Trumpets of Warning! — Part I
I cannot keep silent. For I have heard the sound of the trumpet; I have heard the battle cry. (Jer 4:19)
I can no longer hold in the "word" which has been welling within me for a week. The weight of it has moved me to tears several times. However, the readings from the Mass this morning were a powerful confirmation—"a go ahead", so to speak.
TOO FAR
Mankind has entered into regions which make even the angels shudder. Our pride has struck at the very core of life and human dignity, pushing Divine patience to the limits. I am speaking of the horrific experiments taking place this very moment in laboratories around the world:
- Attempts to clone human life;
- Embryonic stem cell research which kills one human in order to better the life of another;
- Genetic manipulation, particularly that of growing human cells in animals creating hybrid creatures;
- Selective breeding, which allows parents to choose abortion if the baby is not "perfect", and soon, the ability to genetically design your children.
We have taken the place of God as our own creators and designers, taking the very impetus of life into our human hands. The readings from the Mass yesterday (August 22nd) rang in my heart like a thundering gong:
Because you are haughty of heart, you say, "A god am I! I occupy a godly throne in the heart of the sea!"— And yet you are a man, and not a god, however you may think yourself like a god.
…therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have thought yourself to have the mind of a god, therefore I will bring against you foreigners, the most barbarous of nations. (Ezekiel 28)
The Psalm which follows this reading says,
Close at hand is the day of their disaster,
and their doom is rushing upon them! (Deut 32:35)
There are people who will read this, and angrily dismiss it as fear-mongering—the "God is a wrathful god who will punish us crap," as one man recently put it.
I too believe in a loving, merciful God. I also believe that He does not lie. Clearly in both New and Old testaments, God punishes sin so as to purify and draw His people back to Himself. He loves, therefore he disciplines (Heb 12:6). Those who wish to water this down are distorting salvific truths, harming the consciences of the innocents.
Does God have limits to His patience? When we begin to universally teach and indoctrinate our children in the ways of the world, perverting and corrupting their innocence from the very beginning through materialism, distortions of sexuality, and absence of the Gospel message, then we have at last reached the limits! For when you kill the root, the rest of the tree dies. When the future of society is poisoned, then tomorrow is nearly dead. Why would God wish to see the little ones lost, now on a scale unknown in human history?
IT BEGINS
For it is time for the judgment to begin with the household of God. (1 Pt 4:17)
I love the clergy of the Church with all my heart. I believe they are truly alter Christus—"another Christ". But the silence of the pulpit on moral instruction the past forty years has destroyed vast portions of the Church.
My people perish for lack of knowledge. (Hos 4:6)
It has been forty years since Vatican II. It has been almost forty years since the Spirit was poured forth in the Charismatic Renewal in 1967. It has been almost forty years since Israel took possession of Jerusalem in the same year. God has poured out his Spirit in abundant generosity, but we have squandered these graces like the prodigal son. God has even sent His Mother in extraordinary ways. But we are a stiff-necked people, and thus we have arrived at this hour.
This is the Psalm that the Church prays everyday in the Liturgy of Hours in the Invitatory:
Forty years I endured that generation. I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways." So I swore in my anger, "They shall not enter my rest." (Psalm 95)
It grieves me to say, but too many of the shepherds of the Church have abandoned the sheep. And the Lord has heard the cry of the poor. I cannot speak any clearer than the prophet Ezekiel. Here is an abbreviation from this morning’s Mass readings which I did not hear until after this was written:
Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been pasturing themselves!
You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured. You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost…
So they were scattered for the lack of a shepherd, and became food for all the wild beasts.
Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: I swear I am coming against these shepherds…. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths. (Ezekiel 34:1-11)
The sheep have yearned to eat at the trough of truth. But instead, they have been lured by the wolves, the "voices of reason", into empty and desolate pastures which bear the name "moral relativism." There, they have been devoured by the spirit of the world, having fallen into the pit of lies.
But it is the troughs left empty by the shepherds which have stoked the fires of Divine Justice.
On human genetic issues, there is largely silence. There is a major push in the world to redefine marriage, to be followed by a revision of historical and educational texts to indoctrinate kindergarten children on gender alternatives. Silence. Abortion continues with hardly an organized revolt. And within the Church, divorce, promiscuity, and materialism go virtually unaddressed. Silence.
…such leaders are not zealous pastors who protect their flocks, rather they are like mercenaries who flee by taking refuge in silence when the wolf appears… When a pastor has been afraid to assert what is right, has he not turned his back and fled by remaining silent? —St. Gregory the Great, Vol. IV, Liturgy of the Hours, p. 343
And those who have eyes but refuse to see—both clergy and layman—will try to leave the impression that things aren’t so bad in the Church or the world.
"Peace, peace!" they say, though there is no peace. (Jer 6:14)
Such voices are those of false prophets of whom Christ warned us. When nearly all the youth in the Church have left in a mass exodus, heaven weeps. All is not well. The Church is
…a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. —Cardinal Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI), March 24, 2005, Good Friday meditation on the Third Fall of Christ
Souls are being lost. Thus, icons and statues of our Blessed Mother and of Jesus have been miraculously shedding tears—tears of blood.
See that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many… Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold. (Matt 24:4-5)
Those who say that the Church is passé, that the moral teachings are "out of touch", that agree with some teachings, but discard others that don’t fit their lifestyle—these have become their own "gods", their own "saviors", their own "Messiah." They are deceived. So long as their bellies are full, they do not know it. But when the plate is empty, and the well is dry, the foundations of truth will be laid bare.
The false prophets have proclaimed a different gospel—a gospel of "self-direction". As a result, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church through the clergy, blinding the eyes of the faithful to the truth that would set them free. A gospel of gratification has been preached explicitly by false prophets, or implicitly by silence. Thus evil has increased, and the love of many has grown cold.
I have written to you already regarding a warning:
There is a spirit of deception set loose in the world, and many Christians are being devoured by it.
The restrainer has been lifted, and God is permitting a hardening of hearts so that those who refuse to see will be blind, and those that refuse to listen will be deaf (2 Thess 2). I see it clearly! The Lord is sifting, the divisions are growing, and souls are being marked as to whom they serve. Material wealth, comfort, and false peace have led many in western civilization to fall asleep.
Wake up sleeper! Arise from the dead!
The hour is coming, and has already arrived when the world will witness the scales of justice tip.
As the August 22nd reading above from Ezekiel says, God’s way of dealing with nations that stray and will not repent is to turn them over to their enemies. Though I hope to be wrong, the Lord has shown me (and others) that He will allow a foreign country to invade North America in particular. He has also shown which country it will be (which I will not state here), though the nature of the invasion is not clear. I have weighed this word for a year now before writing it here.
He will give a signal to a far-off nation, and whistle to them from the ends of the earth; speedily and promptly will they come. (Isaiah 5:26)
TODAY IS THE DAY
And so once again, I beg you, "Today is the day of salvation!" Now is the time to spiritually houseclean your heart, to put yourself right with God by repenting and turning from sin and this foolishness of material pursuit—the golden calf of modern society. Perhaps the chastisements which are coming will be lessened if just one of you today heeds this word. He is looking, searching, for victim souls.
I have tasted the love of Jesus—and right now, His heart is spilling over with love for this fallen world. The full treasury of God’s mercy is open to every—every soul right now. How immense has been His patience and mercy!
Those who seek refuge in the hearts of Jesus and Mary have absolutely nothing to fear. Return to the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. Run, if you have to. I am speaking with an urgency, for the days are short, the winds of change are blowing, and the "shadows have grown long", says Pope Benedict. "Watch and pray" daily as our Lord commanded. Fast and pray that you will "withstand the test" that is coming. I say "coming" because I believe it may be too late to avert the harvest we have grown. The very pillars of the foundation of western civilization, from it’s food production to its capitalist economy, are rotten to the core.
It must all come down.
Heaven is willing to heal—but we are invoking death by sowing in death. God is "slow to anger and rich in mercy." But our arrogance and open rebellion and mockery of God, particularly in "entertainment", seem intent on hastening His anger. Nature is beginning to, and already is writhing, shaking, and roaring so as to warn us. This time of grace is drawing to a close. It is nearly midnight, though I beg God to stay the inevitable for an unrepentant world. He has sent His Son. Do we demand more?
When I asked the Lord through these tears of mine to grant us more time and mercy, I heard only silence… perhaps we are now reaping the silence we have sown.
And let us not say that it is God who is punishing us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are preparing their own punishment. In his kindness God warns us and calls us to the right path, while respecting the freedom he has given us; hence people are responsible. –Sr. Lucia, one of the Fatima visionaries, in a letter to the Holy Father, 12 May 1982.