 Mary,
Undoer of Knots,
in the Church of Mary the
Door to Heaven in Brazil is a unique painting of Mary undoing a ribbon of
knots, and meditating on its fascinating meaning, this booklet explains the
Blessed Mother's intervention in situations that 'have no exit,' providing
prayers and novenas for miracles that relieve us of entanglement! Many are those who claim it is miraculous!
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DARING TO BE PROPHETIC: WHEN PREDICTIONS SEE MASSIVE DESTRUCTION, WHAT
SHOULD WE DARE TO CONSIDER?
Dare we? How far can one go with it?
How much is too much?
We speak here of prophecy:
Frequently, there's a thin line between a
discerning, open evaluation of the supernatural and over-credulity, which can
allow in artifacts (and even deception from the enemy, or simple
over-imagining).
It comes down to a matter of
intuition. And equilibrium (which only comes through prayer).
At a major alleged apparition, the Blessed
Mother once said focusing too much on chastisements can bring them.
Moreover, prophecy is often titillating (tickling the ears,
2 Timothy 4:3). It's exciting to
contemplate but one must always ask: do we really want to see destruction
come, do we really want an economic meltdown or massive war or
famine or plague or breakdown in infrastructure -- or should we be praying
for a miraculous return to God's Plan, from which we have strayed, to
prevent calamities?
Since the 1960s, it has
been a slippery downward slope and seems to get slicker every year. And
believing Christians could not want the
situation in the world -- the evil -- to continue. There is pillaging of God's Creation.
There is abortion. There is widespread immorality (flagrant, and like
Sodom, "in your face"). But do we want to see our society dismantled? Do
we want to witness a war, or unprecedented natural event? Is it not
precarious to fixate on that?
On the other hand, there is
Scripture -- and in it (see Isaiah 30) God not only directed His people to warn of punishment
but
indicated through His prophets that chastisements would be sent upon those who did not warn
(prophetically) --
who tried to sugarcoat the future and sought to formulate their own
spin. In our time, we have many of these. The passage says, "For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons
who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord, who say to the seers,
'You must not see visions,' and to the prophets, 'You must not prophesy to
us what is right; speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions.'"
That's worse than obsessing with disaster.
And so we too pray and fast and purify our
inner selves (this is most important) for equilibrium. The question with
detailed prophecies is whether those who espouse them are actually
receiving such detail or feeling a general "pulse" and then building their
own details on that pulse (a pulse that, for example, "something" is going
to happen).
A few weeks back, we carried the
alleged visions of a retired businessman named James Wilburn Chauncey of
Fayetteville, Georgia, who had a near-death experience in the 1940s as a child and
during that experience claimed to have been shown snippets of the future,
including major chastising events in the United States. For the past sixty years, he
says, he has been consumed by what he believes he was shown. "Mountains had fallen; canyons
disappeared; the courses of rivers were changed, and much land
disappeared," he says of this alleged vision of the near future
(he is in his seventies and believes the events will occur after his
death). "In the great land
of North America, an enormous lake was formed in the upper-middle portion
of America. Mountains had fallen; canyons disappeared. Portions of Texas
and Arizona were now lakes. What had been deserts of the west were now
green and lush with trees and vegetation. Asia, Africa, Europe, and the
world over became lush with vegetation, clear water, lakes, and rivers,
and an abundance of fish, fowl, and animal life."
You get the point. He also saw major upheaval
in the Middle East, focused on Syria, which would be invaded (perhaps by
Iran) and later, the U.S. attacked by
Russia, Muslims, and China -- war all over, including nuclear destruction
of major cities (starting with New York, Washington, Chicago, Pittsburgh,
Atlanta, and Jacksonville). Like so many, he saw California sinking.
It was pointed out to us that years
ago -- in the 1970s -- evangelical Christians claimed a series of visions
and "words of knowledge" that were similarly drastic (and
strikingly similar), leading to another
question: When we get this far with massive events, when they are so
specific and apocalyptic, is it darkly fanciful -- perhaps even
inspired by the deceiver (an attempt to muddle true warnings such as
those from places of legitimate apparition) -- or a montage of what might take
place (at the time the prophecy is granted) if mankind does not rid itself of evil
(which certainly has attained enormity)?
The series of visions (which started
in 1973, the year of Roe v. Wade, and were distributed from a
ministry in Spokane, Washington) became known as "the Chicago prophecies."
They are questionable and had some errant dates (along with perhaps
over-specificity). Asserted one: "In 1973 the Lord gave me a vision of
a massive earthquake striking the Midwest U.S.A. centering in Chicago,
Illinois, on some day in July in the future. This destructive earthquake
led directly to an
all out nuclear attack on the U.S. by Russia, China with Japan, and the
start of World War III. In that vision I saw a huge jet airliner on a
glide path to land at O'Hare Airport north of Chicago (after the quake)
when Lake Michigan roared out of its lake bed and swept over the city in
what was a wall of water a hundred feet high. The huge jet airliner turned on
its jets full blast and black smoke poured out of its engines as the pilot
frantically worked to pull up and away from the wall of water that was
destroying Chicago.
"I was puzzled at the time (July 2,
1973) because the aircraft I saw was massive, two stories high, unlike
anything I'd ever seen. In 1973 the Jumbo Jet had not yet arrived, it was
being designed. While the Jumbo Jet (747-400) with its two-story bubble
in the front of the aircraft looks 'like' what I saw in 1973, this new
airliner, the A3XX, shown in a June 24, 2000 news clip (The Dallas
Morning News, Saturday, June 24th 2000, 2F, 'Airbus gives green light to super-jumbo jetliner') is
two stories high and looks more like what I saw in
the 1973 vision." By 1977, dozens of Christians claimed similar
predictions about Chicago.
For our
contemplation. Chauncey (who wrote a book called
Eyewitness To
Heaven) likewise claims that back in the 1940s he had been
shown jet fighters that decades later matched photographs of stealth
bombers.
The
so-called "Chicago prophecies," given in large measure to a man named Chuck Youngbrandt,
continued starkly: "I suddenly saw
the Loop area in a vision. By the way the shadows fell, it seemed to be
twelve noon. I could see traffic moving through the downtown area; however,
my attention was focused on the base of a huge building. Again came the
prelude and the earthquake. Autos were literally flung off the streets into
buildings by the violent movements of the earth. A horrible chorus of
creaking, scraping, and grating sounds filled the air, not unlike masts of
great sailing ships in a storm, as the skyscrapers swayed to and fro. The
giant building began to shear off from its base about twenty feet from the
sidewalk but surprised me by not falling. Brick, stone, glass, debris of
every sort fell into the streets below like hail driven by a storm wind. As the quake
ended, I heard many voices speaking of their ‘great luck to be alive.’ Many
awaited rescuer parties, but none were giving thanks to God. Suddenly my view
shifted to the lake front. After the earthquake ended, the waters of Lake
Michigan swiftly calmed down; lying still in a strange and ghostly silence.
The calm water then seemed to tremble or bead-up, and as I watched, the
level of the water began to drop quickly. There was a ‘whooshing’ sound as
the water literally disappeared in a northeasterly direction, leaving only
some large puddles, here and there."
Lake Michigan --
shifting right onto a major city? He also saw it coursing down the
Mississippi to the Gulf causing massive inundation.
What is
plausible and what is wild?
Isn't
this more likely to happen in a region like Tokyo or China -- or if it is
the Midwest, along that New Madrid fault (south of St. Louis)? And is it
plausible that in addition to an unprecedented earthquake would come
phenomenal weather events (as the prophecies also claimed)?
Of course,
cogitating on the future is almost always frustrating -- that is,
ruminating upon it through logic alone.
Too often --
most often -- the future is unexpected. Most often, chastisement is a
long, grinding process -- appreciated fully only in retrospect (such as a
climate swerve). It
does say in 1 Thessalonians,
however: "Now
as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to
be written to you. For
you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like
a thief in the night. While
they are saying, 'Peace and safety!' then destruction will come upon them
suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child." And we can know
that prophecies at major apparition sites, in point of fact, seem to be very
dramatic; at Fatima, they included a world war, the rise of Communism,
massive persecution (that killed millions), and an angel about to torch
the world (all in three "secrets").
Daring, indeed: prophecy.
Often, a
person gets a legitimate "word" but then expands on it. Padre
Pio said, "Pray, hope, and don't worry." God protects His own. Just pray,
and you will be guided (and shielded).
But we do prophecy
here. We give it air. Hopefully, it is in line with what the Bible says: not to despise
such, not to treat it with contempt, but to weigh it, take what is
good, and leave the rest, avoiding evil (1
Thessalonians 5:20-22), which would include deception. How far is too far? When
do we simply take the essence of the prophetic "pulse"?
For all
prophecy, says the Bible (1
Corinthians 13:19), is "imperfect."
[resources:
Eyewitness To Heaven and
Tower of Light]
[see also:
worldwide disasters and
world clock]
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