When events occur in nature, like a tsunami -- followed closely by another quake, which traps thousands -- our thoughts turn, as they are wont, to the notion that one day a graduated series of such happenings will presage or precipitate an unusually large event, larger than the Asian tsunami of 2004 or a storm like "Katrina."

We are in a time of signs, and despite lulls, they will graduate -- perhaps mushrooming suddenly, when we least expect, if both ancient and modern prophets are to be believed.

Scripture says to test the spirits, take what is good from a "revelation," and leave the rest. The key question is always what to leave.

Some of it can get a bit wild.

"Here God spoke to me saying, 'My son, every person will be asked to compulsorily take immunization against the swine flu in the next few days,'" is a "message' given to a Protestant pastor in Germany in August. "This is a disguise. They will in the process be infected with demons from the abyss -- all who do not have My spirit and My seal upon them. These cursed spirits will arise again out of the abyss and return through the 'swine' to continue their mischief amongst the people who neither know nor follow Me."

This taps into the current and widespread fear that a) the swine flu was bioengineered and deliberately released to cause a pandemic -- either to reduce the populace or create business for pharmaceutical companies b) that the vaccine has hidden nano-particles that could be used for detection or c) that the vaccine itself will cause negative health effects, perhaps even infertility.

Never before has there been such an outburst of resistance to a vaccination, and the question is whether those feelings come from a movement in the spirit or sources that spread dubious paranoia. The concern: that not taking a vaccine, and even mentioning the negative possibilities, could lead to deaths from influenza. Officials fear that without mass vaccination a sudden mutation in the virus that will make it as deadly as the flu that killed twenty to forty million in 1918-1920 (including two of the three Fatima seers). On the other hand, there is a report that H1N1 swine flu vaccine carries that warning that it could cause Guillain-Barre Syndrome and vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels). Indeed, some speculate that the 1918 flu originated with a vaccine at a military base, and soldiers in Iraq have long suspected vaccines as the cause of health disorders.

A difficult discernment here -- and once again, a lesson: before doing or not doing anything, pray first and be very careful with locutions. Let God lead you through your own best judgment (that inner feeling whereby you know you know in your deepest intuition).

It seems to reflect back on a suddenly exploding distrust of government, especially in the wake of globalization and massive government bailouts. Many dark theories here: that those forming a "new world order" want to herd the masses who disobey even into quarantine or detention camps and even that scientists involved in viral research have recently disappeared.

In recent weeks, we have been using the term "paranoia" with increased frequency. It is something against which we must always guard, for the devil inspires it; at the same time, we must be vigilant at a moment when a new order indeed is forming.

"Do not dwell on the darkness so much," says another locution to a Minnesota man named Cletus Schefers and handed to us last weekend. "Satan wants to put fear in My Church. He wants you to fear persecution, the anti-christ, and the one-world order."

And yet just paragraphs before, this same locutionist quotes the Lord as telling him, "I will not be mocked. I am the Creator of Heaven and earth, not mankind, not Satan. Your sinful human race is trying to play God. When that happens, if no repentance comes, I must cleanse My Creation from evil. I am a merciful Father, but as any father, I must chastise My children.

A "warning" is coming, it claims, parroting other similar messages, and when it does, the power of Satan will be broken and souls taken from his kingdom.

Up until that time, it says, pray the Divine Mercy chaplets that the lukewarm respond when events do come.

Nothing wrong with prayer! And in Tower of Light is explained a prophecy that precisely has to do with the current move by scientists to break down and then refashion God's Creation. Many underestimate the serious nature of that trend.

"Why are My people so blind," it goes on to say. "Can you not see the signs around you?"

We present such "words of knowledge" because we want to remain open.

On September 24 another who goes by the name of the "Littlest of Servants" asserts that: "I asked and received the same vision two days in a row as a confirmation that what I was getting was correct. I saw the ground shaking and skyscrapers falling, roads cracking and splitting apart, and many, many freeway overpasses that had collapsed. I then was taken into the air and I was looking over a huge city and I saw complete devastation in many areas.

"I then saw the name Los Angeles and I saw over the name Los Angeles the names one after another Abortion, Pornography, Murder, Materialism, and Sexual Abuse of the Children. The Eternal Father then spoke and told me that His Justice was His Mercy because mankind was no longer living under His Ten Commandments and that if He did not correct us we would soon destroy ourselves and the world with it -- that He could not allow this and so the time for Him to step in and save us had come."

We have been hearing similar prophecies for many years now -- since the 1980s, almost ad infinitum -- and yet the faithful have maintained their patient conviction that events will come. In fact there has been a gradual build-up precisely since 1990 in regionalized events.

Floods. Perfect storms. Quakes. Something looms. But what? And who hears correctly? Does it have any bearing to older predictions?

There are the apocryphal scriptures like 2 Esdras. While it was not received into European Christian canons, the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra, that is, 2 Esdras 3-14, is regarded as Scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and it was also widely cited by early Fathers of the Church, particularly Ambrose of Milan. It involves supposed visions to the prophet Ezra (also known as Shealtiel, who appears in the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah) of the forgotten archangel Uriel (top, left). He is said to be a fourth great angel and though unnamed in the official Bible, his name is in 1 Enoch, 4 Esdras, and the Apocalypse of St. Peter and means "fire of God"; tradition associates him with the "angel of fire" in the Apocalypse of John:

"Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe" (Revelation 14:18).