A recent survey found that more than 78 percent of Americans believe their countrymen have become generally more anxious. As a nation we are more fearful.

This should not be true of Christians. With Christ, there is no fear. In fact, the worst that can possibly happen (in terms of physical injury, at any rate) would simply be a step toward eternity (and if we are on the right path, toward Heaven).

In other words, Christians transcend even the "worst" that can happen.

But Christians are also realistic, and now we see matters crystallizing in a sobering pattern. By far, the most worrisome trend is in the realm of genetic manipulation.

Before our eyes are scientists meddling with the way vegetables are formed, with the genetic makeup of farm animals, of fruit, and of course with the very elements around us (wood has been replaced by plastics). How many realize that scientists have succeeded in creating a pig with human blood and a mouse with a percentage of human brain cells? (They say they'll destroy the critters if they start acting in any way human.)

This mixture of genetic material from animals and humans is one of history's gravest travesties. God has to be outraged, especially with therapeutic cloning -- in which embryos will be created in order to harvest them for stem cells (cells that can grow into tissue or organs we need, like spare parts). We are seeking to do so -- as the Vatican pointed out just this week -- "only by the pride of reproducing a being in order to manipulate it."

In other words, we are trying to usurp God as creator, which was the high sin of Lucifer.

And so we can expect prophetic events. There are "words of knowledge." There is a prophetic pulse. Our Church is a dynamic one -- or at least is supposed to be -- and that includes direction (in the way of the prophetic) from the Holy Spirit.

The meddling with DNA, the distortion of genes, and the reformation of the stuff of life bring us back to two such alleged prophecies. One, given anonymously but impressively in 1990, warned that there would be a great new evil that would be similar to abortion but not related to it -- one that seemed to have beneficial effects but would be a deception (this was predicted to occur by 1994, which indeed turned out to be a watershed year for breakthroughs that led to cloning). The fact that elements of that prophecy have materialized causes us to take it seriously. It said chastisements would come regionally. It was referring to disturbances in nature. The other was granted in the same way last December, days before the Asian tsunami, and predicted a great coming disturbance.

Are we on the verge of yet more, of heightened events, of greatly heightened events?

We certainly are in a time of flux headed to some sort of huge conclusion. There was the death of the world-famous Catholic mystic Maria Esperanza and there were hurricanes and there was the tidal wave and there was the death of the last Fatima seer followed by Terri Schiavo -- another "life issue" -- and then the great John Paul II -- followed by the election of a successor.

Turbulent times. Prophetic ones.

And let's remember this from the 2004 prophecy: "There is going to be a major disruption in a region of the world that will affect everyone," it claimed. "The world is now seriously out of conformance with the Will of God and what He created and intended. There are those who would reconfigure the very creatures He has formed, and who meddle with the texture of life. For this reason, the Lord will allow a huge reorientation."

"The very creatures."

Mice with human brain cells? Pigs with our blood?

"The texture of life."

DNA?

'If not for the action of Heaven," said the alleged word of knowledge, "what God has created on earth will soon be damaged beyond recovery. A very dramatic effect already is in progress as regards the support structures of what man calls nature."

What about "damaged beyond recovery"? What is that implying? This comes at a time when they are finding that genetically-modified crops -- which cause health problems in animals that eat certain of them -- spread through seed and pollen beyond the limited spots on which they are farmed.

The support structures?

That expression is a bit more mysterious. Perhaps you have views. Beyond radioactivity and chemicals, how are we meddling with the subatomic in a way that can have permanent and pervasive effects?

Food, oxygen, water. Those are certainly support structures, and we have certainly meddled with them. But it seems to go beyond that, in speaking about "a very dramatic effect" that is "already underway." Does it have anything to do with nanotechnology?

Or is it something like pollution? How many realize that the oceans now have nine gigantic "dead zones," and that all but nine percent of the world's fishing stock is in stress?

There is the prospect now of "chimeras" -- once-mythological creatures that are half-beast, half-human. Meanwhile, on May 19 reports arrived that researchers in South Korea had eleven times "successfully" created a clone of a person with a disease, killed the cloned embryo, harvested stem cells, and started a cell line of tissue genetically like that of the clone's parent-twin.

"Such cannot be allowed to take the final realization of total realignment when it comes to the very way elements and life forces interact," said the prophecy. "The event to come will surprise everyone who has offered a prognostication, and will show even recalcitrant scientists, though not all, that there is a fundamental alarm in Heaven over their arrogant and wayward course. Nothing that is artificial in a way that disrupts what God intended will be allowed to stand."

I believe we are now on the very threshold, the cusp, of historic intervention, and that it will take a mighty breaking-down of what we have '"recreated" to form a "reorientation." The events will include nations like the U.S. that up to now have avoided truly large disasters. In fact, the events, after sweeping into Asia, may even focus on the modern countries.

05/26/05