For Such A Time As This

Esther Before Ahasuerus by Felix Joseph Barrias

A meditation called "Carmelites Are Called for Such a Time As This" by Carmen J. Norkiewicz, OCDS.

“Who knows-perhaps it was for a time like this that you became queen?” Mordecai to Queen Esther (Esther 4:14)

Who knows - perhaps it was for such a time as this that you became a Carmelite?
While the world outside your Avila walls
rushes about in pandemic pandemonium, oblivious to the safety and needs of others Carmelites retreat interiorly,
seeking the face of God in all the distressing situations of this graced period of time, praying for the salvation of souls lost to the world’s contagion of vice and pleasure and for those poor lost souls, who must die on their own, in hospital wards.

Your prayers, fasting, and sacrificing
ascend to the heavens as delightful incense to the Lord our God in reparation for the offenses of those who continue to turn their faces towards the cultures of death and self- idolatry,
resolutely refusing the Mercy of the Loving Abba’s embrace.

Be stalwart! Do not falter in your sacred mission! Press on with your gifts of prayer and contemplation for the salvation of the world! Our hope abides in Christ and our strength is His mighty word;
the mighty sword of the Rosary is our most powerful weapon. Do not be disturbed or let fear possess your thoughts. This pandemic shall, in God’s good time, pass away. Rely on God alone and our Blessed Mother.

We know ---we were made for such a time as this!

Silence in Heaven

Studying prophecies help some of us to make sense of what is going on. But ultimately we all live in the darkness of faith. No one knows the future except God; no one knows exactly how it is all going to play out. It is usually only after the fact that prophecies become clear. In the meanwhile we live in the night of faith with hope and charity as lamps. From Unveiling the Apocalypse:

Even though we are still in its early stages, the year 2020 has turned out to be one of the most memorable in living memory. It has also brought about a unprecedented change in the praxis of the Roman Catholic religion.  For the first time in the history of Christianity, churches have fallen into silence worldwide. While the Mass continues to be celebrated by the world's priests and bishops in unison with the Pope, the churches have been robbed of the physical presence of the laity, who comprise the bulk of the worship offered towards the Most Holy Trinity, in keeping with the observance of the Sabbath.  This will be the first Easter since the Resurrection of Christ that the lay faithful will not be able to share in full communion with the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is one of the precepts of the Catholic Church.

As long time readers of this blog will already be aware, I had noted that this year stood out as being of some major prophetic importance in my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: The Final Passover of the Church.  This was chiefly because this year marks the end of a 120 year countdown associated with the vision of Pope Leo XIII, which began at the turn of the 20th century. While it was long thought that the period of Satan's greater power would only last for the duration of a century, Kevin Symonds has recently unearthed the real historical facts behind this vision in his book Pope Leo XIII and the Prayer to St. Michael. 

A fresh batch of information has been brought to light thanks to Symond's research, including additional material emanating from the eyewitness testimony provided by Fr. Pechenino, and a homily on Pope Leo's vision attributed to Cardinal Pedro Segura y Saenz. Among these new findings we find the surprising fact that the earliest accounts of this vision records that Satan had actually requested a period of 50-60 years in which to destroy the Church, rather than 75-100 years.  This closely corresponds to the visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, who was also shown that Satan would be unchained from the Abyss 50-60 years before the year 2000.  In my book, I put forward the hypothesis that while this period of 50-60 years had began around the year 1900, it needs to be doubled, given the fact that this vision is directly based on the trials of Job, and that Satan had been granted two separate attempts in which he was allowed to test God's prophet, in the hope he would eventually deny Him.  You can view a podcast below, where I attempt to give a brief sketch of this theory to Fr. Richard Heilman and Doug Barry, which was coincidentally timed to correspond with the very beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019. It is definitely worth re-watching in light of current events: (Read more.)

More About "The Warning"

Go, my people, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors upon thee, hide thyself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away. ~Isaias 26:20

After my post on The Warning and the Illumination of Conscience, I have researched the topic a bit more. May the reader keep in mind that there is a jumble of information out there from various mystics, apparitions and seers. If I link to a particular site, it does not mean I agree with everything on that site. It only means I have found something that may be of interest. As in everything, I submit to the magisterial teaching of the Catholic, Roman and Apostolic Church. Here is a description of The Warning from Catholic Prophecy:

The Warning is a great act of God´s Mercy, on such a big scale that nothing compares to it in all mankind´s history, bar The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. However, its nature has nothing to do with the noiseless, lonely, humiliating, brutal and loving death of the Lamb of God; but it´s more like an universal smack, a sort of pulling down the world out of its motorbike, the same way Saint Paul was unhorsed, in order to make see the whole world at the same time the blurred figures we have had mocked about previously.

Which information do we have? Here it is:

It will be seen in the sky all over the world and immediately transmitted to the inside of our souls.

It will be an astronomic phenomenon, similar to a bang of stars with a lot of light and noise, but it won´t fall over us.

It will be like fire, but it won´t burn our bodies, though it will be felt physically and internally.

It will last a very short time, but its effects on the world will be huge.

We should not be afraid of death if we are not quaking with fear or, in some special cases, due to God´s Mercy.

Everyone will see in a short period of time how their souls are before the light of God, and will know that He exists, and that He has been present at every single sin of theirs.

It will be like a trial in miniature.

God hopes that, through this act of His Mercy, we amend our lives, and turn away from the wrong path.

Those who already know and love God, will be closer to Him.

Many will be converted, but still many will keep on denying God, denying the One Who is, in an act of supreme hypocrisy. (Read more.)

More HERE and HERE.


Meanwhile, the Jewish site Breaking Israel News has an interesting post about the Paschal moon of this week, which astronomically also happens to be a supermoon, tying it in with the coronavirus:

On Wednesday night, Jews around the world will be gathering at home for the Passover seder ceremony first performed  3,332 years ago on the night before the Israelites left Egypt. One part of the ceremony requires opening the front door and inviting all who are hungry to enter. When this is done, a glance to the heavens will reveal an astronomical spectacle: the year’s largest supermoon.

A supermoon occurs when the full moon coincides with the perigee — the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its elliptic orbit — resulting in a larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth. A full moon at perigee appears roughly 14% larger in diameter than at apogee and appears up to 30 percent brighter. Supermoons usually appear 3-4 times each year.

This will be the second month in a row that features a supermoon. Last month, a supermoon appeared on the holiday of Purim. This is not unexpected as both Purim and Passover occur in the middle of the Hebrew month, Purim on the 14th of Adar and Passover on the 14th of Nisan. The Hebrew calendar is lunar with the month beginning with the appearance of the new moon. Therefore, the full moon will always appear in the middle of the month. 

The supermoon on Passover will be the fourth of the year and the largest, appearing when the moon is at a distance of 221,772 miles from the earth, the closest it will be all year. 

“The supermoon on Passover is not happenstance,” Rabbi Berger, the rabbi of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, told Breaking Israel News. “God brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt on a specific day, a day that from the beginning of creation was imbued with special powers of redemption. The Midrash (homiletic teachings) say that the first redemption of Israel took place on this night and the final redemption will as well.”

“These primal powers of redemption reemerge every year on the Seder night,” Rabbi Berger said. “They are there, waiting for us to access them. It is a night that miracles are waiting to be revealed.”

The rabbi cited a verse in Micha to illustrate his point.

I will show him wondrous deeds As in the days when You sallied forth from the land of Egypt. Micah 7:15

“Seder has always been a time of ingathering,” Rabbi Berger noted. “Except for the first Passover held on the night before leaving Egypt. On that night, families huddled inside will the Angel of Death roamed the streets. This year is like that since the tenth plague was referred to as an epidemic.”

Rabbi Berger referred to the word in the Bible describing the plague of the First Born as a נֶגֶף (negef: disease). (Read more.)

 More from Breaking Israel News, HERE and HERE.

Isolation: An Amazing Grace

From Elijah's Breeze:

Here, the spiritual tradition of Carmel comes to our rescue! Through the means of monastic enclosure, it could help us to experience this crisis not only as a problem but also as an opportunity, as an amazing grace that we can receive. In the 16th century, St. Teresa of Avila founded her first monastery of Discalced Carmelite nuns living in a strict enclosure. Why? So as to create a free space protected from outside intrusions in order to lead a life centered on the presence of God. Here we are: condemned during this period of confinement to live the life of Carmelite nuns in spite of ourselves… We may as well do it with a bit of intelligence!

Of course, this isn’t easy and you have to learn how to do it, especially when you haven’t chosen it, unlike the nuns. It takes time to get used to this limited space. Moreover, we don’t have equal opportunities in our stay-at-home, quarantined, or isolated, lockdown living situations. However, St. Teresa can help us in her writings by showing us the importance of recollection: to choose to turn toward the interior of ourselves; to discover there the presence of God hidden in our hearts; to experience that where we are, we can live with God. God is even found in the middle of the pots and pans, as Our Holy Mother testifies! The challenge is to accept the need to master our interiority. This will be done differently depending on whether we live alone or in a restless house, but for each one, a pathway is possible! So let’s try to turn the constraints of confinement into an opportunity for growth in contemplation. We will grow through this ordeal. (Read more.)

The Warning and the Illumination of Conscience

Conversion of St. Paul by Murillo

Yesterday on this blog I mentioned the prophecy of the "Three Days Darkness," a time when the forces of hell will be unleashed and the faithful are bidden to stay in their homes with plenty of sacramentals and unceasing prayer. It reminded me about a prophecy concerning a "warning" and an "illumination of conscience" being offered to the faithful in preparation for a the coming of God's justice upon the world. I wonder if the present circumstances, where almost the entire world is stilled and confined to home, could be part of the fulfillment of that prophecy. From Mark Mallett:

Mystic and stigmatist, Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, who was revered by popes for the accuracy of her prophecies, referred to it as an “illumination of conscience.” St. Edmund Campion referred to it as “the day of change” when “the terrible Judge should reveal all men’s consciences.” Conchita, an alleged visionary in Garabandal, called it a “warning.” The late Fr. Gobbi called it a “judgment in miniature,” while Servant of God, Maria Esperanza, called it a “great day of light” when the consciences of all will be shaken”—the “hour of decision for mankind.” ^[1]

St. Faustina, who proclaimed to the world that we are living in a prolonged “time of mercy” based on revelations given to her directly by Jesus, may have witnessed in a vision the actual event:

Before I come as the just Judge, I am coming first as the King of Mercy. Before the day of justice arrives, there will be given to people a sign in the heavens of this sort: All light in the heavens will be extinguished, and there will be great darkness over the whole earth. Then the sign of the cross will be seen in the sky, and from the openings where the hands and the feet of the Savior were nailed will come forth great lights which will light up the earth for a period of time. This will take place shortly before the last day.  —Diary of Divine Mercy, n. 83

 And...

Could we not say that the illumination of the Church has indeed already begun? Haven’t the forty years since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (the “charismatic renewal”) ^[4]  and release of the documents of Vatican II led the Church through a profound season of pruning, purification, and trial leading up to 2008, “the year of the unfolding“, ^[5] forty years later? Hasn’t there been a prophetic awakening, led chiefly by the Mother of God, as to the threshold that we now stand upon?

Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)

Did not Blessed John Paul II, leading up to the new millennium, make a deep examination of conscience of the entire Church, apologizing to the nations for her past sins? ^[6]

For a long time we had been preparing ourselves for this examination of conscience, aware that the Church, embracing sinners in her bosom, “is at once holy and always in need of being purified”^… This “purification of memory” has strengthened our steps for the journey towards the future… —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Novo Millenio Inuente, n. 6

And are we not seeing come to light before us the once hidden and grave scandals that have taken the form of sexual abuse among clergy? ^[7] Are not the religious orders that have abandoned the true faith now dying out in their apostasy? Have we not been sent many prophets and seers to call us back to true life in God? ^[8] Is the Church not clearly being given the very warning that St. John penned in his apocalyptic scroll? (Read more.)

More HERE and HERE.

Jesus Wept

"If thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!" Luke 19:42.

The Passion of the Church

As we suffer with Christ, we also suffer with His Church. Father Angelo offers a magnificent commentary on why liturgy is not magic and how we must die with Christ in order to live.

The sacred liturgy offers us an opportunity, in this most holy of weeks, to enter into the history of our Lord’s suffering, death and resurrection.  Our presence at the Sacred Triduum is a proclamation of our faith in that the Christ of History and the Christ of Faith are one and the same.  Some scripture scholars have the tendency to demythologize the gospel accounts, and, inversely, some commentators on the liturgy have the tendency to mythologize the Easter liturgy.  In fact, the gospels are historical and the liturgy brings us into contact with that sacred and sacramental history.

Christopher West, as I have mentioned many times before, has tended to sexualize the liturgy.  Most recently, he reposted his Easter commentary on St. Augustine’s reference to the Cross as a marriage bed.  Of course, the patristic analogy is fine.  It is the agenda with which I have a problem.   Inevitably liturgical eroticism connects Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with Hieros Gamos, which is Jungian and best and Wiccan at worst.  It is where myth meets alchemy and shamanism.

Gnostics, liturgical wreckers and liturgical reformers alike have treated the liturgy like magic: “Just do it like this and everything will get better.”  “Change it” or “Don’t you dare change it,” has only served to confirm, however wrongly, what our enemies have said all along, that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is hocus pocus.

Our liturgy is not a gnostic play, an allegorical wedding that symbolizes human life on a psychological, or on some universally valid “spiritual” or “mystical” level.  Our mysticism, our mystagogy is based on real history, otherwise we are of all men most miserable. (1 Cor 15:19).

The Sacraments are neither magic nor mythology.  Alchemy is a lousy metaphor for Christian transformation, but it is a good metaphor the reduction of spirituality to human manipulation. A “chymical wedding” is paradise calculated, prognosticated and resolved upon, and left unrealized.

Some of the liturgical magicians look to the Easter liturgy for an occult answer to even the misery of impurity. Liturgical eroticism is not the answer because sensuality and the imagination gives too free access to demonic.  The Angelic Doctor made distinctions.  The Demonic Doctor makes an infinite amount of distinctions.  His eros is never the impure kind:  “The lumen Christi takes care of that.  Just think sublimely, mystically.  Spiritual marriage is never impure.”  In fact, the Sacraments lead to bliss only by a harder road: the one Jesus took.

But Catholics should not be Roman Missal thumpers either, who think humanity’s problems will be solved simply by the black and red of missal older than 1962.  The Sacred Liturgy is not a wand to be waved over the post-conciliar Church, but a mystery to be assimilated.  The Tree of Life has not been transplanted from paradise.  The old tree points to the new, and the new is a bridal bed of pain.  Why should the liturgy not be painful?  We can be like teenagers who don’t like going to Mass because we don’t get anything out of it.

The Sacred Liturgy is not an academic exercise any more than it is mythological drama.  The unity of the Church depends in a very great part upon the liturgy, and the average Catholic has a real life to live.  He is not a monk.  He is not a scholar, liturgist or controversialist.  He just wants to go to Mass.  He has no agenda, and He probably is not visionary in his outlook.  He is just trying to make it through the week.  He needs to identify with Christ, not with the brocade on a dalmatic.

True mysticism passes by way of real, practical and concrete ascetism that bears down upon the will.   The saint is not an austere superman, but one who has broken his stubborn and recalcitrant will.  There is a big difference.  Liturgical precision and reverence should be a given.  Respect for tradition and an understanding that neither antiquarianism nor novelty are valid principles in liturgical reform must be presumed.  But the fastidious and academic preoccupation, the pained observations of everything than does not conform with the ideal resolved upon, is a sign of a will that is very much like that of the liturgical innovator.  Lest this assessment itself becomes excessively academic, I should just summarize by saying our hope should be that the liturgy break the selfish will.

Holy Week is the Way of the Cross and it is a hard road.  It resists euphemisms and cannot tolerate self-serving stupidity and effeminate mystagogery.  Our passion play is reality.  “Hosanna in the highest!” and “Crucify him!” come out of the same mouths.  It is supreme irony that we solemnize our fickleness, the fact that our piety so often misses the point.  It is a harsh reality we need to face:

I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me. The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I shall not be confounded (Isaias 50:6-7).

 Our Lord was like a Lamb, silent before His sheerer (53:7).  Our face is set like flint when our mouths are closed and our hearts are open.  Christ is our High Priest and Victim, not a magician.  The grace is there for us even in the demystified, lowly Novus Ordo.  We should stop deflecting our attention from the real problem by indulging a magical way of thinking and set our face like flint against our selfish will.