Barring dramatic new discoveries (and anything is possible), the death toll for Katrina, thank God, and Our Lady of Prompt Succor, will be well below official fears.

If that toll holds -- and right now it's approaching 500 -- it seems to convey the sense that the period of mercy, if dwindling, still holds. Officials had sent in 25,000 body bags and an emergency director had once told us he worried that up to 100,000 could die in a direct hit, which this city, though devastated, was spared.

How many more will be found? Will it top 1,000? Let us continue to pray not. Although events are heightening, we are still far from the casualties that have been seen in other parts of the world (as an example, see: Asian tsunami). For this we thank God. There have been fantastic property losses, but it's just that, property, while actual casualties, whether from Katrina or other recent disasters, like last year's hurricanes, have been astonishingly low.

God is still shedding His Mercy although the Gulf event has come extremely close to an undefined line that would bring us into full-scale purification.

Consider that the great Galveston hurricane, which involved flooding very similar to what occurred in the Big Easy, killed at least 6,000 (some say more than 10,000), at a time when there were only 76 million in America, versus the 297 million today.

But the count is not over, and an incredible wake up -- a tragedy for the displaced -- it has been, one of the monumental events in our nation's history. It is not alone. The entire country has seen storms  or felt rumblings.

Yet Christ still streams with the rays of mercy -- perhaps because so many Americans, especially Louisianans, pray the chaplet of Divine Mercy. No state has better Catholics!

And Our Lady of Prompt Succor: she was invoked to save the city during the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 and to save the French Quarter during an historic fire just before that and now her statue still stands high and dry and intact in a convent that as far as we are told has incurred fairly minor damage -- roof leaks -- compared to what could have happened.

There are those who can't seem to understand the concept of purification, confused because the good too suffer.  It was perhaps best explained by in the wake of the tsunami by the Catholic Bishop of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands of India, Alex Dias, told the media, "I believe that the tsunami is a warning. A warning from God to reflect deeply on the way we lead our lives."

Curious it is how some continue to resist the notion that God would speak in natural events. Perhaps this reflects on the admonishment from a Vatican panel last week, in which experts fretted that Catholics are not reading the Bible.

"Unfortunately, it must be said, there is still little Bible in the lives of the faithful," said Italian Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Catholic Bible Federation.

This seems the only explanation for the otherwise baffling notion that God would never allow such events. Book after book in the Old Testament is full of accounts whereby Egypt, Israel, Babylon, or somewhere else was chastised for sins -- with plagues, storms, or war. It goes far beyond Noah.

In fact, just about every book of the Bible has something to say about such matters, as did Jesus Himself. Read especially the Book of Nahum -- which mentions "God in the whirlwind."

Or take it from Ezekiel 13:13: "Therefore, thus says the Lord God, 'I will make a violent wind break out in My wrath. There will also be in My anger a flooding rain and hailstones to consume it in wrath.'"

After 9/11 we reported the many interesting biblical references to "towers" when the Lord is purifying, and did the same in the wake of the Asian tsunami [see this].

As Lifesite, a pro-life website, has astutely pointed out, "In the Gospel of Luke at chapter 13, Jesus Himself spoke of a disaster, noting that those who perished were not more evil than others, but that it was a warning for all to repent. 'Or those eighteen upon whom the tower fell in Siloe, and slew them: think you, that they also were debtors above all the men that dwelt in Jerusalem? No, I say to you; but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.'"

The very seer of the Divine Mercy revelations, St. Faustina Kowalska, recorded in her diary how God's Hand was in storms, and famed seer Maria Esperanza, who may also one day be canonized, said years ago, "I have more fears for natural disasters because there are so many injustices in the world and the Lord is making Himself felt by His Justice." Mother Teresa said the fruit of abortion would be nuclear war.

Why do the good and evil suffer a like?

Note this remark from Father Joseph Lionel, a chancellor who, ministering in tsunami-ravaged Tanjore Diocese in India (one of the worst-hit areas), said that "perhaps we can also view matters not so much as God punishing those victims specifically, as the fact that when sin builds in the world, it puts the world out of order. It causes an actual darkness that can physically -- and geologically -- manifest. Events come almost as a release of that dark tension. God allows it. The good suffer with the evil. There are victim souls and always have been. ... Perhaps they serve as victim souls to warn the entire world of the global darkness or perhaps they are the victims of evil that opened the door to disaster that caused the region to be susceptible."

What we know is that there are certainly far more good than bad in the Gulf region -- Louisiana has some of the nation's best Catholics, as does Mississippi, which was especially hard hit. We have dear friends there! We know about that first-hand.

But they are the first to recognize this as a potential cleansing, which, if acknowledged, and handled properly -- if it leads to a shut down of strip clubs and houses of prostitution and abortion mills and decadence parades and drunkenness and drug dealing and violent crime -- is a good thing and will prevent future disasters.

The references in Scripture are too numerous even to synopsize. Let's take a look at just a few Mass readings from the week of Katrina.

The day of the storm? 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. ("For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from Heaven..).

The Responsorial Psalm  that day? "The Lord comes to judge the earth."

Meanwhile the first reading from the Liturgy of the Hours on August 29, that fateful Monday, was from Jeremiah 19 ("Thus I will smash this people and this city, as one smashes a clay pot so that it cannot be repaired.")

The day the levees broke? 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 9-11 ("Concerning times and seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, 'Peace and security,' then sudden disaster comes upon them..").

And this is all just scratching the surface. If you want to hear more from Jesus, try Luke 21 (or Matthew 24).

Monday's reading from Timothy referred to those who "incur the Devil’s punishment" -- leaving us with the intriguing notion, as Father Lionel said, that it is more God allowing the devil extended power to attack because we have drawn away from Him than the Lord striking with an iron fist, though this He can also do.

It is more a case of lowering our own protection.

Which makes us all vulnerable -- in New Orleans or our own lives. Hold high the Cross!

It is unquestionably a Catholic teaching, the concept of purification, and indeed, there are dozens if not hundreds of cases in Europe where the Blessed Mother appeared to warn that if sin continued, there would be plague. Or fire. Or wind. Such appearances established the very churches of early Christian Europe!

During the Miraculous Medal apparitions the Blessed Mother referred to events as punishments and at LaSalette, which is also in France, and which is celebrated on September 19, she said that there would be a plague and famine if men did not repent and change. In fact, in a later part of the message, she specifically mentioned natural events such as flood and storms. That too is an approved apparition. "Water and fire will give the earth's globe convulsions," she told a seer named Melanie.

At Fatima she said that sin would lead to another huge war; the good and evil alike would die; there would be persecution. This came in the way of both Nazism and Communism.

Was the Blessed Mother being "cruel" (the accusation modernists make against those who hold such a view)? Or was she the merciful one -- in warning?

New Orleans is both a catastrophe and a warning. We are still in the stage of warnings. Oh, how they heighten! How they will continue to heighten!

A few hurricane notes:

Whatever "category" they declare this storm, it is obvious that there were tornadoes hidden in the eyewall and these caused damage that cannot be categorized.

The Hurricane Center seems especially concerned, in the future, for Tampa, Long Island, New York, and the Florida Keys -- as well as Galveston, which is still susceptible, with questionable levees.

Expect surprises. But too, remember this:

The Responsorial Psalm on August 30?

"I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living."

The Psalm on August 31 at the height of the trauma?

"I trust in the mercy of God for ever."

Oh, the storms, and the clouds. Above are photos that were taken of tornado skies out west that have also seen greatly heightened activity.

It is our mission to point such things out, and to marshal prayers against such events occurring.

For that to happen, we have to pray mostly that our hearts are changed and our impurities are expelled.

[note lastly: Monday's reading from Timothy referred to those who "incur the Devil’s punishment" -- leaving us with the intriguing notion, as Father Lionel said, that it is more God allowing the devil extended power to attack because we have drawn away from Him than the Lord striking with an iron fist, though this He can also do. It is more a case of lowering our own protection. Which makes us all vulnerable -- in New Orleans or our own lives. Hold high the Cross!]

9/14/05

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