Prophetic Notes: Of The Pope, 'Charley,' And A Potential Run Of Disasters

By Michael H. Brown

A run of natural disasters around the world is heightening the prophetic pulse and indicating an intensification of events sent as a cleansing. That's our view. We don't disdain prophecy (the Bible tells us not to), and this intensification is what Catholic prophecy -- the more reliable mysticism -- has been indicating.

To wit: in England, there is the search for more than a dozen victims of a flood that inundated an ancient little stone hamlet. The capital of New Zealand is closed down by 100-mile-an-hour winds. In Las Vegas, streets were flooded this week -- while California baked in a way that may one day soon threaten the wine industry. In Africa there is a plague of locusts, the worst in many years, while at Yellowstone National Park are worries about the eruption of a "supervolcano."

In Florida, of course, there was Hurricane Charley.

To place it into perspective, Charley is not yet estimated to have been at the level of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 (thus far, an estimated $5 to $14 billion in insured damages versus Andrew's $20 billion), and its path was nothing less than miraculous -- swerving away from the densely populated Tampa area and threading a needle between Fort Myers and Sarasota. 

Don't get us wrong: there was still astounding damage. A hurricane of category-four intensity begins to seem more like a 25-mile-wide tornado. It was a sign of heightened times. Expect it to introduce other events.

But the "low" death toll and the way the storm skirted even places like Naples (where there is the new Ave Maria University) spared dozens of billions more in damage. The storm not only went between the most densely populated centers, but also avoided the shore in a way that prevented storm surge from flooding Collier and Lee counties (as a "cat-four" storm can do).

A slight swerve south would have brought it into Lee County, population 500,000.

Had the storm hit Tampa-St. Petersburg, there would have been 2.5 million at risk (counting the suburb of Clearwater, where there is an allegedly miraculous reflection of Mary in an office window).

Compare those millions to the 153,000 who live in all of the county of Charlotte where this storm -- against the odds -- actually struck.

Was God at work? Was this not still an hour of mercy?

From the Northridge earthquake near Los Angeles to Hurricane Andrew and other disasters, death tolls have been incredibly low. So far officials believe less than twenty died in Hurricane Charley -- a tragedy, for sure, but vastly below the potential of such a cyclone.

Moreover, from a meteorological point of view, the tempest itself was not nearly what can happen. Charley's hurricane-force winds extended for 25 miles. There have been hurricanes and typhoons with several times that reach. At its height tropical gale-force winds blew for 125 miles from Charley's eye -- far less than the 600 miles once recorded by a typhoon in the Pacific. This is what we anticipate as a coming "mega-storm." At 145 miles an hour its winds were intense, but not at the level of Hurricane Andrew --  which had sustained winds of 165 miles per hour before the recording device blew off the roof at the National Hurricane Center near Miami (where experts believe the sustained winds may have reached 190). In the Keys, the great Labor Day hurricane in the 1930s may have sent gusts to 225 miles an hour -- to give us an idea of what can occur in the future.

But Charley is significant and our guess is that there now will be a ratcheting up of natural disasters just as there was in the wake of Hurricane Andrew.

Take a look back at what followed Andrew in the 1990s.

Nature is once more stirring, and each time it does -- with each cycle -- our view is that events will intensify. Charley was not the mega-storm. But it is the worst since 1992 -- and that is a harbinger.

We also note that it comes less than a week after the death of world-known seer Maria Esperanza -- who often prophesied the stirring of nature and whose family believes events will follow her passing.

At the same time, the Pope's condition suddenly seemed to have taken another downturn (although it is now rebounding again). This was witnessed by the international media last weekend at the apparition site of Lourdes, where the Blessed Mother came as the "Immaculate Conception." Esperanza -- whose own apparition site of Betania is centered around a Lourdes replica -- had told family members that she'd asked God several years ago if she could suffer for the pontiff, and it was shortly after that she began to struggle with an ailment mysteriously similar to the Parkinson's diagnosed for John Paul II.

The mystic had related instances in which she asserted that the Pope "bilocated" to her and she once smiled when asked if John Paul II himself experienced apparitions.

At times during the past three years, the Pope's improvements seemed to occur when the Venezuelan mystic was suffering most intensely -- as if she had assumed some of his burden.

That suffering has now returned. 

"The pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to the French shrine of Lourdes was in many ways a capstone to his exceptionally long pontificate," noted CBS Tuesday. "His 104th foreign trip may not have been his last, but for the ailing spiritual leader of the world's Catholics, it may have been the most significant. At 84, he is now almost completely incapacitated. The severe arthritis in his left knee prevents him from walking. The act of kneeling in the grotto of Lourdes to pray to the statue of the Virgin Mary was as much as he could do. He collapsed as he tried to get back up and had to be lifted onto his mobile throne by his minders. This once athletic priest who loved the great outdoors is now a prisoner in a body that no longer responds to his needs. His speech to the pilgrims who came to Lourdes in search of a cure and spiritual comfort had to be read by one of his cardinals. Years of Parkinson's disease have almost robbed him of the ability to speak."

Interestingly, Esperanza claimed there would be a manifestation of Jesus in a "period" when "an innocent person whom [God] loves a lot will die, an innocent person."

There has always been the speculation that this referred to John Paul II  (though some now wonder if it may have related to Esperanza herself).

Esperanza's last known prophecy was that there was a "lash" in store for the U.S. Now that she is gone, it will not be known if Hurricane Charley constitutes such a lash, or if she was speaking of something more on the order of September 11, which she clearly foresaw. This can be lessened through prayer.

Esperanza, who was 75 at the time of her death August 6, and was widely considered the greatest mystic since Padre Pio, predicted that "disturbances in nature" would build until they precipitate into larger ones and a new "awakening" of the world's collective conscience. She said God would "shake" the world, but not as if He is violent. "Even though times look so bad, it is glorious," she said. "We are going through glorious times. It will make everything better."

Aug 2004

[resources: The Bridge to Heaven]