ritaaftermath

We speak here of prophecy: It's fashionable for secular writers to refer to those who see signs in nature and disasters as out of the mainstream, as indeed is the case: Anyone who reads the Bible and believes in the actual gift of prophecy is out of the current mainstream. Such a one, to be sure, is not "worldly." Jesus, of course, operated at society's fringe.

But He spoke the truth as the Bible still speaks the truth and the truth is that much of spiritual import transpires around us.

All hail God for what happened with Hurricane Rita! Now here was a storm that at one point was the third lowest in barometric pressure ever recorded for the Atlantic basin, a strong, ferocious category-five, barreling through bathwater -- and yet by the time it got to shore it was a relatively mild event, at least by the standards of the current hurricane picture.

Actually, coming days will likely reveal more damage than at first reported. Whole hamlets have been wiped out.

"Southern Louisiana has undergone great flood damage to all of the coastal areas," notes a distraught viewer from that area. "National news is not covering the damage to our parish of Terrebonne. The lower half of the parish is under several feet of water in areas that have never flooded before. All five levees in our parish broke, causing widespread flooding. We are a faithful people here in South Louisiana and could really use prayers for all those affected."

And so we continue our prayers. What will the final tally be? If it is $8 billion, it will make Rita one of the top-ten most destructive storms on record, at least monetarily, and that means we have gotten to the point where we breathe a sigh of relief when a hurricane costs "only" $8 billion in damage! So it is also that a magnitude-seven quake in Peru -- which would have been a headliner a few years ago -- barely makes the news.

"Many in Texas marveled that the damage was lighter than expected, with Governor Rick Perry calling it 'miraculous,'" reports a major news outlet.

For the millions in and around Houston, miraculous it was. We are still in a period of warning, if perhaps the waning moments. This storm proved that. Instead of destroying the entire oil industry, and swamping Galveston, Rita delivered but a glancing blow.

If we look closely at Katrina and Rita, we will see a lesson on how quickly we could collapse into a third-world country and how just two storms could have knocked the legs out of our entire economy.

God is preparing us. We are at a place where we are seeing a period of mercy and warning melding into a period of chastisement.

A death toll of 1,000 is some kind of threshold, and that number was exceeded last week in New Orleans and Mississippi. That was in the realm of chastisement.

But then we look at Rita and it thread the needle in order not to cause a catastrophe. "If it moved north, the Golden Triangle of the petroleum industry would get a direct hit," said another news outlet. "But the storm weakened slightly and made landfall in a tiny, evacuated shrimping village surrounded by marsh and a wildlife refuge, perhaps the perfect place to prevent loss of life and economic damage."

We are at the interface of Mercy and Justice and these events bear local meaning but more importantly are a message to an entire nation. It also accents our way of life: Nowhere is more polluted than the stretch from New Orleans to Galveston.

And so we come to the point: these events are not just local messages. They are messages for the entire nation and the whole world. From cloning to abortion to gay marriage to Hollywood to the energy of television to war -- there are many evils.

"I attend daily Mass and at least one hour of Eucharistic Adoration every day," writes Dan Soderlund of Northfield, Minnesota. "While meditating a year ago, God told me in my heart to start downsizing and stop being so attached to personal wealth. I tested God and sold off my extensive coin collection as well as my opulent cabin in northern Minnesota. I felt a great peace and detachment after doing this."

Ah, prophecy: we are open to listening for discernment. Help us discern. Mostly, we are lifted by the result of prayers -- so many praying in so many ways!

"We called upon the mercy and love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and asked the saints of Rita and Margaret Mary to join us in intercession," notes a woman named Elizabeth from San Ramon, California. "During the prayer and worship I was given a vision. In it our Lord, the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was standing gigantic in the eastern portion of Texas facing east. A brilliant light of His mercy and love was streaming from His heart towards the Gulf. Mary, His mother, diminutive in size compared to her Son, was standing on the border of Louisiana and Texas, facing the Gulf and it was unclear what she was doing, and the saints Margaret and Rita -- diminutive in size like Mary, compared to Jesus, were facing Him, heads bowed, praying and kneeling on the coast of Texas where the Hurricane has first been projected to hit. They were indeed praying in one accord with us and angels could be seen surrounding that which had been prayed for, facing outward from that which was protected. In the waking hours of this morning, in the spirit, the Lord showed me what His mother had done. Indeed, in the natural realm this morning, the news is confirming the exact results of what He showed us in the supernatural yesterday."

"I know there are many stories of Divine Mercy in the recent storms. I am here to say thank you to St. Rita, St. Michael the Archangel, and most certainly to the Divine Mercy of Jesus. I have a sister who lives in Corpus Christi and a brother who lives in Alexandria, Louisiana. During the past week my family was most concerned as to the welfare of both of them. We prayed to St. Rita that my sister's home and her family would be protected. As you know the Hurricane did not go to Corpus Christi although for a while it looked like it might. They were also delayed in leaving Corpus because of my brother-in-laws work in the oil business so they didn't have to evacuate. Then I read at Spirit Daily about someone who had called upon St. Michael and all the angels to protect her property. I asked St. Michael, my brother Brian's guardian angel, to protect his business, which is a plant nursery, his home, and where he was staying out away from the storm in Shreveport.

"Well, my parents spoke with him this morning his nursery got no rain, no wind... but the radar looked like it was pounding the place. Where he was staying in Shreveport also no wind or rain. It is as if the storm made loops around where he was! This morning as I went to read scriptures I opened up my bible to the 21 Chapter of Sirach dealing with the Divine Mercy of God. What can I say but thank you God!"