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AT RETREATS, A FOCUS ON THE LITTLE SIGNS THAT MAY PORTEND SOMETHING MUCH BIGGER

At our retreats, part of the time is spent discussing prophecy. For sure. We'll be doing so in Los Angeles this weekend. We are also announcing a Midwest retreat (in Kansas City). Call it "signs of the times."

Little signs lead to big ones.

Look at the little ones around us.

They are miniatures of what will or may come.

We can also call them forerunners.

It is the time of the "miniature" signs.

Just note how very many transpirings in the world are little tastes of bigger things -- like previews; samples; appetizers (that are not so appetizing).

We are seeing small quakes -- especially in California -- just as many fear a major, mega quake will come.

We are seeing aridity and droughts -- as mega-drought can be a chastisement.

Right now the droughts are "small" compared to what can occur. Even the "Dust Bowl" of the Thirties was of relatively short duration (as if caused by the depression over the Depression).

Historically, there have been mega-droughts that spanned half the nation and went on for centuries.

We are seeing meteors -- which can represent larger asteroids.

California has had more than its share of little hints. Not just small quakes in places like Napa but also wildfires, water shortages, and last weekend a strange streaking light in the sky.

In Arizona -- floods, as elsewhere. Storms? One of our retreats will be in New Orleans.

We are seeing the spread of viruses. Ebola. Avian flu. Now a fever (enterovirus) in the United States.

Could Ebola, or something akin, ever go airborne?

We are listening as the earth rumbles -- and as volcanoes from Italy to Iceland spew a bit of lava and smoke, as a mega-volcano may someday pour forth far greater plumes and resonate for thousands of miles.

The other day we posted a fascinating video clip showing smoke from a volcano and then the sound of the shock wave (view that here).

Previews?

Little brothers to a big brother?

Speaking of brothers, are we heading to Big Brother?

There are drones. There is surveillance all around us (for now small). There is a plan by Google to vastly extend its global data bank, and by Apple to change the way we pay for everything (no more wallet).

Is the debit card a little sign of what will in the future pour forth?

There is war. Iraq. Syria. Libya. Ukraine. They are small, for now.

Do they foretell a big one (if we don't adequately pray it away)?

This past weekend the Pope referred to current conflicts in the world (9/13/14) as "piecemeal World War II."

We are seeing piecemeal warnings and chastisements.

Little signs in the culture: does forcing a Christian baker to bake for a gay wedding or a Catholic group to pay to cover contraception or banning Chick-fil-A from a public school because the company is in  favor of sanctified marriage or indicting a governor because he is conservative or auditing the opposition or mandating vaccines or forcing "smart meters" into homes or allowing satanic masses in public places: do all these things (and many other examples) constitute the "warning shots" of oppression?

There are pulses from the sun. Are the solar flares harbingers of a major storm that could take down our electronic infrastructure? (Imagine the country without satellite communication, internet, TV, and perhaps not even electricity for a week -- or for months. What would be the ramifications?).

We are seeing little civil disturbances, divisions, and uprisings. Do they portend major domestic conflict?

It is time to pray for the conversion of your household, your neighborhood, your city, your state, your country, our world. Think of an epidemic: would you really want everyone around you (including family members) threatened? Imagine an event that occurred and left you unable to communicate with those you love -- that made a hundred miles an impossible distance?

Meditate on that, before looking forward to such.

Sometimes, we can nearly anticipate future events like they will be a circus, a movie, exciting, but decidedly they will not be something we simply watch. Just meditate on how it might be. And pray for the best eventuality.

We sometimes look forward to purification because -- and it's true -- the world is so out of whack. But the first prayer should be for conversion.

We are in the time of "pre-signs." They come every day. The persecutions in the Middle East, as well as Pakistan, the Philippines, and eastern Asia: will Muslims once more mount a "holy" war against Christians (as they did over the course of centuries during the Middle Ages -- nearly capturing all of Europe, but for Our Blessed Mother's intervention)?

So many little "crises" that we must take note. They are not just news items. They are microcosms.

But: just pray.

Purity and love. Purity and love.

If you have those, you are prepared.

Mary Undoer of Knots plus The Holy Cloak novena, $7.25

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