Our main spiritual chore at this time is praying for the victim-souls of the Great Gulf Coast Deluge and imploring God to help those who are struggling to regain their lives. This is prayer number one.

We pray that anyone still trapped is rescued, that residents are protected from things like cholera, that the toxics be removed, that the horror quickly fade, that the displaced find homes, jobs, the kids normalcy, that the religious are able to rebuild, that evil is now kept away from the City of Saints, and that those deceased find Heaven quickly. Pray for the souls; many forget this.

Prayer is even more important than donations.

At the same time, however, we do another charitable thing and consider the message of what has occurred -- the spiritual underpinning -- if we are to avoid or at least lessen what else is coming. 

For there is no question that the future holds challenges.

Those challenges may come sooner rather than later.

When we look at what has happened in just the past year -- dramatic climate fluctuations, an historic tsunami, turmoil in the Church, the death of a Pope, societal uproars such as that of Terri Schiavo, and now New Orleans -- we note a great quickening of events.

These are times that should not be trifled with, and there is a prophetic pulse, including a wariness that water may now be followed by fire. I don't make any claims to being a prophet. But I am increasingly concerned about reports that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups may have secured tactical nuclear devices by way of Chechens and former republics of the Soviet Union, and that such devices may have been "forward deployed" in the U.S. We urge prayer in this regard (note the hidden images in the nuclear cloud above). With prayer it can be stopped. Pray for New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, Washington, and other major cities.

Before that, in all likelihood, however, we have nature to contend with. Expect an intensification of natural events.  

It is our job to give air to the prophetic pulse (which Scriptures admonishes us to do), and as always we caution that prophecy is something that can easily run amuck. Many are the seers. We have no idea how many are real. It must be discerned carefully.

But it's fascinating to note here the messages of "Our Lady of America" -- which received an imprimatur from a bishop, Archbishop Paul F. Leibold of Cincinnati, who also authorized both a medal and a relief to commemorate apparitions to a nun in Fostoria, Ohio, named Sister Mildred Mary Ephrem Neuzil, who received apparitions from 1954 right up to her death five years ago.

Sister Mildred's were the first known time that an American apparition with messages has been thus sanctioned to such an extent by a bishop [see archive].

The messages included specific warnings from the Blessed Mother on purity -- ironic, in light of the now oft-repeated fact that "Katrina" means "purity."

"I desire, through my children of America, to further the cause of faith and purity among peoples and nations," the Virgin allegedly told Sister Mildred. "Cleanse your souls in the Precious Blood of my Son. The hour grows late. My Son's patience will not last forever. Help me hold back His anger, which is about to descend on sinful and ungrateful men. Help me bring the sunshine of God's peace upon the world. If you do not prepare yourselves, God will Himself be forced to do so in His justice and mercy. My dear children, either you will do as I desire and reform your lives, or God Himself will need to cleanse you in the fire of untold punishment."

And so we have what many of you the viewers have felt: the message to prepare (mainly, spiritually), and also of fire, or something fiery.

When we are spiritually prepared, and when we love, there is no fear of anything (1 John 4:18).

But there is also no denying that a major bishop believed an apparition in the which the Blessed Mother was also reported as describing "suffering and anguish" that was "about to overtake mankind." It is our duty to pray with urgency. If it was "late" in the 1950s, it's a minute to midnight now.

It was a message to the U.S., and Mary said she wanted the bishops to make it known. She also seems to be speaking through average people.

Average people and not just alleged seers have been given similar prompts in the spirit, and from what we are sent, it is the same message: there is an uneasiness.

No softening that.

Prepare yourself spiritually.

Let's go to the mailbag:

"Three days before Katrina, my husband and I were taking our daily walk here in Richmond, Virginia, and as we were walking we were looking up to the sky and right there was a cloud forming a big hammer and small crosses along the sky," notes Nilda Torres. "My husband, who is a very good, devout Catholic, said, 'You know, something big is coming.'"

"I feel many things are on the horizon," writes another viewer. "We got very strong confirmations about being detached from possessions and to be in a state of preparedness and prayer and how God loves the poor," noted a viewer named Laura who says she and another woman saw the exact same image during a Rosary session ("the mighty Hand of God, sweeping across the nation, from the east to the west").

One viewer started a prayer chain to Our Lady of Prompt Succor -- the famed statue in New Orleans that has been credited numerous times with sparing that city. Not this time. "I saw Mary, dressed all in black, turning her back to the city and saying sadly, 'No, this must be,'" she claims. "'This is God's Will.'"

"Yesterday," claims this same viewer, "I was told we will be judged by our reaction to the tragedy. And I was told that the earth had been warned with earth, air, and water; next was fire."

"God is gathering His warriors together," said another viewer.

Another saw chaos on Long Island, "terrible wind, darkness, smoke, people running in all directions."

Let us note great caution when it comes to such specificity -- at the same time that we realize the opportunity to pray about certain areas.

A viewer from Houston claims to have received an inclination about Canberra, "a city I had to look up to know where it was." We note that only because Australia was mentioned more than once.

"I have this friend whom I believe has a beautiful gift from Jesus," writes Gabriel R. Romero of Arizona. "She has visions in her dreams and in one of them she saw something very bad happening to the U.S. in 2006. It made her cry and very scared. She asked Jesus when it will happen but when He told her, she woke up and immediately forgot half of the dream."

How much stock can we put in "prompts" like that? Does God give out dates? He did at Fatima. Does He do so now? How much is prophecy and how much is the subconscious (or even the dark side, in some cases trying to scare us)?

These are things we have always placed into your hands for discernment while we attempt to realize the Bible's instruction to weigh all such things and not to despise prophecy, but to take from it what is useful as benchmarks for the future. Many received such words in the past five years.

"The disasters will come one upon another," warns a viewer who believes she has heard the Lord speak.

Another saw crosses come from the moon and yet another had a vision while praying.

"I looked up and on all the horizons there were flames and in front of the flames I could see the silhouettes of buildings, power lines, vehicles, and people," she said. "I felt distressed because I could not get the attention of the people around me because they were so deeply asleep. The vision ended and the following words immediately came to my mind--- 'The world will never be the same.' Despite the nature of the vision and the words I was not frightened -- in fact in a way I was left with a feeling of hope."

Cleansing should always bring hope. Fear is faith in the devil.

If God is the Empire State Building, Satan is less than a grain of sand, another seer once said.