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IN SOCIETY AND OUR LIVES IS TURN OF EVENTS HINTING AT A 'FOURTH WATCH OF THE NIGHT'?
What if we are in the "fourth watch of the night." Do you recall what that was? It was the moment [Matthew 14:25] that Jesus appeared to His disciples, walking on the sea. The wind was contrary. They thought He was a ghost.
The wind is contrary now. Around us, countless manifestations. Are we in our own "fourth watch"?
In olden times the night was divided into four "watches": 6 to 9 p.m. (the first); 9 p.m. to midnight (the second); midnight to three a.m. (the third watch); and three to six a.m.
This is perhaps fascinating in that for years countless folks have been puzzled by why they awaken precisely at three a.m., feeling the need to pray and sometimes to wage spiritual warfare. Theories were that it was end of the midnight-to-three ritual conducted by occultists. Or that it was related in some way to the mercy hour (which is three p.m.).
Was it that it was the third watch?
And we are now into the fourth?
Might that mean that we are in the quarter of the night (however long it might last) when we too will see Christ appear somewhere, somehow (a manifestation, not necessarily the Second Coming) and at first take Him to be a mirage, or a ghost?
The "fourth watch of the night": whether it has to do with a manifestation of some sort, what about the "fourth watch" in our own lives?
Are we watching our interior lives? It is a time for vigilance. Watch out for zingers.
Pray a Rosary last thing at night and the first thing each morning and fashion your own "watch of the night."
Only the Holy Spirit -- only Jesus, and His Blessed Mother -- can help us be on constant guard, and unfortunately that's what we must be on in these days: constant guard, as darkness seeks as never before to disturb us, trip up us, and if nothing else cause a diversion.
"Blessed Mother," we might pray every morning (first thing), "guard me when I am most vulnerable."
The Lord wants us to do this. He wants us to have faith. He wants us to walk with Him (even on the sea). He wants us to see the signs that grow around us. He wants us to know that He is present and will be yet more present in whatever way at a time in the not-so-distant future.
Why do we keep seeing the number "11"? Some believe it stands for a final hour (of some sort); a prelude.
Why three a.m.? Even in the political campaign this specific time keeps popping up (in an ad Senator Clinton used, and most recently as being the precise moment that the text message announcing Obama's vice-presidential choice was sent).
Oh: the ruminations of summer.
As the season winds down we sit back and recall the past and remember that the past -- including Matthew 14 -- is prologue.
[resources: Tower of Light and Sent To Earth]
[Retreat, Michael H. Brown, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, October]
