There is the illness of the Pope, the death of Fatima seer Lucia dos Santos, the death of a lesser-known seer named Esperanza, the weather. Oh, the weather: it gyrates around us as there is a virtual uproar from nature, the freak storms, the blasts of rain in places where it hardly rains, the record floods in places like Guyana and even major melting in the Arctic and a breakup of an iceberg the size of Long Island down in the Antarctic (to name but a few natural events in recent weeks, all in the wake of an incredible tsunami).

Are we to continue attributing it all to the mere cycles of nature, or are we better served to take prophetic stock (as biblical prophets did) of disruptions in nature?

We give air to prophecy at this news site, and we note that it all comes months after the August passing of the lesser-known but still world-known Venezuelan seer Esperanza -- who suffered an illness strikingly, even startlingly, similar to the Pope's (right down to the necessity of a tracheotomy) and had said that 2004 would see the beginning of heightened events.

Of course, the last part of 2004 saw an incredible, unprecedented (for Florida) run of  hurricanes that started a week after her passing.

Do the deaths of seers bear significance? Is there biblical precedence? Are their lives themselves signs?

Those are questions for you to mull over. Meantime, however, the rumblings and stirs from nature continue. There was the quake in Iran -- barely noticed by the press in such a busy year -- that has now cost more than 600 lives; that's more than four times as many as died in all the hurricanes combined. It has been followed by smaller quakes around the world (in places that don't usually experience quakes). Could it be true, as one publication wonders, that something deep down is disturbed?

"Geologists in India and the rest of the world are receiving signals of a very disturbed mantel and core of the earth," reported India Daily. "According to some computer models, the outer core and the mantel are getting extremely heated. This can cause extreme tension on the earth’s crust and the tectonic plates."

Is a very profound shift in the earth in progress? Such is interesting because more than a decade ago, Esperanza -- who was associated with the Church-approved site of Betania in Venezuela -- warned that the "earth's core is not in balance."

For those of a prophetic bent, there was also the "1990 prophecy" that had said regional events of the kind we are seeing in nature would occur regionally and be accompanied by a "strange loud rumbling." 

Is it a true prophecy? Have we heard, and felt, the precursors? The rumblings have been reported from Indonesia to South Carolina and even Maryland (at the same time that Missouri felt itself shaking with a bit of a tremor weeks before). In Vancouver, Canada, there is a lot of shaking going on. "We heard a loud boom and then the whole building shook," noted Timothy Merritt, principal of an elementary school in Pasadena, Maryland. Esperanza had foreseen a "rumbling" in New Jersey.

And then there are the manifestations. There are the icons in Italy that have allegedly shed blood -- blood analyzed as strikingly unique (more on this soon) -- and the symbols of a Cross reported on drapes at a monastery. Other images in various places are likewise reported, and there seem to be signs in the heavens. "Tonight my 16-year-old son's friend reported to him that he saw a Cross on or over the moon," reports viewer Peggy Salvatore.

We receive many such accounts; we can't write them all off; they come on a constant basis.

There are light formations and pulses from the sun at the same time that scientists report strange and potent solar activity.

Signs of the times? It's getting difficult to be skeptical, and yet we always try to weigh such events with the normal course of nature -- if there is any such thing as a "normal" course, and if there is any such thing in the realm of God as a "coincidence."

"There is going to be a major disruption in a region of the world that will affect everyone," asserted another reputed prophecy on December 22, 2004 from a source we have discerned in the past as reliable. Was it referring to the tsunami that occurred days later, or something bigger in the future?

We have to be especially cautious with prophecy. It is rising all around us. For many years -- since the early 1990s -- seers in Europe and particularly Ireland have been warning about tidal waves (affecting northern Europe), and such warnings, in the wake of the Asian tsunami, have intensified. There are seers who specifically see cracks or splintering as a result of the tsunami-spawning quake that will cause further huge events in Africa or Australia or both and will also affect northern Europe and who have seen an earthquake in an unexpected part of America that will cause offshoot quakes.

"Total destruction will befall anyone in this part of the sea when these events occur," asserts one visionary who we are still trying to discern.

Scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory do report direct indications that one of the earth's "great crustal plates" is cracking in two. "In a report published in the most recent issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (vol. 133), the scientists say they have confirmed that the Indo-Australian Plate -- long identified as a single plate on which both India and Australia lie -- appears to have broken apart just south of the equator beneath the Indian Ocean," says a press release. "The break has been underway for the past several million years, and now the two continents are moving independently of one another in slightly different directions."

Images formed by sound waves show scores of systematically aligned cracks, or faults, in the oceanic lithosphere at the Indo-Australian plate -- which is now really two plates, created as the once-whole plate buckled and cracked and promises more in the future and yes in that part of the world.

Rumblings indeed! How seriously can we take such specific prophecies? One must be cautious because New Agers predict similar changes; it is a matter of personal discernment. There can be occultism behind accurate predictions. Mimicking the famed "secret" of LaSalette, France, there are those who see the weather -- the seasons -- in further turmoil. In Europe and around the world, mudslides, rising sea levels, and storms including tornadoes, they say (and with this we concur), will be reaching new proportions.

In the U.S., an alleged seer who has been promoted by Father Robert J. Fox, a priest known to Catholic television and also as an expert on Fatima, has quoted Jesus as allegedly telling her that "I am here to wake mankind. The time has come and I must warn mankind. All must pray and repent and take these messages seriously. Blessed will be those who listen and prepare themselves. Woe to those who do not want to believe, for I have given many messages through many souls.

"The whole world will be at war if man continues to reject the truth. If mankind continues to destroy life, the earth will open up and swallow each abortion site. This world will be shaken and a great part of humanity will be destroyed. If mankind wants to be saved, they must amend their ways, pray and do penance. Do not abandon My words, make reparation and obtain mercy for sinners. This world needs prayer, so listen to My Mother -- pray unceasingly, pray from your hearts."

These are good pieces of advice, although when it comes to whether they are actually the words of Jesus, we must remember the word "allegedly." It is a time for caution! Such locutions can be a true inspiration and they can also be an overflow (especially in such quickened times) of the subconscious.

But let us give prophecy air: the road is going to become more difficult, that seer was told; it is important to seek protection; it is important to receive a daily blessing.

There is no better blessing, we might add, than Mass -- daily if possible, certainly on Sunday.

"If you hold back your foot on the sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the sabbath a delight, and the Lord's holy day honorable; If you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice – Then you shall delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken," says Isaiah 58:9-14.

We get basically the same from yet another locutionist who allegedly hears in rhyme. One sample: "The ones who are faithful need not be discouraged, for they in the worst of times through grace will be nourished. No matter, dear children, how the world will be shaken, the children who love God will not be forsaken."

03/02/05

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[satellite photo on front, Copyright © 1986,1987,1988,1989,1990 Robert W. Berger N3EMO]