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Though Our Lady appeared only once, the Mother of God's message at LaSalette was the most powerful and all-encompassing warning of any of her apparitions to date. If one doubts that, reread the LaSalette message and realize Our Lady's prophesy: Two years after the apparition revolution broke out in France and throughout Europe, then the great potato famine, continuing industrial revolutions, the American Civil War, Pope Leo XIII's verification of satan's unleashing and the institution of the Prayer to St. Michael, the rise of Freemasonry, World War I, the notorious Hitler regime and World War II, Hiroshima and the Atomic Bomb, the rise of the red hammer and sickle, subsequent wars such as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, the insidious evolution of Modernism and the New Age movement, Abortion, AIDS, the One World Order, and ultimately the total moral demise of Europe, America and the entire world, and, yes, the Church - the One, True, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Faith. There is a passage in the Secrets of LaSalette that is most disturbing, "Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the antichrist." There have been seeds of this recently, many messages from locutionists echoing this. Remember, this is what Our Lady said and LaSalette has been approved by the Church. Therefore, we must take note of the dire importance of these words. Looking back at the line of pontiffs since the time of LaSalette, the string has been solid and that especially includes our present Pope John Paul II, who is greatly persecuted and will continue to be until his martrydom. That, coupled with the times and the inevitable Apostasy and Great Schism within the Church (which many believe to be the essence of the Third Secret of Fatima) we must pray for our current Holy Father, who many believe is in imminent danger. This has been Our Lady's warning to many visionaries and messengers over the last few years.
The other alarm is that many believe the prophets God has sent throughout the last 20 centuries, in particular Saint Malachi, who foretold all the popes through the centuries, are right on in their warnings. Some say John Paul II is the last before the antipope and that there will be another holy pope, but not until the Church has gone through the painful, but necessary Purification. The syllogism then follows that we must not only be careful, but take very seriously all the signs and prophecies regarding the Virgin Mary's omen that Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the antichrist. Was she talking about the city of Rome itself, or more specifically the Vatican? In light of her references to the Church at LaSalette and what she imparted at Fatima and Garabandal, as well as in these times, one would deduct, discern if you will, that the Blessed Mother is indeed talking about the Roman Catholic Church and she is talking primarily of our time. There will be those who feel this is too "far-out," too severe, too incredible to believe. Sadly, even many priests and bishops don't want to face it, don't want to acknowledge what is about to happen. Believe it. Our Lady, sent by God, has said it! This Second Eve, the New Ark of the Covenant, in the same role as John the Baptizer, is still coming 150 years later and, for over 17 years at Medjugorje, and is speaking to many, countless little souls throughout the world. She is reportedly appearing in every country, to every race and nation, and exhorting all to come back to God...to heed the warnings she imparted at LaSalette. Reread her messages there, read Our Lady's messages to Father Don Stefano Gobbi (To The Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons); read "AA-1025 - The Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle"; read the countless messages from other apparitions sites and locutions, specifically the messages imparted to the Hidden Flower of the Immaculate Heart carried regularly in these internet issues; read the books by Josyp Terelya ("Witness"), Michael Brown ("The Final Hour") , Father Albert Hebert, S.J. ("Chastisement and Three Days of Darkness"), Ted and Maureen Flynn ("The Thunder of Justice"), Stephen Mahowald ("...she shall crush thy head"), and a plethora of other authors and books that bring home the inevitable and the necessity to pray, pray, pray! More than any of these, reread Sacred Scripture; read the Apocalypse/Revelations, Matthew, Isaiah and Daniel. Ask the Holy Spirit for guidance in discerning these vital passages. Yes, the end times.
A portent of this is phenomenally depicted in the photo of the nuclear mushroom explosion which first appeared in the June 22 issue of Newsweek Magazine in 1981 and has since been copyrighted by Father Albert Shamon in his book "The Power of the Rosary." First of all, though it was featured again in Newsweek the week of June 12, 1989, and in U.S. News & World Report in August of 1989, the week that it was first published was the week the Apparitions at Medjugorje first began! Secondly, the time this photo was taken on the island of Muroroa in the South Pacific corresponds with the dawn of the decline of our society and the demonic emergence of Roe vs. Wade! The occasion was a testing of the nuclear H-Bomb manufactured in France, the same country which has manufactured the abortion pill, and the same country where Our Lady appeared and forewarned France and the world 150 years ago. Mother Teresa repeated often that this photo of the nuclear explosion should be titled: "The Fruit of Abortion is Nuclear War" since more than one billion children have been destroyed! Fr. Shamon writes, "Heaven always accommodates itself to our limitations. On the first Christmas, to speak to shepherds, God used angels; to speak to the wise men, He used a star; and to speak to the United States, He used our ordinary instrument of communications, the weekly magazine." He goes on to comment, "This is truly a remarkable picture, subtly showing Jesus on the Cross in the center of the explosion, and the outline of Our Lady in the clouds to the left." This is clearly visible as are other visages within the cloud itself and below Christ. However, if you look at the photo sideway, you can also see the face of satan in the full upper left side of the cloud. How does this tie in with the Warnings of LaSalette? Very simply it illustrates what Our Lady admonished then and continues to echo today - satan has entered the sanctuary of the world and the Church! How much more can God or His Blessed Mother say to us? Are we so deaf, dumb and blind that we cannot see the fulfillment of her prophetic words given at LaSalette, and now repeated at Medjugorje and numerous other apparition sites? Are we so blind as to have been ensnared completely by the false peace, by this ammoral and vile administration, by the pursuit of amusement and the carefree life which says God is not going to punish us, there is no such thing as satan or hell? Our Lord confirms that hell definitely exists in the Gospel, and Our Lady merely re-emphasizes the Gospel of her Divine Son. As the holy Padre Pio once said when someone told him they didn't believe in hell, "You will when you get there!"
The time is now! These are the last days, and those gathered beneath her Immaculate Mantle are her apostles of the end times! She asks that we "Pray! Pray! Pray!" that in these times which will grow darker, we shall persevere by preserving Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and allowing His Light to shine forth through us into the increasing darkness: "I am at your side and within you, provided that your faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days...Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends." All Our Lady asks is for our simple fiat; a fiat similar to the Blessed Mother's "Yes" at the Annunciation, a fiat that, grouped together in cooperation with others of her faithful remnant, will help expedite a new era; an era illuminated by the Holy Spirit's covenat with us in a new Fiat that will allow the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart which will usher in the Glorious Reign of the Sacred Heart. All we need to do is say "yes" and do it! The very life of our soul depends on it for Our Lady said at LaSalette, "It is time; the sun is darkening; only faith will survive."
Back to midweek, millions and millstones: Like entrenched. We're talking war, folks. No, not necessarily in Africa and Afghanistan...yet, but right here in our offices in Southern California. My bride has always claimed San Diego is built on a giant anthill and if the ants ever separated, the county would slip into the Pacific! Well, it might not be that bad, but El Nino sure hasn't helped. With all the moisture and then the humid conditions which are normally foreign to our region here, the ants are surfacing in what could represent a sequel to that 50's psy-fi "Them". They may not be as big as those giant bugs that ravaged Los Angeles in that Black and White classic, but they're doing about as much damage! We've entreated good Saint Francis to call off the troops, to bid them to retreat back to the good earth where they are welcome to populate and feast on termites underground but they refuse to cooperate - even with the mercy offered them.. They have no fear, they continue coming right at you whether in the shower, at the dinner table, the dishwasher, the cupboards or even roaming unabashedly over the keyboard. So, after much deliberation and consultation with our war counsel exterminators it is time to retaliate. Yes it's time for justice! We've always considered ourselves as the type who wouldn't hurt a flea or an ant, but afraid after this week that our reputation will be sullied. This first began showing cracks when our pet Shi-Tsu Sir Smidgeons underwent the flea dip. Now the mass invasion of ants has proven too much. We even contemplated trading in Sir Smidge for a seasoned anteater, but thought better of such a dastardly swap. Afterall anteaters make terrible watch dogs. Yet this calls for desperate measures for it is truly a massive investation of the six-legged Hymenoptera, and, in the words of the late Peter Finch, who portrayed a frustrated anchorman in the movie "Network", "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!" Thus, this afternoon those pesky miscreants will meet their Waterloo as the exterminators man the front lines. We won't play taps, just be able to run the tap without those crawly little things scurring around the faucets. We've cajoled, compromised and catered to those little formidable Formidicae to vacate the premises before we resort to these drastic tactics, but they have rejected every overture of peace. So be it! Let the dirge begin. We can take solace that in a few days it will be "All Quiet on the Western Front" and the consolation that those little pests are harmless compared with the fireants we encountered in our front yard for two years in Dallas or the roaches that invaded uninvited several years ago when we were staying in Florida. While we don't advocate killing anything, it is a matter of survival of the fit - if we don't get rid of them we'll have a fit!
Finally, speaking of "fit" the only way to stay fit spiritually is by heeding all our Dear Lord has instructed us through Sacred Scripture, His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and His Blessed Mother's messages from Rue de Bac onward. We are less than a week from that pivotal month of September 1998, the time when the ten year period of Grace will expire according to Our Lady's messages to that respected messenger Father Don Stefano Gobbi. Just a few months ago people might have dissed this as all "superstition" since the economy was "so good," America had put ol' Saddam in his place and Bill Clinton, you know that cat with nine lives, looked like he had pulled the wool over a gullible nation. Fast-forward to today when support for the latter is fast slipping as America reawakens to the concept of decency, the economy is showing signs of cracking with tremendous slides in the Orient which will create the anticipated domino effect in the West, and the Iraqi despot has been replaced by a greater threat who goes by the name of Osama bin Laden. Could he be the next antichrist threat? That's doubtful since he doesn't masquerade as a "good guy." Nevertheless, we should be on the watch and on our knees. The modernists in America are also digging in for a last stand against the conservative trend the Holy Father has established in the United States with the appointment of bishops. But the Vatican can't do it all. As much as the Holy See pleads for evangelization, it's difficult when some of his bishops fight him at every front. We're speaking of Milwaukee's Archbishop Rembert Weakland, poster boy for the liberals, who railed that Father Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder of Ignatius Press and the biggest promoter of the new nation-wide Catholic Radio network, dared to establish a station within his diocese. Not in his territory, he'd see to that, exposing his prejudice by rebuking Fr. Fessio chiefly because of his association with another thorn in his modernistic side - Mother Angelica of EWTN. With enemies like that, he definitely needs friends! But friends within the radical left are proving fair weather ones as the Vatican begins to crack down and parishioners wake up. Case in point the removal of the Rochester, New York priest because of his liberal policies and actions in a very liberal diocese with an equally modernist bishop - Matthew Clark. Does that tell you the Pope is set on separating the wheat from the chaff? Especially with the harvest so close at hand as we near the millennium and the much-anticipated Triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart promised at Fatima. There are other dioceses who could have complied, could have followed the will of God but opted to remain rutted in their own agenda. But that's another entire editorial. Suffice it to say there are enough problems in the world and in many dioceses to warrant an intensive crusade of prayers through the rest of this year and beyond. But there's hope for them all because, even though we may all look like tiny ants from God's viewpoint above, we are human beings created in the image and likeness of Him. That alone should prompt us to pray the harder. Afterall, tomorrow and Friday we celebrate the feasts of two saints who exemplify that miracles can happen: Saint Monica and her son Saint Augustine. The former never gave up her prayerful hope that her wayward son would see the Light, and the latter did not disappoint. It took some time, but the fruits of her devotion and faith paid off handsomely for her son and Holy Mother Church. So, too with all of us late in 1998; we must persevere and pray for these liberal prelates, clerics and cafeteria "Catholics" who have yet to truly understand God's role for them in the overall scope of His creation. But we need to expedite our prayer life for them now, or they could face the Great Exterminator that would rub them out for all eternity. God's Mercy is wonderful and we can assist this through our prayers, but if they don't respond, then His Justice must be the alternative. Like the ants, they have their chance to cooperate. If not, it's curtains. Unlike the ants, we would love to be a part of the encore that calls for a curtain call for all God's wayward ones in Heaven. The choice is theirs, but through our prayers we can help tilt the scales toward Eternity rather than Extermination. It would be a celestial milestone worth millions in graces for millenniums to come and, after all, milestones are much better than millstones!
