Lost in all of the hullabaloo over current prophecy has been an astonishing statement made many years ago in a part of the LaSalette revelations.

The astonishment is over the fact such a word would be used in describing serious transgressions that would afflict the world, and that cause a stir in natural events.

It is not a word we normally associate with sin and chastisements -- events that may loom in the future. And yet we are brought to think of it at a time when there has been a movement in the spirit to prepare.

The word is "amusement."

After warning at LaSalette of major calamities such as storms that would shake whole cities, and mega-quakes, Mary had supposedly told seer Melanie Calvat in 1848, "Before this comes to pass, there will be a kind of false peace in the world. People will think of nothing but amusement."

Nothing but amusement! In the perspective of our time -- which is filled with amusement like no other -- such words have the opportunity to become chilling ones. "The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin," the Blessed Mother added, warning in particular about materialism.

It was on September 19, 1848, that two shepherds tending animals far up in the French Alps had a single encounter with an apparition accepted by the official Church (right up to several popes) as the Blessed Mother. In the approved part of her message, which came separately from the later "secret" mentioning amusement, she warned that men were not keeping the Sabbath holy and were using the Name of her Son in vain -- as a curse word. If that did not quickly change, said Mary, there would be crop failure, sickness, and famine -- which indeed and famously happened.

Incredibly, the apparition was followed the very same year by onset of the Great Irish Potato Famine -- which also involved the northern region of France near the mountain of apparitions.

The message mentioning crop failure was released soon after the apparitions, which were approved by the Church in the 1850s. But it was years later when Melanie revealed another message she had allegedly received,  a controversial "secret" filled with far more dramatic warnings, some of which appear to apply to our current time.

It was this "secret" that mentioned a time when "seasons will be altered" and when there would be only "evil" books, along with rampant occultism and scandal ("cesspools of impurity") in the clergy. Those have come to pass. What about the passage on "amusement"?

We live at a time when there is constant diversion. In fact, we could call ours a "culture of amusement" with all the gambling, lotteries, TV viewing, radio listening, computer games, DVDs, walkmans, video arcades, concerts, internet, iPods, spas, theme parks, thrill rides, carnivals, beauty pageants (many involving a lustful aspect), professional sports games, college sports games, golf courses, racetracks, off-track betting, casinos, and constant vacationing.

In our current time, Sunday is shoved to the side by professional sports and other amusements like shopping -- and to bring the LaSalette prophecy to full, sobering circle, those games often involve athletes who use God's Name in vain.

Meanwhile, 86 million people visited Florida last year, many looking for that magic of Disney. That's not to mention Las Vegas and Atlantic City and Hawaii and San Francisco and New York and the Poconos, and you get our point.

Just about every part of the country has a tourist region or several such regions and it is a gigantic business that has replaced the concept of pilgrimage. One vacation spot that is currently out of order: New Orleans.

Then there are all the magazines, movies, and novels (many indeed evil), which fill our stores, even the counter at the supermarket, often openly risque and contrary to Christianity (as with The Davinci Code, which a Vatican cardinal has denounced as a "worrying, shocking phenomenon").

This is not to say that entertainment is bad. We all need a break. It is good -- and often Godly -- to have fun. It is certainly not a sin to take a vacation. We see the Pope himself  do this at regular intervals; it can be important to emotional and spiritual balance -- as can a certain degree of daily entertainment.

But we are not to go to such an extreme that there is no longer room for God and certainly not to the point where we find it enslaving.

By our count 38 states sponsor lotteries. During last summer's hurricanes, curious it was how conspicuously damaged (thrown right from the Gulf) were the casinos.

Gambling is the act of trying to get something for nothing, and so we must be careful. We should be cautious with anything that preoccupies us, that diverts us from God. We are called to simplicity and detachment. "How many people even borrow, either money or clothes, just to go to places of gambling or other kinds of pleasure," asked the Cure of Ars -- who was closely involved with the LaSalette revelations.

The Church teaches that wagers or games of chance are not in themselves "contrary to justice," but become morally unacceptable when they are enslaving and especially when we spend what we do not have. There is a seedy feeling in most casinos, a spiritual murkiness of which we should be aware. Cards. Pinball machines. 

And then there is bingo.

Did you have to ask about that?

5/16/06