Spirit Daily
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It's That Time Of Year and Swerves In Weather Accompany A Prophetic Beat
It was mentioned five years ago that the signs of the world would come most prominently in the way of climate flux and that as the climate shifted there would be extreme events.
It was said that the increase of temperatures would cause more evaporation and that evaporation would cause more moisture in the air, leading to heavier rain events.
We have seen that most recently in Bombay -- which received 37 inches of rain in a single day!
It was warned that in other parts of the world, higher temperatures would lead to aridity, and in fact last week just about the entire state of Illinois was declared as drought-stricken.
We mentioned hurricanes as coming with greater frequency, along with tornadoes (which have been quiet this year but during the past several years have set records), and there was the warning of yet higher temperatures.
During July more than 100 weather outposts in the U.S. alone recorded record temperatures (some the hottest July ever).
And so, literally, we see and feel the winds of change. Call it chastisement. It's what St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, whose feast day we celebrate this week, wrote about, extensively. Those who see it all as "coincidence" risk the label of over-rationalization. Each year, at this time, it seems like there is a story like this -- but each summer with yet greater intensity.
It has been strange all year all over, and will continue in such a pattern as we head into a steeper curve of purification. Expect this winter to contain similar precipitation events. It is a time of extremes -- both hot and cold (though in global averages a mainly and striking trend of warming).
"We had a white Christmas," recalls Father Michael Lyons, pastor at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Ganado, Texas. "Snowflakes appeared, as forecast, throughout the day on December 24, with no accumulation, also as forecast. But then, on the evening of December 24, about 8:30 p.m. Central Standard Time, snow began falling and accumulating, totally unexpected by weather forecasters, and continued to accumulate throughout the 'holy night.' We had 15 inches of snow on the ground on Christmas morning. It was the first white Christmas in this area since 1918. Meanwhile May and June are the months for those famous 'late-afternoon thundershowers' to appear. But in May of 2005, we had several unforeseen night-time thundershowers with fierce lightning and thunder. I drove through a couple of those unexpected storms and truly felt a tinge of fear with the lightning so big and so close all around. The Hail Mary was constantly on my lips during those storms, which, like the white Christmas, seemed to come 'from out of nowhere.'"
It was nearly a year ago that the great Catholic mystic, Maria Esperanza, died. Unlike the weatherman (at least the local one; climatologists also saw it coming), she had foreseen just such a pace in natural disruptions and always focused on the year 2004 as the beginning.
A week after her death, Hurricane Charley hit.
Associated with a Church-sanctioned site of apparitions at Betania, Venezuela, Esperanza -- whose name means "hope" -- saw the coming events as gifts from God (to reorient us).
And so there is the prophetic pulse, in addition to what comes to us from meteorology.
We give air to "words of knowledge" (as in the early Church) and so listen to discern claims like this:
"I was at Adoration last night and Jesus spoke at 10:40 p.m.," says a viewer. "He said, 'Woe, woe unto this evil generation there sins are an abomination to my Sacred Heart there will be much suffering upon mankind many things will begin to intensify there will be an upheaval in China. They are involved with world events behind the scenes."
There will be more explosions, said this one alleged prophecy, and when we submit it for your discernment, we do it with the knowledge that there are countless similar ones out there. Some of them have the ring of truth while also may be truth but have the ring of the person's own inner thoughts.
Many locutions sound simply like a person speculating aloud. But they are not to be despised. God speaks through our intuitions.
"Strange weather indeed," wrote another viewer several months ago. "I really can't remember a spring quite like this one. I live in Pennsylvania and spring started with two weeks of hot weather. It seemed like we had gone right from winter to summer. But then the switch was flipped again. And we've had steady cool weather, sunny, not much rain, and cold nights. I've never had to use heat in June, and this morning again was so cold that we had to kick up the furnace to take the chill off the house. It seems a little odd. But the one thing I've noticed, and I just mentioned this to my husband last night, is that we haven't had even one spring thunderstorm."
Unusually stormy in one place, unusually calm in another. We must key on the word "unusual."
There are of course the other signs. There are nearly daily reports of phenomena having to do with Catholic statues. Last week, folks claimed strange supernatural-like images in Bosnia while statues seemed to come to life and drew crowds from New Jersey to Italy.
There in Texas, viewer Jim Kaye states that "on May 7, 2005, I was at St John Neumann here in Houston for the English First Holy Communion 9 a.m. Mass. [A friend] took an amazing picture. The St. Benedict Crucifix I was wearing at the presentation of the gifts glowed. We have tried every which way to make it happen again and we cannot. Tim used no flash or laser. There was no light above me."
At the time the photo was taken, he says, he was praying for protection in the period that many foresee as one of tribulation.
"Signs will continue to increase," another locutionist claimed to hear. "Remain watchful, and do not be surprised. Recall My words concerning this month and know that events will further increase during the following month (July)."
Now that it has ended, was July actually quite so momentous?
"Time is short," says this message and so many others. As for momentous: it was the case at least for twenty million whose lives were disrupted by those monsoons in India and for those living in Birmingham, England, where a freak storm uprooted trees and sent street signs flying, turned over vehicles, and wrecked hundreds of buildings -- many of which had their roofs ripped away. It was another extreme, the worst tornado there in at least 75 years.
8/1/05