"You may have heard of Fr. Tom DiLorenzo, a charismatic priest from Boston who has been on the radio for over 20 years," comes an e-mail from Massachusetts. "He has a real prophetic gift as well as the gift of healing. As I listened this morning, Father Tom preached from Ezekiel 33 about the 'watchman on the wall.' He warned us of a vision he had in 1995, that he has already been preaching about for several years, which happened as follows:

"He had just been on a pilgrimage in France and went into a restaurant. He was very tired and closed his eyes for a minute and then described what he said was something like 'Venetian blinds opening in front of me.' What he saw next was the Titanic sinking, and the lifeboats were coming to try to rescue the people, but they couldn't get the people into the boats. He interpreted that as 'the world economic system going into the drink.' The lifeboats represented the Church, and they didn't know how to get the people into the boats. He said he could be wrong, of course, but he believed that this will happen. It may not be in 'the next few months,' but it is 'on the horizon.' He also believes this crisis is preparing the way for the coming of the Antichrist, and that one of the two politicians': who will be elected is not the Antichrist, but may be the puppet of the Antichrist. That wasn't part of the prophecy, just his take on what's going on now. His point was this: the Church in America isn't ready for what's coming. We don't know how to do without; we're too soft. We need to get on our knees and pray and fast, or we won't be able to help the people when things really start to go sour."

"I  received the following future vision during my near-death experience on July 2, 1984," maintains a former nightclub owner, Ned Dougherty, from Long Island. "The excerpt is from my book, Fast Lane to Heaven, published in March 2001: 'Shadowy and publicly unknown world figures will attempt to establish a new world order by creating a worldwide government supposedly for the benefit of humanity. As a group, they will attempt to reorganize the world’s financial and banking institutions in a manner that will permit these unelected leaders to manipulate and control the future of the world for their own personal benefit and gain. Their own personal greed and lust for material wealth and power will motivate them. They will attempt to create a secular and materialistic world devoid of individual freedoms."

He also was told: ""The time will come soon when all of this madness will be brought to a halt. There will be great changes for you during a great shaking up that will affect your economies and your resources. Those who have manipulated and controlled the economies for their own benefit will be stripped bare of their resources and exposed for their past sins. As a result, many will suffer from great losses to your economies and to your material assets of which many of you pride so dearly."

Perhaps most disarmingly, on Sunday "hundreds of thousands" honored the twenty-fifth anniversary of apparition in San Nicolas, Argentina -- led by Bishop Héctor Cardelli who in his homily clearly endortsed the messages when he stressed that "when Mary calls us together, the family is reinforced, because the Mother is bringing her children together. How much she told us and how little we recall!" 

That was interesting because the messages were often apocalyptic, as on March 21, 1988, when the seer, Gladys Quiroga reported: "I have a vision:  I see the earth divided into two parts.  One part represents two-thirds and the other one-third, in which I see the Blessed Virgin. She is with the Child and from her breast rays of light go towards the part that represents two-thirds of the earth.  Immediately she says to me:  'Gladys, you are seeing the world half-destroyed. These rays of light are sent from my heart that wants to save as many hearts as it can. My heart is all-powerful, but it can do nothing if hearts are unwilling. The means to save souls are prayer and conversion.  Every soul must prepare so as not to be imprisoned eternally by darkness. Amen, Amen.'"

Signs in the sky? They seem to have graduated from the early 1980s through the 1990s and certainly now explode in this new decade and new century and new millennium. Are we just looking for things?

Or do the unusual events now occurring in the world speak volumes?

"I have been telling this awesome story to many people for years," says Christine Bailey of Yukon, Oklahoma.

"It was a clear night in May 1980. My then husband and I were traveling by car to California, and we were driving through the desert at this time. I was looking out the passenger window and thinking how people see angels and religious figures in the sky, and how I would love to see that. At just that moment, my husband said, in an awestruck voice, to look out his window. There in the sky was the crucified face of Christ. Every detail was very clear -- the crown of thorns, his hair, beard, facial features. Christ's face stayed intact in the sky for a couple of minutes. Then a change occurred. His crown of thorns formed into a pair of horns. That was the only change until his face left the sky. Signs that the Anti-Christ was coming soon, or already here?  I felt very blessed and grateful for this grace. I also strongly felt that time is short for mankind to repent and turn back to God."