WHY PROPHECIES ON INVASION?

Let's go to the mailbag, which is always filled with little insights and comments and questions (many of which, of course, we can't answer). The mysteries of life!

Do they include numbers?

There's always a fascination with that (whether "333" or "666") -- and lately many have added "11:11." Why, they wonder (as we have reported before), does this configuration seem to show up on digital clocks more than others? Might it simply be that it is the only number that can be repeated four times on a clock and we notice it for that reason?

Wrote Patye Pece of Hampton Bay, New York: "I was just reading about BP's oil spill tonight and couldn't ignore the fact that the number '11' had appeared once again in our current history in the U.S. We were attacked on 9-11, and now eleven workers were killed on the Deepwater Horizon rig. In some way, even the name 'Deepwater Horizon' conjures up an image of being over our heads in this disaster in the Gulf. Out of curiosity, I looked up the biblical significance of the number '11' and was stunned to read that it means 'Disorder and Judgment.' In other places it means "...disorder, disorganization, imperfection and disintegration." Is it God speaking to us of His judgment because of our disorder?"

Very interesting.

There is also this strange notion in prophetic circles that some day the U.S. will be "invaded." It came up recently in a message from an alleged Brazilian seer (who needs to be strictly discerned, and who foresees invasion of the "eagle's nest"), and the notion has circulated in other locutions since the early 1990s (none Church-approved; some very controversial). They spoke of China, the U.N., or a new world order as the invaders. This added to concerns over holding centers and alleged underground military training on domestic soil. Yet the question: how could a country with three million working in its Defense Department (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) at five thousand locations and hundreds of thousands of others working in state or local police forces or intelligence and security and border agencies (take your pick: CIA, DIA, FBI, TSA, DARPA, NSA, National Reconaissance, U.S. marshals, AFT, customs, DEA) not to mention a nation that is the world's greatest nuclear and technological power, be invaded? Is it just a metaphor for a spiritual or economic "invasion"?

In some ways that has proven true: witness the sudden predominance of China (which controls U.S. treasury bonds, and could ruin the dollar). When there are reputed mystical insights, how often are they metaphors?

On occasion viewers point to an alleged message given at Valley Forge to George Washington when -- according to legend (albeit one published in the National Post, which is now Stars and Stripes) -- he experienced the vision of a woman who showed him the "future of the Republic" and a "dark, shadowy angel" who "placed a trumpet to his mouth and blew three distinct blasts; and taking water from the ocean, he sprinkled it upon Europe, Asia, and Africa. Then my eyes beheld a fearful scene. From each of these countries arose thick, black clouds that were soon joined into one. And throughout this mass, there gleamed a dark red light by which I saw hordes of armed men, who, moving with the cloud, marched by land and sailed by sea to America, which country was enveloped in the volume of cloud. And I dimly saw these vast armies devastate the whole country, and burn the villages, towns and cities that I beheld springing up" [see Washington's remarkable vision]. Perhaps the intelligence agencies themselves are "invading" us. We do see the country rapidly changing (and losing power globally). An "eagle's nest" may be a military base.

Summer ruminations. At least, interesting to discuss. Is it part of human nature to want exciting future events, even though we may not want them when they actually come?

"Wondering if you or your readers are noticing an increase in people attending Mass and trying to leave with the Host," wrote Suzette Duquette of Canada (we'll keep certain details anonymous). "I have seen it two times within the year. Tonight I noticed a young woman of around thirty walk away with the Host still in her hand. After Mass I ran into a holy couple; I told them what happened and they confronted her as she left the church -- which she was stalling to leave as she spotted us at the exit. She freaked out at them when they asked her to take it or hand it over( in a very decent manner). She went into a rant. The director of the shrine would not help nor would the Jesuit priest who said Mass assist. I was so disappointed in their lack of action. Needless to say it was returned. Should we not return to receiving Communion by mouth?"

Speaking of invasions, did homosexuality "invade" holy art? A member of the Orthodox Church in Maine, Brother Gabriel, complains that iconography in both the East and West was similar until after the Schism in 1054, when -- he asserts -- holy images changed in Roman Catholicism.

"Just look at the iconography of East and West, how similar it was until the Schism, after which time Western depictions of Christ became increasingly effeminate and of Our Lady increasingly immodest and westernized so that she no longer is depicted as the Oriental she was but as a blonde haired, blue eyed Arian often with plunging neckline or uncovered head," he argues. "Some food for thought for what it is worth."

We are certainly not going to follow anything but Catholicism based in Rome, but we must share distress over the feminization of Christ. Look at the Shroud: He was anything but.

"I have a good 'friend' who believes that she can remember her life prior to conception," wrote Kelley Jankowski, "that she was given the choice of which country to live in, who her parents were to be and she was also given to view the state of their souls. She says she could have chosen to live in Africa, to be handicapped etcetera. She says she remembers having a conversation with God prior to her choice. I always thought that this was heresy, and according to St. Thomas Aquinas, this was refuted as such. Have you ever heard of such a thing? She is a practicing Catholic and I feel she really believes these things. I would be interested in your viewpoint and if you have ever heard of this, and if so, what the real position of our beloved Church is on this topic."

There have long been debates about pre-existence. Mostly, it is opposed. If it relates to reincarnation, it is strictly forbidden.

[resources The Other Side]

[see also: 'The year American dissolved']

[Michael Brown retreat, Wisconsin]