I can't help but feel that we are fast approaching a calamity of apocalyptic proportions. In my last post I mentioned Sr. Agnes Sasagawa, the Japanese stigmatist, who received apparitions from Our Lady at Akita, Japan, in 1973 in which Our Lady repeated the terrible warnings which she had delivered several times before in the twentieth century:
"As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.
"The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres . . . churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.
"The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer be pardon for them."
Our Lady's prophecy about the loss of souls consecrated to God has already come true. At this point in time the Church's worst enemies are within her. They are the fallen clergy, those who preach acceptance of homosexuality, who urge disobedience to papal orders given in Humanae Vitae, who engage in sodomy regularly and who abuse little children. Yet there is more hope for the Church right now than there has been in many, many years. The Latin Mass has been freed, and rumors say that His Holiness has a document expunging the decree of excommunication against the bishops of the SSPX upon his desk, awaiting his signature. But even as the Church stumbles to right herself, the rest of the world falls lower.
All my life, I've been hearing that a chastisement is coming, that the events recounted in the Apocalypse itself are near. And I've always heard that, as far as can be made out from warnings and prophecies and the scripture itself, it will occur in three parts. First, the Church will be attacked from within, and almost destroyed. Then, it will regain its strength, only to be attacked from without. The third stage will be complete economic failure, followed by general war and chaos. It would seem that the first stage has already happened. In the space of a generation, the changes introduced by Vatican II have made the Church unrecognizable. Our Lady herself predicted to Sr. Sasagawa what it has become. And now it seems the Church may finally right herself. Are we on the brink of the second stage? Our Lady told Sr. Sasagawa, "The Heavenly Father is preparing a great punishment for the world. Many times I have tried with my Son to soften the anger of the Father. I presented to Him many atoning souls who make reparation by prayers and sacrifices." It is hard to imagine how much longer God will allow the hand of His justice to be stayed. It is hard to imagine how the world can get worse than it is. Every day brings worse news. In the last few years alone we have seen homosexuality transformed from a suspect behavior to a civil right. If Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act, as he has promised, we will lose our ability to effectively combat abortion. How much lower can we sink before God takes matters out of our hands and places them into His own?
How long can Our Lady keep warning that terrible things will happen soon? "Soon," to timeless heaven, could be generations, but it must be sometime. And our sins our certainly "increasing in number and gravity."
Worse than the deluge. I can't even imagine it.
No comments:
Post a Comment