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MEDITATION ON CHURCH-APPROVED APPARITIONS: HAS FORETOLD 'CHASTISEMENT' ALREADY BEGUN?

By Michael H. Brown

Sitting in a truly anointed chapel at the Cana Marian Retreat Center under a large picture of the Sorrowful Mother just outside of the apparition site of Kibeho in Africa two weeks ago, I prayed for discerning the many seers -- including from Kibeho -- who in the past three decades have claimed we are approaching a time of "chastisement." An intense rain storm was lashing at the church -- growing in fury by the minute -- and at the very moment when I looked up to the light over the Blessed Sacrament, it blinked out. At the same time, a notion entered: the chastisement has already begun.

Of course, this has nothing to do with a specific "great chastisement" (foreseen at places like Kibeho, which is as powerful a place as I have been), but relates more to a period, perhaps, when we are seeing regional events -- especially with the weather -- intensify into a time of purification.

While we often wait for the drama of an earth-stopping event, what the world faces is being indicated to us by events and trends that indeed already surround us.

I was struck on the way home, at a stop in northern Europe (where weather had delayed our plane), to read in the London Daily Mail a headline about the premature arrival of winter there. Said the subhead: "Minister calls for calm as bread, milk, and fuel supplies start to run out."

"Britain's families were last night urged by the Government not to panic buy as the big freeze brought fears of shortages in bread, milk, and fuel," said the article. "Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman insisted there was no problem with the food supply. But even as she spoke, millions around the country were stockpiling staple foods with supermarkets, rationing some products. And petrol suppliers warned of 'critical shortages' as garages began to run out of fuel."

The article was accompanied by photos of a gas station with a sign that said "Sorry No Diesel" and supermarket shelves devoid of bread and milk.

This is just over a snowstorm. We live at a time when a breakdown in infrastructure can originate in anything from a hurricane or terrorist attack (recall the aftermaths of 9/11 and "Katrina") to sudden economic turmoil (as would have occurred two years ago if the U.S. government had not artificially propped up the economy). Said the "1990 prophecy" (which arguably foresaw September 11), "These chastisements will differ according to regions, and like the great evil, will not always or usually be immediately noticeable for what they are."

Several years ago, supermarkets similarly emptied in places like Florida that were merely brushed by hurricanes. I suggest that no matter where one lives, it is always wise to have a supply of freeze-dried food or meals-ready-to eat or canned goods enough to last a minimum of several weeks, and prudent to have extra foodstuffs, water, filtration devices, extra medications, batteries, flashlights, propane, cash, gold, or silver coins on hand, whether we one day see simply a prolonged regional event (like snow or ice) or a more punctuated event that catches our government off-guard.

This isn't "doom-and-gloom" stuff, but rather prudence. The gloom would be if we are caught off-guard. Many are those who, in the spirit, have been drawn to beginning large home gardens. Some are even eyeing farmlands. It is interesting that apparitions of the Blessed Mother so often occur in simple rural places where -- as at Kibeho -- there is still subsistence farming. If there was a substantial breakdown in modern systems of communications and transport, we might grow to envy those who live off the land and whom we currently think of as impoverished (but who, eating their beans and maize and rice and avocadoes, picked from the bushes or trees on their plot, would not notice any such disruption; see right).

Here's a simple fact: seers from an apparition site in Africa that has the approval of the local bishop and Rome -- about as approved as it gets, short a visit from the Pope himself -- have directly stated that we face major events and these same seers directly foresaw the genocide in Rwanda -- right down to the details of mayhem.

Just days ago, protesters -- angry over the economy -- attacked a car that Prince Charles and Camilla were in (prodding her with a stick through the limo window).

And yesterday in the news: "Protesters set fire to cars, threw paint and smoke bombs at the Italian parliament and clashed with riot police on Tuesday in Rome's worst violence for years after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi survived a confidence vote. Shops were forced to close as protesters, many of them wearing ski masks, overturned tables of sidewalk restaurants, flower vases and parked motorcycles. The protesters smashed bank windows, destroyed several cash machines and threw chairs and tables at police vehicles."

It is one thing to be skeptical; it is another to be in denial.

To dismiss the idea of a chastisement yet to occur is to dismiss prophecies from bishop-approved sites in Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Iraq, Syria, Japan, and the Netherlands, as well as Kibeho. Somehow, there are those who can not separate the notion of chastisement from the "end of the world" -- when in fact history is rife with examples and when we could also call what is foreseen a "reorientation," not the Final Apocalypse.

One day, probably in most of our lifetimes, matters will become more intense than they were that morning of September 11. In His goodness, God is going to simplify us. Perhaps it will come gradually -- as the onset has come slowly. It may grind on. It may involve punctuated events. How patient is God! How much He has warned us! He is not "punishing" us; He is leaving forces to our own devices (now that we have shoved Him away). God never wishes the worst for us. He does, however, see the big picture -- which is our eternity. 

The same day as that weather story, the main headline in that edition of the London Mail -- on its tabloid front -- was: "CLONED MEAT GETS GO-AHEAD."

That was a week and a few days ago in London.

Nine years ago, on September 11, 2001, in New York, a key front page headline in The New York Times said, "Scientists Urge Bigger Supply Of Stem Cells; Report Backs Cloning to Create New Lines."

Do we get it yet? Will we ever? Or do we have a pathological aversion to the idea of supernatural warnings (despite Fatima)?

Do we really believe in the Bible? Do we really believe in prophecy? Or are we cultural Catholics, only?

A high-point event is coming. High-points events (plural) are coming, in the coming days or months, or years.

It's an exciting time to be alive. It is so worthwhile. We can still make such a difference. And, too, I felt "told" that for those who pray, there will never be darkness.

[Announcing a prophetic retreat in Louisiana]

[resources: Our Lady of Kibeho, A Visit From Heaven, The Last Secret, and The Final Hour]

[Cana Marian Retreat Center and Kibeho pilgrimage website]

[see also: For our discernment: dramatic warning from site in Rwanda, Incredible similarities between apparitions in U.S., Europe, Africa, Shrines rise at mysterious African apparition site, and Major theologian says apparitions are met with resistance in Church]

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