Imploring the Intercession of St. Michael

From Church Militant:

Saint Michael is believed to have made multiple appearances in the mountain town beginning in late A.D. 400, when a bishop, hesitant at first about who he was seeing, acquiecsed to the veracity of his visons after fasting and prayer. The cave-church was built following St. Michael's request and is believed to be the only building of worship in the Catholic Church consecrated by the archangel, earning its title of Celestial Basilica. Saint Michael makes his presence felt in another powerful way in Gargano: the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo rests in the middle of a mysterious ley line that links seven sacred sites — all connected to the archangel — from Ireland to Israel. The line cuts a perfectly straight swath for over 2,000 km across the heart of Europe. According to tradition, "The Sword of Saint Michael" represents the blow with which St. Michael sends the devil to Hell.   

The seven holy sites, each with stories of St. Michael to tell, include 

• Skellig Michael in Ireland, where the archangel appeared to St. Patrick, helping him drive the evil creatures in the 400s

• Saint Michael's Mount in England, where he appeared to a group of fishermen in A.D. 495

• Mont Saint Michel in France, where he appeared to St. Aubert urging him to build a church in the rock in the 700s

• Sacra di San Michele near Turin, Italy, where St. Michael appeared to San Lorenzo Maiorano in the 5th and 6th centuries

• Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo, Gargano, Italy, where St. Michael appeared and interceded multiple times 

• Panormitis Monastery in Symi, Greece, which houses one of the largest statues of St. Michael in the world

• Stella Maris Monastery on Mount Carmel in Israel, where, according to folk legend, St. Michael gave Elijah the thunder he wrested from Satan

Archbishop Viganò's call to bishops and priests worldwide "to fight the common enemy of the whole human race" also represents a return to St. Michael many faithful had forgotten and is now being resurrected. "Since the early days of the Church, the archangel has been venerated as the defender of God's rights, helping Christians to be steadfast in their fidelity to God in times of trial," Abp. Viganò said. 

During the troubled times of the Wuhan virus — when the "common enemy" seems to have won many battles — the faithful are turning to St. Michael for protection, as they prepare for the victory of Easter and ponder these words from the Apocalypse: "And there was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they prevailed not ... ." (12:7–8).(Read more.)

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.