involving terrorism lately, one has to wonder.
"...it sounds like now they're going after the big, iconic churches..."
But who are "they"?
If you Google or type in the whispers.com the DC whispers.com referenced in my article a couple posts above this one the video of the lighting of the roof is visible also take a look at that DC whispers.com video I think it goes to our Twitter account but then the videos visible
https://gallery.mailchimp.com/f670a480a80b925dc850a3262/files/343b433b-bd74-435c-a9e8-44e7f2bc362c/The_25_Secrets_of_Spiritual_Struggle.pdf?utm_source=Signs+and+Wonders+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b4cdb6cda5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_18_02_57&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_274b70cd5f-b4cdb6cda5-246660073&mc_cid=b4cdb6cda5&mc_eid=a2d6ff1d8d
JASON. See if this helps
Thanks Chris, this looks excellent and especially with the Novena of Divine Mercy starting tomorrow, these 25 points are just the kind of more easy to understand guide that I've been looking for!
JMC, this is the church I think you are referencing that was the victim of a suspicious fire (it is the 2nd biggest church in Paris next to Notre Dame, known by most people from Dan Brown using it in his Davinci Code book/slander), the Church of Saint-Sulpice of Paris.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Saint-Sulpice,_Paris
The fire at Saint-Sulpice in March was ruled "not accidental in nature", but also not as outright arson, but the timing seems very coincidental with the other attacks on church buildings going on.
It's worth noting maybe that the sentencing of Ines Madani to 8 years in prison just on Friday (for her part in a plot to destroy Notre Dame through the use of propane tank packed vehicles) led to a lot of anger among the French Islamic community, and maybe one (or some) of them thought starting Notre Dame on fire was a good response, but it's too early to tell. That's a wild speculation on my part, but it would seem to fit a pattern that's difficult to deny.
But, I've also been think about the fire at al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, and wondering if perhaps both these fires might not have been a kind of last wake-up call for Christians and Muslims, both, in a way, that if we aren't able to get along with each other and respect each other's freedom of religion as long as it is not hurting any other, that a conflagration will be in the offing that could destroy so many of both faiths? Just a thought, the coincidence of the timing of the two fires seems just too coincidental, but it's hard to see what the connection could be, as in, if arson was the cause, I don't see anyone on Earth that would gain from burning down both an iconic Catholic as well as an iconic Muslim place of worship, which makes me think of what kind of message could it send if there were a more supernatural cause.
ditto Jason on thanks to Chris--I've read the Diary and get daily messages but this is a really interesting summation--saw 5 or 6 where I have to take a lot more care!!!
re novena (HUGE!!!!) fo gys like me that need reminders https://www.praymorenovenas.com/divine-mercy-novena--(should be called finish more novenas)
https://mysticpost.com/amp/
Medjugorje info
http://spiritual-lessons.blogspot.com/2016/12/pontius-pilate-man-who-washed-his-hands.html?m=1
Is this what will pull Russia into Israel???
https://www.theisraelwire.com/2019/04/15/significant-natural-gas-discovery-made-off-israels-shore-further-cementing-it-as-energy-superpower.html
@Chris re pontius Pilate, not sure about the specific "manuscript" quoted (great read though either way) there are lots of ancient (first to 4th century AD) excerpts which back this version here is a sampling https://aleteia.org/2018/02/25/why-do-some-christians-consider-pontius-pilate-a-saint/
can't remember original source but statement along the lines 'when (IF!) we get to heaven we will be very suprised to see some of the people there---and some that arn't"--reminder to us all "work out your (our) salvation in fear and trembling"
This is just an old (Austrian?) folk tale, but my grandmother on my dad's side told us grandchildren when we were little that Pilate was doomed to not die until Christ returned, and is currently at the bottom of some lake in the Alps. I'm not arguing for the veracity of this at all, lol, but I thought it might be interesting as far as different traditions about the fate of Pilate.
And Brian, you made me lol for real with "finish more novenas", so many times I get to day 6 or 7 and just get lazy and quit them, same thing happens with praying the Rosary everyday, or the Chaplet, or going to Mass everyday, just lazy, lazy, lazy. But I'm determined to stick with the Novena of Divine Mercy in anticipation of Divine Mercy Sunday (which is probably my very favourite day of the year outside of Easter and Christmas or my daughter's birthday).
Oh, and "can't remember original source but statement along the lines 'when (IF!) we get to heaven we will be very suprised to see some of the people there---and some that arn't"--reminder to us all "work out your (our) salvation in fear and trembling", this so reminded me of my favourite Bishop Fulton Sheen video it's on YouTube, it's called "Nice People", and watching it literally changed my life, helping me to reveal my own sins and forgive every single person I hadn't previously been able to, and it has a line almost exactly as you quoted Brian! I'll post the link below in case anyone is interested in watching it (it's I think an especially good homily for Holy Week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAW2I0pTlsw
The ending especially spoke right to my heart, and as I wrote above, sins I'd held for decades that I was in complete denial about were revealed to me to plainly that I could finally make a good confession.
Thanks Brian I thought it is an interesting piece Jappy Easter to you and to all who visit Emmet’s world
https://spiritdailyblog.com/news/when-michael-brown-appeared-on-art-bell
Enjoy
He is risen!
https://www.apostoliccatholic.com/2019/04/god-sent-us-many-warnings-in-days.html?I
Emmett your work is being recognized and spread
happy Easter
Jason R: That folk tale reminds me a bit of the legend of the Wandering Jew, a Jew of Christ's time who refused to believe He was the Messiah and was doomed not to die, but wander the world until the return of Christ. (Someone did a hilarious satire of it in the 1970s, a simple animated thing with Mel Brooks voicing the Jew.)
That sounds interesting, I'll have to look that up. I was talking to my sister about the story and I got it wrong (according to her), it's that his body ended up in this lake in the mountains because every other river (from the Tiber, etc.) basically spit his body out because none of the rivers wanted him, and he comes back to life just one day each year (on Good Friday) where it's said he can be seen near the shores vainly trying to wash the guilt of ordering Our Lord to be crucified off his hands.
I think maybe I must have heard the Wandering Jew folktale at some point and conflated the two (I remember the Pilate story scaring the heck out of me as a little kid!).
I found this so astoundingly prescient that I had to watch it a few times for it to really sink in that this is our recent past, present, and increasingly our future as Catholics. Too good not to share: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f1dWbn3lgI
I also had an open question to anyone at all; does anyone have any experience with Secular Orders (aka Third Orders), either as a member of one or knowing anyone who is?
Can somebody point to me the biblical basis for the idea of a restoration?
Hey Jason,
I'm a Benedictine Oblate.
Mark
That's coincidental because that exactly the ond I was interested in the most Mark; do you know if they are organized in Western Canada by chance? I havent been able to track down as much online as I'd hoped.
Interesting coincidence, eh Jason?
Could you define "western Canada" a bit more for me?
Not long ago, someone from Ohio said, "I know we have an IT technician in Texas, I just don't remember his name". My reply was, "do you have any idea how big this state is?" Sure enough, the guy was 4+ hours away.
So, should I assume anything west of Thunder Bay would do?
:)
Interesting that this turns up on the BBC website, which has it's own dubious history with regards to such reporting:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48146305
Equally interesting is the fact that they're reporting this on a global level, not just in the middle east.
Persecution comes in many shapes and sizes. Red martyrdom is certainly on the rise, and we are indeed seeing it occurring around the world. I suspect China's latest crackdown on religion is more because of the radical Islamists than anything else, but, like all Communists, if you crack down on one, you have to crack down on them all, even the innocent. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka cancelled all Masses for May 5 because the threat of further bombings is ongoing. Bombing churches when worship is in progress IS an act of genocide.
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For quite some time now, Great Britain has been dealing with the problem of attacks on individuals by Islamists by sweeping it under the rug, but word has gotten out that it has reached the point that certain areas have become "no-go zones" for delivery personnel. Certain neighborhoods in London have actually been under literal siege for a while now. So I'd say the fact that the BBC has admitted that the Islamofascist attacks worldwide have reached genocidal levels may actually a hopeful sign, telling us that they're admitting that they can't cover it up anymore, and it's time to report the truth so people can protect themselves.
Hi everyone!
Bulgaria Offers Chilly Welcome as Pope Francis Tries to Mend a Schism
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/world/europe/pope-francis-bulgaria-orthodox-church.html
Then on Monday, a high-ranking figure in the Bulgarian Orthodox church, Metropolitan Nikolai of Plovdiv, dismissed the pope’s visit as political and condemned in harsh terms his efforts to improve ties between the churches.
“The goal of all of this is to unite all the religions around the pope, so that when the Antichrist comes, for the pope to welcome him, and through him, all who are coming along with him,” Nikolai told a congregation in a church in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city.
“How to unite everyone?” he declared, in remarks first reported by Pod Tepeto, a Bulgarian news site. “It is not possible to unite the light and the darkness.”
Soooo, is this a popular view among the Orthodox? That reunification will usher in the Antichrist???
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church unfortunately, just like the ROC, is riddled with former Communist intelligence agents (as estimated ~50% of current ROC clergy are *still* former KGB operatives, the Patriarch of the ROC himself is a former agent, not just a former informer or something, but a full agent, of the KGB, and I guess people can have conversion experiences and all that, we should never discount the power of God's grace, but with Patriarch Kirill's background, well, suffice it to say I'd tend toward putting him in the same category as St. Putin), and the Bulgarians are in a big old huff at the "schismatic" Macedonian Orthodox Church, where a similar situation has occurred as with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church finally getting from under Moscow's thumb, and see Pope Francis as meddling; they don't want reconciliation and peace with the Macedonian Church, they want back *control*, so this is very much a political thing (Bulgaria doesn't even recognize a separate Macedonian identity, they consider them Bulgarians despite history showing that just isn't the case), so there is a lot of enmity that goes beyond any religious dimensions (which is exactly why the Holy Father has made a priority of going there to try to sow peace).
If all those prophecies (from Venerable Isabel Canori-Mora, St. John-Mary Vianney, Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser, Blessed Elena Aiello, Marie Julie Jahenny, Blessed Ann Marie Taigi, etc.) do come true someday, I could see the Balkans easily being a flashpoint. The intense hatred still between Croats, Serbs, and ethnic Albanians in the region has never really cooled down to more than a low simmer, and the Balkans have always been the invasion route of Europe from Middle Eastern powers like the Ottomans. I'm sure the Church hierarchy can see that, too, and who knows what they know that we don't as well, so bringing peace & reconciliation in this area of the world in particular is rightly high on the agenda.
And there's plenty of history of that kind of fear-mongering when it comes to how the Church is seen by the Orthodox churches throughout history, mostly just because they don't like the institution of the papacy, so not really that far from someone like the late Ian Paisley's ramblings, it's just mud-racking I suspect. I guess I didn't really answer your question Bridget (nice to see you posting BTW), but I don't think this is anything new that hasn't been going on already for a very longer time, but with the added dimensions of more divisions in the Orthodox world and political agendas at work, too (and like the ROC, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is almost an arm of the state, and exists to a large degree to do the state's bidding, sadly).
p.s. Emmett, sorry I'm taking so longer with the scrolling text thing I said I'd try. I thought it would be a lot simpler! Like with basic HTML scrolling text is as easy as one line This is my scrolling text, so I assumed that it would be easy-peasy to find some online tool or small app or program to generate something for YouTube. I have a copy of Adobe Premiere on the way that I know must be able to do it since that's what's used in movies for end credits and stuff like that... I just didn't want you to think I'd given up or something (not yet anyways!).
Oh Mark, I just read your comment, haha, yes, anywhere west of Thunder Bay's about right (maybe more Lake of the Woods, but close enough). I haven't been able to find anything online about the Benedictine Oblates having a presence in Canada, but on the American website I found an article about a bishop visiting Benedictine Oblates in P.E.I., so they're out there, I just don't know where to go from here. If there's any info or if you could point me anywhere in the right direction, that would be awesome. If not though, I'll keep digging and ask my parish priest for help. We have a community of Secular Carmelites in my area, but that is kind of out for me since my ex-wife is a member, so that particular well is kind of poisoned for me!
Maybe it's just my American/Texan bias, but I always think of Western Canada as BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. I don't know why, but Manitoba never really factors into it.
Have a look at this:
http://www.naabod.org/map
(I don't know if that URL will work. naabod.org will give a map if you go there and poke around a bit.)
The closest to Lake of the Woods is Winnipeg, it looks like.
A couple of things.
First off, don't be put off if they don't exactly welcome you with open arms. They're not being rude. It says in the Rule that they should test your resolve, and some of the abbeys and monasteries will give you a rather cool reception at first, as part of this test. Some won't. It all depends on the particular location and the Oblate Director.
Secondly, you're discerning them as much as anything else. Make sure the orthodoxy of the place fits with your view of orthodoxy. I've seen some pretty heterodox places (for want of a better phrase) that would never fit with my background. I did not go with the most orthodox place I contacted when I was first asking about oblation. They didn't get back to me (see the first point above), when another abbey did.
Continued....
...Continuation
Third, consider physical proximity, regardless of what third order you choose. Given what I know of your background (limited thought that may be), I'd say it's probably important to have a close-ish location that you might be able to get to occasionally. The Rule tells of four different types of monks, and I think it applies to oblates as well. "Second, there are the anchorites or hermits, who have come through the test of living in a monastery for a long time, and have passed beyond the first fervor of monastic life. Thanks to the help and guidance of many, they are now trained to fight against the devil." If you go with a location that's physically distant from you, you become something of a de facto hermit Oblate. Where the anchorites are "trained to fight against the devil," you're kind of left to that fight without the training. That's my situation exactly. I'm 800+ miles from the Archabbey. In a manner of speaking, I've had to train myself for that fight (with questionable success), rather than getting the training/support of the Archabbey directly. Even the Oblate Director said he'd reconsider ever having such a distant Oblate again, given my situation. If you end up as an oblate hermit, the temptations/attacks will come, and you have to be able to defend yourself....pretty much alone. Don't get me wrong - I AM NOT suggesting that you abandon the idea of oblation based just on physical proximity, I am very strongly suggesting caution. If you feel strongly about this, and feel strongly about a distant abbey/monastery, then by all means consider it.
Lastly, approach this as a prayerful thing rather than an intellectual thing. If you prayerfully consider oblation and it seems the proper thing to do, then by all means proceed. It's very much a process of discernment. I looked at it this way - oblation is a gift, so would God accept that gift. If I came away from the discernment process feeling neutral or positive about the answer to that question, then I felt like it was the right thing to do. If I didn't, then I wasn't going to go through with it.
One last point - take your time. The process at St. Meinrads was scheduled to take a year for the discernment, etc. I took 16 months. Don't let anyone put you on a schedule other than the schedule that God puts you on.
If I can help in any way, just let me know. Windsor34@gmail.com. If you decide that Winnipeg isn't right for you, maybe consider St. Meinrad's. They have done the distance thing before, and I'm fairly certain that the new Oblate Director would consider it again. And I'll add what support I can offer there as well, so you don't have to end up as an entirely hermit-like Oblate hermit (if that makes any sense at all). The good thing about St. Meinrad's is that they've allowed me some flexibility because of my work schedule, which is far from my control at times. If you want to look at something more traditional, Clear Creek in Oklahoma might be an option (and if you go there, I'd consider transferring my oblation there as well....been thinking about it for quite some time).
Drop me an e-mail if you have any questions.
Pax Christi Sit Semper Vobiscum!
Mark
Jason will this help??
https://www.catholiccounselors.com/spiritual-direction/
Mark, man, I feel so stupid right now! I'm super familiar with St. Peter's Abbey in Muenster, SK, and it is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Foam Lake, where I have an aunt and uncle who have been inviting me to stay with them anytime I want for as long as I want, even if I'm not feeling well, they said not to worry, even if my pain levels keep me stuck in bed they'd more to love than have me.
I am not sure why, but I suspect I had a relative that either worked at the College or was maybe a brother at the Abbey, because when I was really young whenever we visited Foam Lake, my mom and aunt would always make the trip to Muenster to visit someone they were close to there, way back to one of my earliest memories of feeling really lifted up in a spiritual way was at the very old (for around here anyways very old) St. Peter's Cathedral, my first memory of the smell of incense was there, one of those childhood memories that you think of at least every once in awhile for your whole life type of memories. When we were quite poor before my father quit drinking, the Abbey or someone there I know sponsored me (i.e. paid the fees) my first year at Camp Monahan when I was in grade 3 (1978), where my very best memories of childhood happened, and where I eventually became a counselor during my teen years, where I learned the faith much more than even attending Catholic primary and secondary school. "The Prairie Messenger" was the *only* newspaper that mattered in my mom and her most of her big family of siblings' (11 kids) homes, I was so sad when they had to stop printing it one year ago exactly. My mom went to writer's workshops at St. Peter's College many years ago, too. How they weren't on my radar as the people to contact, I feel dumb, but thank you so much for that link to the map Mark!
I'm not claiming these connections as some kind of signal grace (if I'm using that term correctly) or something like I'd probably think when I'm not doing well mental-healthwise, but very pleasant encouragements that this is something I should at least look into. Knowing that even if my medical conditions worsen and I have to go to a nursing home (something at 49 I'm dreading but know is in the future because living by myself is already a big challenge sometimes), that I could maybe still be involved with from a distance as a Oblate hermit (and I live almost the life of a hermit other than seeing my sister dropping in for quite long periods that it makes sense to me as an option), reading that has tears of happiness on my cheeks right now. I'm trying so hard to follow what Our Lord wants of me, but I desperately need some kind of structure, especially in my prayer life and spiritually in general, and this may be part of it (or even "it" itself). Please pray for me that if this is within God's will for me that it might work out, and if not, that I won't be disappointed.
And Chris, thank you so much for that link!! I looked into what my archdiocese has available for access to a spiritual director, but when I saw the people on their list I was very wary; non-convert Anglicans rather than fellow Catholics, a woman who when we didn't have a priest for quite a few years, was our pastoral minister for the longest period of time, and preached heresy right from the altar, as an example ,even dared to teach one Sunday that the idea of the True Presence was a medieval invention (!) that was never believed or even considered before that (I have never come so close to standing up in the middle of a Eucharistic celebration and publicly rebuking someone teaching such blatant falsehoods, sometimes I still wish I had no matter the repercussions), and this woman is extremely well educated in the faith with higher education coming out of her ears, so she must have known her words were lies even as she was speaking them, just to foist her own personal beliefs on the parish). Another I recognized from a "Mass" I once attended, to my chagrin, between classes at University at Campion College in Regina, where the Jesuits and faculty members there, well, there were so many severe abuses, like all gender-neutral language throughout, the priest performing the consecration while, we, the congregates were holding the un-consecrated hosts in our own hands (!)... I didn't even want to eat the host, because I was so unsure of what the heck was going on and if the Mass was even valid, but I did praying asking God's forgiveness if I was taking part in something I shouldn't be (and I was very visibly disturbed by all this, and got kind of ganged up on in a fake-friendly way not to tell anyone about the things that bothered me that went on that lunch-break, and that I should come back, that they just "do things in a way I'm not familiar with", it was very coercive.
So I don't think it is out of pickiness, but knowing what I know about several of the very short list of spiritual directors in my archdiocese, with several not even believing in
the very basics, like the True Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, that have spoken out publicly in favour of female priests, in replacing the papacy with instead with a council made up of 50/50 male and female advisors, and so on; I was scared that they wouldn't be able to help me, and may even be detrimental more than anything (though there is one extremely holy priest on the list that I have received counseling, not spiritual direction per se, from in the past, but I saw him at the Chrism Mass recently and he told me how swamped he is with work just in passing, before I even saw him on the list, so I couldn't go to him directly, and I don't think I can request a specific advisor anyways from the gist of the website, they just assign whoever is available. I was quite discouraged by it, and actually kind of scared for any poor souls who are receiving spiritual direction from some of those folks.
I hope that didn't come across as pointless character-assassination, but I just wanted to express how much that link you sent means to me Chris, because I don't think I would find what I'm looking for close to home; it's just not a matter of less-orthodox directors, but ones that I know to not believe at all in certain very fundamental teachings of the Church.
Mark and Chris, thank you both, this website has been such a blessing to me in the past, and continues to happily surprise me on days like today!! Praise God and His true awesomeness!!
p.s. Thank you for the cautions as well Mark... in a way in the kind of isolation I find myself in I feel under spiritual attack already sometimes, and have for a long time, since early childhood at times, way before bipolar disorder ever should usually manifest. My mom warned me that I may have much suffering in life to endure, but I'm scared to tell the story of that because it is so hard to believe.
I would never admit to all the things I do to try to stay as spiritually protected as absolutely possible to anyone in my immediate circle of friends or family other than my sister because she is very devote and knows some of the weird things I've lived through. But anyone else, I'd probably be in a psych ward before you could say boo, and that truly terrifies me, more than anything I think, like, to the point that I think I would rather be executed than have to spend life in one.
It stems from the only time I was involuntary committed (for only 2 months, but it felt much longer), and it was horrible, like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" stuff, nurses punching full-force patients in the back of the head (where marks couldn't be easily seen I assume), for the slightest disobedience or breaking of rules, and there were sooo many rules (I got my fair share of whacks the first few days in there, and learned to keep my head down and my mouth shut, other than taking medication). There was one women there that *shrieked*, who thought I was a demon, every time she saw me, which was pretty much most of the day, so much so that I started to think maybe I *was* possessed or something, as drugged up as they had me. I still wonder if she was maybe seeing some presence tormenting me or something, and I know that itself sounds crazy to think. My roommate was in there for court-ordered drug detox (the ward was used for that as well, which still seems bizarre to me), and his big suitcase was filled with *nothing* but skin mags, and he masturbated day and night, I guess as a way of coping with withdrawal, I'm not sure, until the skin literally was stripping off his penis and hands; it may have been the worst two months of my life, I'm not sure, but it was right up there.
And the reason I was committed, the sole reason, I know will sound impossible to believe for most, but I swear this all is 100% true. It was simply because in a routine interview with the head of psychiatry for our health district because I'd been depressed the following year and had been treated on an out-patient basis, the first week yet that this doctor first got the position, he asked me if I believed in God, and I, of course (and very unwittingly), said yes, based on that single question alone he categorized me as "dangerously delusional" (the doctor was Egyptian, and as virulent an atheist and hater of religion as you'd find anywhere in the world I'd wager, and was quite open to my parents about the reason why when they found out I wasn't going home with them, and when my mom in disbelief and shock said we were Catholic, so of course we believe in God, the doctor snapped at her I was told later, "Then you, madame, should be locked in this ward as well!!").
Remember, this was in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada, and only in 1991, not ancient history by any means, and not some Eastern Bloc/Communist country. It is still surreal and almost unbelievable to *me*, and I lived it. And it is 100% true, as unbelievable as it may seem, especially to my fellow Canadians that think we lived in a country where Freedom of Religion, Conscience, and Expression are fundamental Charter rights; in 1991, to me, that was revealed as a whopper.
My parents asked my two uncles, who are lawyers, about some kind of legal route to help get me out, but they both said getting a writ of habeas corpus in cases of commitment to a mental health facility when you have a record of mental illness was next to impossible until every other legal means was exhausted, which would have bankrupted my family, even with both of my uncles working pro bono. They were more than furious and distraught and outraged, they tried everything to get me out of there, letter upon letter to the Minister of Health, to the Archbishop (my mom wanted him to step in, and even asked if it could be read from every pulpit in Saskatchewan what had happened to me for simply admitting to believing in God, but we had a bit of a do-nothing Archbishop (who was already up to his ears in sexual abuse issues I believe that exploded in SK in 1994-ish, and was also very enmeshed with the government of the day, which I suspect was part of his reasons, though I guess I shouldn't speculate, even on my parent's sworn and notarized witness to the reason they were given to their faces why I was in there.
After half the winter stuck in that place, one day my dad had just had it and almost went over the deep end himself (I think he was having a full-on panic attack from his own past experiences after the war, because I'd seen him angry before, but I'd never seen him so furiously angry, a kind of righteous outrage and indignation, fury but not in an evil way if that makes sense), and showed up at the ward on the infamous 3rd floor, slipped in past the big metal remotely-locked security doors after a nurse pushing the big meal cart in, found my room (it was a small ward luckily), picked me up, and carried me (I was too full of Thorazine to do more than walk in a very slow shuffle). Dr. Saleh wouldn't grant visitation rights because he claimed it would be "too upsetting to the patient", so I honestly thought I was in their for life, I had no idea the effort put in outside of that ward, and that my parents had just abandoned me or something. It was so very confusing and terrifying.
A very BIG psych nurse, kind of the enforcer psych nurse that handled the big violent outbursts with some of the patients, stepped in front of us, and threatened my dad that if he didn't put me down, or back in my room, he'd be forced to restrain my dad as well as me if he had to, and like I needed restraining, lol, I was more zombie than human with all those first-generation anti-psychotics pumped into me through IV; I adamantly refused, which probably didn't help my case, but I was so pissed off, to take them orally even when they forced my jaw open with an instrument usually used for gynecological procedures, which was pretty painful in itself, and strapped me down, I'd just regurgitate them right back up, and spit them out every time), my dad shot back without even hesitating "Sir, I am giving you the fairest warning I can... I escaped Stalinism, so I have no fear of you, and you better trust I am telling you the truth; if you lay a hand on me, you'll be picking your chiclets (note: Canadian hockey slang meaning teeth) off the floor, and if you even make a move toward my son, you better be sure you are at peace with the Lord first". And he meant it, it was a little frightening because I saw murder in my dad's eyes, but was also so proud of him, so grateful, I had no idea the lengths they had gone to to try to get me out of there, so that moment is burned into my memory even with all that sedation I was under.
then he walked us past that nurse, and after some loud yelling that I don't remember the content of back and forth at the security doors, but found out later were threats of a lawsuit against Dr. Saleh personally, not the government or Ministry of Health, and one phone call to the doctor, they unlocked the big metal doors, and I have never been back there since. I am still a believer in socialized health care, but this is a good cautionary tale of the abuses of power that can take place sometimes in highly bureaucratized health systems when a government is involved I think. I don't know if that doctor was evil, or because he was so new to Canada that he thought things here worked like in Egypt, or what, but he was gone quite soon after that, I don't know if he was fired or left for fear of litigation, but was relieved he couldn't do to anyone else what he did to me. If I tell this to people now, that this happened in 1991, in Canada (!), imprisonment for very innocently admitting you believe in a deity (I'm glad I didn't know what I was in for, because had I known what that answer would cost, I fear I may have denied Our Lord at that age I was, and not being very brave or confident. The whole experience was a big part of why I wanted to become a priest, just as a thank you to Jesus and Mary for getting me out of there (with some help from an enraged papa bear admittedly, but still).
So anyway, sorry about the tangent, but things I do that would probably get me committed again: I only take my 5--way medal and my St. Benedict medal (what a task it was to find a priest who would perform the full blessing on it including the exorcism prayer at the beginning instead of a simple sign of the Cross blessing, like pulling teeth), bless my home with holy water every Friday, light a blessed beeswax candle with images of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts whenever I'm tempted to sin, pray Chaplets of Divine Mercy often, invoke trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus as often as I'm able to some days, and when well enough (and not too lazy as well, which I often am), I try to attend daily Mass, try to go to Confession if I'm not in a state of grace ASAP (to the point of driving my parish priest to distraction sometimes I suspect).
I often don't know what is just my mental illness, and what may be actual demonic attack, it is very confusing and extremely frightening at times, but all these things I do seem to help so much more than any psychiatric medicines I'm taking. Sorry if my tale (of really what I consider out-and-out religious persecution still) was a little bitter sounding, it is a cautionary tale, but it still upsets me so much it is hard to be forgiving about it all.
p.s. And with your spirit, Mark!
Drop me an e-mail when you get a chance, Jason. I'll put you in touch with the Oblate director at St. Meinrads. It's not the Bastion of Orthodoxy that I'd like, but neither is it a bastion of heterodoxy either, and they've been untouched by The Scandal (which can't be said for other OSB monasteries). I might also try to put you in touch with the previous Oblate Master as well. He's a very wise monk in his 80's. He retired a couple of years ago, but he was still answering e-mails the last time I sent him something. In your situation, it might be a good idea to exchange e-mails.
But before anything else happens, I'd suggest you get a copy of The Rule and read it through. If you do become and Oblate, you'll be reading from it every day. Like everything else that's translated from Latin, the translation matters a great deal. There are some exceptionally bad translations out there. I can recommend two:
https://www.amazon.com/RB-1980-Rule-Benedict-English/dp/0814612725/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=rule+of+st+benedict&qid=1557403377&s=books&sr=1-2
I actually use this one on a daily basis. The translation is respectful of the original, but brought into modern English in such a way as to lose very little in the translation. If your finances are such that buying a copy is difficult, I can send you one. I have several that I keep on hand just for this kind of occasion.
I can't seem to find the other copy right now. It was a Penguin Classics edition from the early 1900's. I think Amazon might have dropped it. I have a copy in the house somewhere, and I'll try to find it.
As to getting the medal blessed, remember that you don't have to be present for that to happen. The one I wear daily is from Rome, blessed by BXVI at a general audience, and the OSB blessing and exorcism was done by a local priest that I know and trust. If you need something blessed, I can get that done. But I've also bought medals and had them blessed by monks in California and New Mexico before. The bottom line is, you don't have to do this yourself.
Continued...
...continuation.
On second thought, no continuation for now. Drop me an e-mail when you have a chance.
Pax,
Mark
Jason, I believe you completely, simply because I've heard similar stories before...some of them happening right now in the US.
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I think Satan deliberately targets the mentally ill simply because he believes that the mental illness will mask the attack, and the patient will end up never seeing an exorcist. Personally, I think this is something you need to discuss with the Oblates (Mark, your input on this?); I admit I know absolutely nothing about how these things work, but I suspect they may be able to help in determining how much is illness and how much is demonic attack.
Pax Christi tecum sit.
In light of this I think we are in this time frame
3 For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my
heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
According to Israel's largest newspaper, Yisrael Hayom, a draft of the Trump-Kushner "Deal of the Century" has been leaked and some of the details are astounding. This isn't necessarily the final version, but here are some of the key points from the draft:
1. The creation of a Palestinian state called "New Palestine" in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with elections held one year after the plan's implementation. God's land would be divided.
2. Israeli annexation of all settlements in the West Bank, which would constitute about 30% of Judea and Samaria. Israel would grow by about 650 square miles.
3. Palestinian refugees would not return.
4. Palestinian prisoners would be released over a period of three years after a two year delay. Notice that part of the plan will take several years to implement. Might there be some other part of the plan that takes seven?
5. A small area adjacent in Egypt would be leased for a Palestinian airport. A Palestinian seaport would also be established. These will be built over a period of five years.
6. Jerusalem would be a shared capital where Israelis could not purchase Palestinian homes and vice versa. Some creative legal language allows Israel to claim that Jerusalem will not be divided in that national jurisdiction overlaps somehow.
7. Supporting countries will supply $30 billion over five years for the implementation of the plan, especially for supporting New Palestine's establishment.
8. New Palestine will be demilitarized—only police would be armed and only with "light weapons." Israel would maintain control over national defense.
9. Hamas will be forced to hand over all weapons to Egypt and the Gaza Strip will be completely demilitarized.
And here's the big one:
10. As some have speculated, the deal appears designed to leapfrog over the impossible obstacle of negotiations that have made prior "peace" attempts unsuccessful. It stipulates an all-or-nothing approach. If either side rejects the deal they will suffer stiff economic and political penalties. The U.S. also agrees to military intervention in Gaza if Hamas rejects the deal.
A final note: We won't know the details of the deal with certainty until it is formally rolled out in June (shortly after the end of Ramadan). However, according to Yisrael Hayom, this draft document was leaked by one or more sources at Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, raising its credibility. A White House official is downplaying this leak, but has not refuted any individual detail. The downplay would be expected even if this is a real draft as any preemptive release could harm the deal's chances, allowing the Palestinian leadership political and diplomatic cover to reject it beforehand.
Also notice that #4, #5, and #7 indicate that this is a five year plan. It has a timetable and that timetable is shockingly close to seven. For all intents and purposes this also appears to be a deal with many: the United States, most Gulf states, China, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Canada, the European Union, and of course Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
I posted just for info I am not championing the references to seven year meanings and it’s inference
Chris - what website is that from?
JMC - it's certainly something to be discussed at the time. As to whether or not the demonic forces attack those with mental illness more often to hide the attack behind the mental illness, I couldn't tell you. The cause-and-effect can get very murky very quickly.
Mark: Ain't that the truth! ;D
JMC, I am very hesitant to tell a couple of things that have happened, out of a lot of other examples, that tend to make me think that there is some sort of connection between mental illness and spiritual attack. The reason I hesitate is because of that stigma that those of us with mental illness or personality disorders have to deal with.
An example of that, I had to stop going to NA meetings because though even in "the big book", there is a chapter about respecting that people that need psychiatric medication is not the same as using, when I was in a fairly serious depressive state, when I was past that tipping point where my rationality starts to erode and I become very highly suggestible, a group of folks after one of the meetings I went to every week kind of bushwhacked me, and ultimately convinced me I should stop taking all my p-meds... like even when I told them I have delusions and hallucinations, these folks, that all went to the same Pentecostal church that preaches that there is no such thing as mental illness, they are just manifestations of spiritual dryness or spiritual highness or demonic attack, and said that the delusions/hallucinations were from God, and might be visions that I'm supposed to have. It's easy to be enticed into not taking the medications you need in my experience, because there is that temptation to want to believe you're "normal". So I stopped taking my medication (the ones that manage the symptoms of my mental/emotional illnesses anyways), and it very nearly ended in a tragedy. My psychiatrist showed me a study that showed that over 40,000 people who were members of 12-step groups have committed suicide as a direct result of over-zealous fellow members convincing them to stop taking their psychiatric meds (he didn't seem a fan of these groups in general I got the impression, but he was upset with my case in particular).
That being said, there have been some otherwise hard to explain occurrences with myself (that I won't get into), but also with other members of my extended family that are quite difficult to explain in other than preternatural terms. In one instance, my mother was visited her sister who has schizophrenia in the hospital (my aunt had been biting her hands in there and trying to claim she was a stigmatic), and my mother was especially worried for her, that there was something going on far beyond schizophrenia. At the next prayer meeting my mom went to, the group focused on prayers for healing for this aunt in particular. The next time my mom saw my aunt shortly afterwards, she talked in what sounded like a man's voice, and even beyond that my mom told me, this deep guttural voice with an undertone throughout like a wolf or dog growling, and she (or rather, this voice, which was hers, but somehow not), that she had better never again have my mom's prayer group pray for her, and there was no rational way my aunt could have known that this had happened.
Another instance more benign, so not what I would consider necessarily anything dark or evil, but another of my aunts who has bipolar i disorder (a little different than what I have bipolar ii disorder), when she was ill with mania, and again this is second-hand information, but from my cousin who is very well-respected and very traditional Catholic, and who I just can't believe would make this up, so another person I very much believe in as a trusted source, my aunt's psychiatrist is from an African nation (I'm not sure which one), and during the appt my cousin claims that my aunt started conversing with her p-doc in his own native tongue, I'm not sure what the language is but the doctor was stunned, and told my cousin that my aunt spoke the language like it was her own, perfect accent and everything, and my aunt has spent her whole life living on the farm/ranch, she doesn't use things like the Internet, so it is hard to find a less than preternatural (or maybe it was a gift of the Holy Spirit manifest) for this situation.
I don't want to leave an impression that I think (a) all people with mental illness suffer from spiritual attack or (b) that only people with mental illness suffer from spiritual attack (I have the Venn diagram pictured in my head for what I mean, I wish I could draw on the screen right now, haha), but there does to be some sort of correlation between the two, and maybe even a correlation between mental illness and genuine manifestation of charisms (my mom had periods where she would be unable to get out of bed, which I blamed on depression alone, and when she was having her highs, she would pray in Aramaic, which I know a lot of people would see as a sign of demonic obsession/possession possibly, but when she prayed with her hands laid on me for healing when I was in the deepest depths of my former heroin addiction, I felt something physical happening in me, like an electric shock running up and down the length of my spine moving at the speed of light from one end to the other and then back again, over and over, and I was released from my addiction in that moment, completely. I never had a relapse (misusing my pain medication, mixing it intentionally with alcohol) until my marriage broke up, but it's been a year a month and 13 days since the last drink I had. Was my mom an undiagnosed manic/depressive? Most likely. But when reading "Interior Castle", a lot of what is described in there sounds to me a lot like what I saw going on in my mom's life while growing up as well.
My psychiatrist in the context of unpacking the reasons why I just couldn't hold my marriage together despite the best efforts I could make at the time, and I believe I've written this before here, but that there is a pandemic-like explosion of narcissistic personality disorder running rampant in Western society, where that particular personality disorder, the full blown disorder, not just somewhere along the lower-ish end of the spectrum, that used to be (and I'm spit-balling, but from what I remember these approximations are close) say 1 in 300 people having the disorder, the psychiatric community through solid and scholarly studies are estimating it is now closer to between 1 in 20 to as high as 1 in 10 people have the full-blown disorder, like, a staggering amount, and among "ordinary" folks, not just high profile celebrities and political leaders where at least a touch of narcissism is almost to be expected.
Now, at the same time, periodically I've read reports, even in mainstream press, that very experienced exorcists, and I believe even the "chief" exorcist at the Vatican (if there is such a position), and if my memory is serving correctly, say there is an epidemic of cases of full-blown demonic possession happening at the same time. It is hard to draw any conclusive correlation between these two co-existing epidemics, one psychological and one spiritual... but maybe it may be as simple as they are two sides of the same coin, just different perspectives of one thing going on?
And in my own life, I've had strange things happen throughout, some that can't be explained easily in purely rational scientific terms I believe. My own personal story kind of reaches way back to when my mother was a baby, and during a huge blizzard, a strep infection turned into full blown scarlet fever. My opa tried making it from their farm outside of the hamlet of Ralph, SK, not far from the small city of Weyburn, but it was zero visibility and they didn't own a compass, so he couldn't make it. There entire family was praying in vigil for my mom's life, but her heart seemed to have stopped, she seemed to be dead, no pulse, no apparent breathing with a mirror held to her mouth, skin turning blue and cold to the touch.
My grandma, in a final desperate act, prayed a prayer of consecration over my mom's seemingly dead body to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart, giving her fully over to whatever Our Lord, through Our Lady, in an act of giving up her own parental role, and entrusting in a real way her motherhood she was abrogating through love, directly over to Our Lady. And lo and behold, my infant mom took a big gasp of air in, her pulse returned, and she suffered no permanent ill-effects. Was my mom actually dead, or just hovering very close to it? Who is to say I guess, but my mom had what seemed at least as manifestations of some of the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit throughout her life, like, when the charismatic movement began in the late 60s/early 70s (and I respect the opinion of those that believe it not to be of God, it's hard to deny that many Charismatic Catholics have ultimately left the Church for Pentecostal denominations, which does not seem like it could be anything but a bitter fruit), for my mom, she had had some seeming manifestations of the charisms of the Holy Spirit her entire life already. Was this a result of my grandma's prayers way back to when she was an infant? I don't know, I guess it is impossible to know, but she also suffered a great deal, what a lot of people would consider an unusual streak of bad luck, but for my mom, she carried her crosses quietly and with gratitude rather than thinking them as anything bad.
Jumping ahead to my life (circa 1972 or 73, I can recall but it was one of those two Summers), there was a similar situation that happened to me. My mom and me and my siblings were at the beach one day, and I was the age where I had learned to walk and was scooting around, but wasn't old enough to talk yet. My mom turned her back just for a second to attend to something, and when she turned back, I was gone. In panic she scanned the crowded beach and I was no where to be seen. Very luckily the lifeguard at the beach had seen me scooting down the beach a ways to where boats didn't launch, but docked temporarily because there is a sheer drop right off the beach of around 80 feet. He ran to where he'd seen me enter the water, but with the depth and the swift currents that flowed near the bottom, it took over ten minutes (my mom's approximation, so not a for sure amount of time, but more than enough for me to be a goner) for him to find me. A crowd drew around as he performed first aid, CPR and that, on me, but like my mom years before, I had no discernible pulse, no breathing, skin blue and cold to the touch, and after trying for quite a while he gave up, thinking I was beyond any help, that I had died.
My mom told me all this many years later, but this was a well-known thing that happened to me, so I heard the story not just from my mom, and even met the lifeguard in my teens and had a chance to thank him for what he had done for me, so not just from a single source. I don't have any recollection of it (other than nightmares sometimes still of drowning, and a very unusual event that I'll write of below that may be related), that she was desperate, praying over me (she was kind of known for having the charism of healing, or rather, the grace of the Holy Spirit healing through her as an instrument of His, with people coming to her for help often in this regard, and before any sort of charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit were a well-known and seemingly much more common thing).
She said she hesitated to pray over me the same way my grandma had over her many years before, because she felt that though she endured her own cross(es) with joy, even the depressions (I know that might sound oxymoronic), but wasn't sure of whether to let me go or throw a literal "Hail Mary" pass, knowing what might be in store for me in life if hers was anything to go by. But of course, she prayed for a consecration to Jesus through Our Lady's Immaculate Heart, and in that instant my body convulsed back into action, coughing up the water that had filled my lungs. Was I actually dead? I don't know, it's another unknowable, but at the very least I must have been rapping on Heaven's gate, and I didn't die that day.
I am not sure how long afterwards the first "weird" experience I remember having was, but I was still in diapers, and sleeping in a playpen. It was just before dawn and I woke up to a strange sound of singing, like the high-pitched "ahhhhs" and "oooos" of a choral group, but it was like so many different voices in unison, but with those individual differences, that the closest I can describe it is like the ringing of many, many bells, with their slight discordances that make them not a true note, but zeroing in on that note through a near infinite amount of just slight tonal differences (if that makes any sense). I climbed out of my playpen in search of where these sounds of voices were coming from, and also because my diaper was wet and I was in potty-training I know, because I remember not wanting to get in trouble for wetting myself instead of getting up to use my training seat.
I went downstairs to our washroom, and saw the light of the about to rise sun, and I opened the window and climbed out to our backyard, naked as a jaybird, lol. But I watched my very first sun-rise, and I didn't know better than to stare into the sun, but it didn't hurt my eyes, and it was probably the image of the sun burning itself temporarily onto my retina, but I saw the sun spinning within itself, and moving around in the sky (when I later read about the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, I couldn't help but think of this experience), and I was filled with an almost overpowering bliss of the love of God, and had a prayer placed in my heart, nothing fancy, but a prayer of praise affirming the three divine persons of the Holy Trinity, and I was barely able to talk more than knowing a handful of words, like "spoon", or "two", so this prayer seems well beyond any capacity I had at that time to just come up with. That first joy, and joy doesn't seem strong enough a word, has never been topped in my life, like, I think of the happiest times I've had, like holding my baby daughter in my arms for the first time, things like that, and even those fantastic moments are such a far-second to that experience I had watching the sunrise that I almost feel bad about it, like, how could holding my daughter for the first time be so wholly eclipsed by watching a sunrise as a toddler?? It doesn't make any sense.
But something was different about me, and it may have been just mental illness hitting me right from the very beginning, but strange things happened. I learned to read and write by 4, read the entire set of the encyclopedia by the age of 9 (and more than that, I easily understood everything in it), and, just as a little example of me being a little off, whenever anything was missing or lost, the members of my family would ask me to find the particular thing, or tell them where it was, and I had an uncanny knack of finding those things. And I loved going to Mass, it was what I loved more than anything, and singing hymns at home, praying the Stations of the Cross and the Rosary, our nightly Bible readings (it took a good number of years, but my Mom read us the Bible from beginning to end, usually a chapter, or the best part of a chapter, each night as part of our night time prayers, excepting on weekends when we always had relatives staying with us or we were going to stay with them).
My love of the faith had never been so strong, and I just can't get back to that spot, not in that way... maybe it is something reserved for childhood, when we don't have the residual emotional and psychological effects of sin, both our own, and the sins perpetrated against us, but our faith was all the mattered in my life at the time. The first time I experienced something that felt like a honest-to-goodness demonic attack, and who knows with my brain, maybe I suffered permanent brain damage in my near-to-death drowning experience that would explain all this stuff in my life, but it was in 1977, and my mom's family were having a family reunion at the Regina Inn, always events I looked forward to, the first after my grandparents had died in a car accident with a semi (something my mom saw in a dream as it was happening, right down to my opa dying first, and my fatally injured grandma crying when she was told my the paramedics that he was gone... she woke up the whole house, weeping inconsolably, telling us that opa and grandma had died in a car accident... my dad brushed it off as just my crazy mom again, and scolded her for upsetting us kids, but sure enough, a few hours after we had all gotten back to sleep again, we got the phone call from one of my uncles, an event that try as I might I can't find any rational explanation for).
Swimming in the indoor, nicely heated pool at the hotel was always a huge treat me and my cousins and siblings looked forward to (and despite my lingering fear of being in deep water, even when I'm fishing in big boats, I get a bit of a heightening of anxiety, I loved to swim and never competitively but had all my colour badges and lifesaving 1/2/3 early on... I'd often freak people out because I was able, I don't know how because I sure can't do it now, but to walk around along the bottom of a pool like I was walking on dry land, like a human crayfish). So during this weekend reunion, while I was swimming alone in the pool, I'm not sure where everyone else was (I ultimately have over a hundred first cousins on my mom's side, so it was unusual to only have one cousin nearby when this weird thing occurred). There were a couple of children around my same age swimming in the pool at the same time, and they kind of were inching their way closer to me, and suddenly each of them grabbed one of my feet and pulling me to the bottom of the pool. I had quite a good lung capacity, so I wasn't worried, but both of them were looking up at me smiling, and when I was right out of breath, they both were still just smiling away and seemingly not needed any fresh air of their own.
I finally couldn't hold my air in anymore, and coughed it out, and then breathed in a huge breath of water, coughed it out, rinse and repeat, starting to drown. Yet these two kids that looked so much a like other than one a boy, one a girl, were like Aquaman or something, they still had my legs tight as vices and it could have been a hallucination from lack of oxygen, but their grinning faces suddenly and immediately transformed into the most hideous visages I've seen in my life, the grins turning to very evil looking smirks. I thought I was losing my marbles, or that I was having a nightmare, because what was happening just couldn't happen in real life. But yet, there I was, and it was no nightmare, this was for real, and I was filled with such fear it is hard to describe. Was I losing my mind??? Maybe I was...
The one cousin I had nearby who had been in the adjacent arcade attached to the pool and lounging area, suddenly had his arms around my chest and was kicking hard as he could trying to get me out of the water, which he did, but not without considerable effort, and I was definitely not putting up any kind of struggle, using my free arms myself as I had been for awhile, paddling with them hard as I could to get to the surface of the pool and air (nothing in the world is more precious than air when you aren't getting any, especially when with each gasp you're inhaling water, then quickly choking it out... I have a lot of empathy for anyone who has been water-tortured, it taps into a fear that is so primal that it makes you feel almost like an animal somehow, just sheer and complete desperation).
Darrin got me to the surface only after I did what I should have thought to do long before, I prayed the sign of the cross and whatever was holding me down there immediately let go of my legs. Even though it was just a few feet above me, that short trip back up to air seemed a bazillion miles away. I coughed out all the water from my lungs, and later had to go to the hospital overnight at least to make sure I wouldn't have this thing where you can still drown from water in your lungs long after the initial incident), but I was filled with furious anger at these two kids, and once I'd gotten my breathe back, I was screaming, "get those kids Darrin, don't let them get away!!!!", or something to that effect, my exact words got a little blurry.
And then when I thought nothing could be more chilling, the most chilling part as Darrin told me; there were no kids. And pardon the acronym, but I don't thing anything other than W. T. F.??? can convey what I felt at that moment as well. Had I just stayed under water too long, and hallucinated these kids, and the amount of time I was under for, and how many times I had choked and coughed out and breathed in water, and so many more questions. Could this have been a seemingly impossibly early onset of symptoms of my mental illness (like, at 7 years old someone with bipolar disorder shouldn't be representing symptoms yet), or was it a panic-attack driven hallucination going back to though I don't remember it must have been a very traumatic experience nearly drowning (or possibly actually drowning) from that day 4 or 5 years earlier at the beach? And even if so, what was happening that even after I started to drown again, what on Earth could keep me, already an accomplished swimmer, from even just instinctively surfacing, and why so hard for Darrin, who was 4 years older than me, to even lift me too the surface until the moment I prayed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
The first time I watched The Passion of the Christ (I have never read the books from Bl. Catherine Emmerich), in the scene when the children chasing after Judas, when their faces changed into those demonic faces, I tell ya, I near jumped right out of my seat because of flashing back to that pool incident so many years before.
So this is just an example of the living game show my life is that could be called, "Mental illness, or something else??". I know ultimately it has no bearing on my eternal destination, but incidents like this are still haunting, even after coming to the conclusion that I will never know the answer, mental illness, or something else, until after I pass and hopefully don't go to Hell, something I never take for granted at all, I'm vigilant maybe to the fault of scrupulosity at times, and sometimes, even just for an hour or two, fall back into a full-blown sinful attitude bordering on rejection of Our Lord Himself I'm ashamed to admit, where I have a daily battle where I need to rely on God so very much for His graces of chastity, rigourous honesty, humility, and love/forgiveness, my collective Achilles' heels that are an ongoing battle, with my soul it feels as the battleground.
Out of all the delusions I've suffered (like, as some of you I'm sure painfully remember, lol, I am really still mortified and so embarrassed about still, thinking I saw the Antichrist on a late-night TV talk-show, and sooo sure of it in my manic mind, that as embarrassed as I am, am still so glad I shared so people here could calmly and with such charity talk me off the ledge of that particular building), there are two things that I won't write about, that I believe were real visions, not just imaginations as a grace from prayer, but something more than that even, one for my own healing, and the other what I didn't understand but now believe to be prophetic. I'm not so sure about one other thing, that I had revealed to me the year when I'll die, which I'm thinking I shouldn't publicly tell anyone, but it is kind of always there, like an old school memento mori, which in some strange way keeps it easier to focus on the things of God rather than of the world quite as much.
Yet all of it could be mental illness, every strange experience, no matter how impossibly coincidental, and verified by others, some of the things I've seen that maybe only one other person also saw at the same time, maybe they were just open to the suggestion of what I said I saw, I just don't know. So, short story very long, JMC and Mark, there is in my experience as someone with a severe mental illness, some sort of cross-over between that and things not easily explained other than by preternatural or supernatural means, both of the very good experiences, and the very bad.
... and there is one other incident that I still can't make heads nor tails of as well, relating to a story I'd written as a grade 4 creative writing project, that I had no recollection of writing, until my mom pulled out these yellowed pages one very horrible day far in the future from when I'd written that story (and I know this is turning into another of my endless Tuscan novellas, but this is the last thing I'll post).
I was living with my folks as my mom's cancer had returned and she decided not to seek any further treatment, something I wished at the time she hadn't, I was even trying to arrange as a desperate measure to have lent a relic of St. Benedict from a semi-famous boarding school in SK known mostly as a place that churned out some of the greats in the world of hockey, but though less known, is probably the largest collection of relics in Canada in just this little unassuming town on the prairie, and looking for a priest in the archdiocese that knew and would be willing to pray a special prayer for healing, but she finally had told me, "Jason, I need you to let go of all this", which I reluctantly did. I was starting to think of prayer as some sort of magical wishing machine, and that was leading me into error itself, so she was very right.
So in retrospect I know she was right in that it was time to let go, for me and for herself in her own life, thought there was some terrible suffering to witness, so terrible that I can't imagine what it was like for her, but that's a story I'm sure anyone who has had a loved one know all too well.
But this day, she woke me up, white as a ghost in some apparent state of shock it seemed, and asked me to come up to the living room right away. It was the day of the attack on the WTC buildings in NYC and the Pentagon in Virginia, and we sat in prayer-filled silence watching as the events unfolded like so many hundreds of millions of others. When the second of the aircraft hit the yet undamaged tower, and there was no doubt then that it was a terrorist attack (or whatever one believes as to the nature of the attack), and my mom turned even paler, left the room, and returned with these old pages that she had kept all the years inbetween at the bottom of her cedar chest filled with old blankets that were sort of family heirlooms, like from my dad's family, the only things that they still had from prior to the war... but I'm wandering off track.
Why she'd kept this story, the only explanation she could give is that she knew there was something odd about it, and an inclination that she should hold on to it. She handed it to me, and I read it, as she trembled waiting for me to respond. And I seriously didn't understand or see any connection at all. The story was obviously, mostly, if not exclusively, a product of my own imagination, with no seeming connection for sure to me with the events unfolding that day.
It was titled "The Stone of Hate", and was obviously influenced by the adventure books I was reading at the time, like from Jack London, or the film "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and the plot outline was that a shepherd was clearing a field of rocks (something I had helped with many, many times over the years at family farms, though I wasn't raised a farm-boy myself), and this shepherd (and, yes, I know it doesn't make any sense for a livestock raiser to be rock-picking out of a field that isn't being used to grow any crop) happens to pick up a stone that hadn't been touched by human hands for as long as human history itself, the very stone that Cain had used to slay his brother, the first murder, and in a way, the first war as a clash between two different ways of life/cultural clashes, for what is far if we are all brothers and sisters if not a form of fratricide. But these are just my own understandings of what the symbolism might mean, if it has any deeper meaning at all.
My mom was crying, and I didn't of course see any connection at all, or anything very usual about the story itself, but my mom asked me, don't you see, this is it, what you wrote is coming to pass. I had no idea what she meant, because nothing in the story made any kind of reference to what was happening that day, and her trembling in fear for the world only made sense later on with the US actually invading Iraq, something my mom never saw come to pass because she died on July 28th, 2002. I'm not making any claims of prophecy here, I have to make that abundantly clear, but the coincidence of what I'd written in 1978, I guess, yes, I would have read about Iraq by then making my way through the encyclopedia, and if I had decided to write this fanciful story about the stone that was used to commit the first murder, it would make sense, even in my 8 year-old brain, that where ancient Mesopotamia was (i.e. Iraq) would be where this stone, if it had laid there never again touched by human hand all those maybe tens of thousands of years, would of course be.
And of course Iraq had been in the news continually since the 1991 Gulf War, with the the tensions about the no-fly zones through the Clinton years, access given to weapons inspectors, all that stuff... but my mom wasn't a big follower of the news or world events; her world was in our town, in what she could do to make a difference in the immediate community, she wasn't a news junkie like me. So even though tensions between the US and Iraq throughout the 90s was not any secret, and maybe could explain my mom's over-the-top reaction to some connection that I didn't see between the events of 9/11, and my hasty conclusion to the story I'd written, it seems like a stretch somehow, and when we both 9 days later watched the famous "War on Terror" speech by President Bush before that joint session of the US Congress, then I, too, became a little pale, and understood now the connection my mom somehow foresaw that I wasn't seeing, and still don't see could have been in her mind the day of the Al-Qaeda attacks (who I've always had a gut feeling were a front group used by some other group behind the scenes of it all, like a puppeteer obscured from an audience manipulating what we see in front of us, not thinking of the puppeteers, only the puppet(s)).
But in any case, these years since then, and all the events that have occurred in the Middle East since, the fragmentation of Iraqi society into sectarianism as in Lebanon in the 80s between the Shia and Sunni and the Kurds, drawing in more and more regional players, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, etc., the rise of Daesh in the Sunni triangle by disaffected members of that community, just all that destabilization in an area that has always been such a geopolitical powerkeg, and the concurrent and *massive* rearming and ultra-modernization of the Russian and Chinese militaries, either one on it's own now a match even without nuclear weapons, a match for the USA and NATO, and if they teamed up? Yikes.
The day that Russia announced it had sent troops to Syria (which made my stomach uniquely queasy somehow), the hostile takeover of the Crimean peninsula and directed Russian destabilization of every NATO country they have been able to, and general revanchist foreign policy, the rise of China and things like their big advancements in anti-shipping missile technology, the Russian hypersonic missiles, and other things that make the short range of carrier-borne Super-Hornets a bit of a toothless lion in a way of the CVBGs if/when/until America can find effective countermeasures for, say, a swarm of thousands of Chinese anti-shipping missiles targeting one carrier, the whole global balance of power in such a state of flux, people confused about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, all of that makes that story I wrote and my mom's reaction to it always kind of in the back of my mind as I watch how events have unfolded. The situation in Venezuela now as well, it feels like though it may not be super apparent, another big upping of the ante, and China's increasing hostility toward Taiwan, and of course the North Korea wild card, and what even one big EMP burst strategically detonated over North America would mean (~90% of the population of the USA, Mexico, and Canada dead of starvation in less than two years)... war and rumours of war and Cold War 2.0 that could just so easily morph into World War 3.0 even when we might least expect it.
This is what triggered my interest in Catholic and Bible prophecy in general, which eventually and ultimately brought me to Emmett's book. Again, I don't claim to have the gift of prophecy with what I wrote in that story so long ago, a million monkeys on a million typewriters and all that, but something that still haunts me as "mental illness, or ???".
I know I've mega-spammed these comments sections especially bad today, but with this topic of mental illness, spiritual warfare, and how hard it is to discern where things are coming from as a person who is mentally ill, yet has had hard to explain events happen, and what seems like an incredibly unlucky run on certain things (that I try to accept with gratitude as I was raised), I just felt compelled to share some of this stuff. I hope I didn't cross any lines that I should not have, but I have no one to tell my story to, not even my sister, who is my closest confidante IRL, so I apologize, but hope no one will hold it against me for indulging myself so much today here.
p.s. Mark, I have just read your email, and I'll respond (but just to let you know, I think everything you wrote is spot-on, so much so that I'm surprised I couldn't see it myself before you pointed some things on, thank you!) tomorrow for sure.
Note:
Hmmm, well, that was strange in itself. I was just skimming through all I've posted in a row, and the one post that contained the crucial part of that short story I wrote as a kid didn't post for some reason, so there's a big skip between "But these are just my own understandings of what the symbolism might mean, if it has any deeper meaning at all..." and "...My mom was crying...".
I won't type it all out again, but the kicker at the end of the story is a kind of abrupt switch from this narrative I had going, right to a decisive ending, like a child would write naturally I guess, skipping over the details, and cutting to the chase too soon, and the chase was that America invades Iraq as the hatred of all the ages bound up in this stone flows through the hearts of people the world over, making them not just anticipating, but eager for war, and that that invasion is the beginning of the Third World War.
Again, I'm not making any claims here of special knowledge, but that's how my story ended, the last sentence.
Wow, Jason! I can’t even BEGIN to grasp all of the experiences you’ve had. Thank you for sharing them with us! All I have to say about WW3 is that hopefully it is many, MANY years from now and we will all be long gone when it happens! Even if we have experienced events like 9/11 that down the line lead up to it.
And count on me to start a novena for you to find the right spiritual director! I’ll start one to St. Dymphna today. :)
Jason: About that staring at the sun incident, I think all children have at least one such incident before they learn it's dangerous to look at the sun. I know I did it; in fact, when I was five or six, it was a source of pride for me that I could stare directly at the sun for nearly a full minute without pain of any kind, and later, in speaking to some of my friends, most of them had a similar experience. As far as the swirling and seeming "dancing around," I think that's a common optical illusion in this case, because I and everyone else who did the sun-staring thing recall seeing the same thing. So it's entirely possible that that time, at least, what you saw was entirely normal and not preternatural at all.
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This is not to discount the possibility that it really was a preternatural manifestation, but simply to inject a note of caution here.
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Still praying for you, Jason.
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