By Michael H. Brown

At a time when the justice system is in disarray, when the educational system has all but disintegrated, when lawsuits rule, when medicine has become a business, when Christ has been erased from the public arena, when scandal plagues the Church, when celebrities get away with crimes, and when "shock jocks" and other media stars are paid millions (and in one case, hundreds of millions) for their lewdness -- at such a time we have recalled a prophecy from a charismatic Catholic who was attending an International Charismatic Conference at St. Peter's Basilica back in 1975 and quoted the Lord as warning in locution that a time of darkness was coming to our institutions, that "supports that are there for My people will not be there," and that "buildings that are standing will not be standing" [the World Trade Center was completed around that year].

But that there will always be peace -- security -- with Christ.

It is one of several prominent prophetic "words of knowledge" from the charismatic movement and it's fascinating how in many instances those warnings have indeed materialized.

"Son of man, do you see those churches you can go to so easily now?" the Lord reputedly asked in another instance (during a meeting of the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in January 1976). "Are you ready to see them with bars across their doors? Are you ready to depend only on Me and not on all the institutions of schools and parishes that you are working so hard to foster?"

Indeed, in the decades since -- and especially in recent years -- parishes and Catholic schools have closed in nearly every major American diocese.

Moreover, the general theme of "dark times" (but times during which there would be direction from God) jives with numerous messages alleged to have come during the 1980s and 1990s, and now during the new millennium, from the Blessed Mother -- from Bosnia-Hercegovina to the highlands of Ecuador.

And like those Marian apparitions, the older charismatic messages had been ones of preparation.

"Look around you, son of man," said that alleged 1976 prophecy -- which had passed muster with national charismatic leaders who discerned it for months and tested it with Scripture. "When you see it all shut down, when you see everything removed which has been taken for granted, and when you are prepared to live without these things, then you will know what I am making ready."

As leaders in the movement pointed out, days of darkness or "collapse" are not inherently bad. They purge and clear away the debris.

Problems in the Church, said an August 1976 "word of knowledge," would come as "pruning" as the Lord removed "that which is dead and lifeless.

"Why should I tolerate that which is dead, the branch which obscures the sunlight from the living branch, and robs from that which is still living the life and the fruit that it should bear?"

Added another one nearly a year later -- at another major charismatic gathering -- "You can know in joy that My Holy Spirit is upon you, and that My presence is with you in the time of testing that lies ahead."

"End-time" prophecies?

"I don't know," remarked one charismatic leader, Bruce Yokum, coordinator of a Christian community called The Word of God in Michigan. "But I don't think so. By 'end-time' prophecies I mean those which tell us that the Second Coming is going to happen very soon, or that we are in the 'last days' as described in Scripture (for example, Mark 13:14-37), or that this world is about to end. I don't know if any of these prophecies refer to such events, but if they do they do so only in a veiled way. I don't think it would be safe to conclude from these prophecies that we are in the 'end times.'"

But no one knows. That's for God alone, at least as far as specifics. Marian apparitions have indicated great changes ahead, including major purifying events contained in reputed "secrets" and a change of era, perhaps with a major manifestation of Jesus.

12/27/05