Mama!

mamanursingFrancisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664)

 

HER presence was tangible, her voice clear as she spoke in my heart after I received the Blessed Sacrament at Mass. It was the next day after the Flame of Love conference in Philadelphia where I spoke to a packed room about the need to entrust oneself totally to Mary. But as I knelt after Communion, contemplating the Crucifix hanging over the sanctuary, I pondered about the meaning of “consecrating” oneself to Mary. “What does it mean to give myself totally to Mary? How does one consecrate all his goods, past and present, to the Mother? What does it really mean? What are the right words when I feel so helpless?”

It was at that moment I sensed an inaudible voice speak in my heart.

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With All Prayer

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for Thursday, October 27th, 2016

Liturgical texts here

arturo-mariSt. John Paul II on a prayer walk near Edmonton, Alberta
(Arturo Mari; The Canadian Press)

 

IT came to me a few years ago, as clear as a flash of lightning: it will only be by God’s grace that His children will pass through this valley of the shadow of death. It is only through prayer, which draws down these graces, that the Church will safely navigate the treacherous seas that are swelling all around her. That is to say that all our own scheming, survivalist instincts, ingenuity and preparations—if undertaken without the guidance of divine wisdom—will fall tragically short in the days to come. For God is stripping His Church at this hour, stripping her of her self-assurance and those pillars of complacency and false security upon which she has been leaning.

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On Medjugorje

 

This week, I have been reflecting on the past three decades since Our Lady reportedly began appearing in Medjugorje. I have been pondering the incredible persecution and danger that the seers endured, never knowing from day to day if the Communists would dispatch them as the Yugoslavian government was known to do with “resistors” (since the six seers would not, under threat, say that the apparitions were false). I am thinking of the countless apostolates that I have encountered in my travels, men and women who found their conversion and calling on that mountainside… most especially the priests I have met whom Our Lady called on pilgrimage there. I am thinking too that, not too long from now, the entire world will be drawn “into” Medjugorje as the so-called “secrets” that the seers have faithfully kept are revealed (they have not even discussed them with each other, save for the one that is common to them all—a permanent “miracle” that will be left behind on Apparition Hill.)

I am thinking too of those who have resisted the countless graces and fruits of this place that often read like the Acts of the Apostles on steroids. It is not my place to declare Medjugorje true or false—something the Vatican continues to discern. But neither do I ignore this phenomenon, invoking that common objection that “It’s private revelation, so I don’t have to believe it”—as if what God has to say outside the Catechism or Bible is unimportant. What God has spoken through Jesus in Public Revelation is necessary for salvation; but what God has to say to us through prophetic revelation is necessary at times for our ongoing sanctification. And thus, I wish to blow the trumpet—at the risk of being called all the usual names of my detractors—at what seems utterly obvious: that Mary, Mother of Jesus, has been coming to this place for over thirty years in order to prepare us for Her Triumph—whose climax we seem to be rapidly approaching. And so, since I have so many new readers of late, I wish to republish the following with this caveat: though I have written relatively little about Medjugorje over the years, nothing gives me more joy… why is that?

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On the Eve

 

 

One of the central functions of this writing apostolate is to show how Our Lady and the Church are truly mirrors of one another—that is, how authentic so-called “private revelation” mirrors the prophetic voice of the Church, most especially that of the popes. In fact, it has been a great eye-opener for me to see how the pontiffs, for over a century, have been paralleling the Blessed Mother’s message such that her more personalized warnings are essentially the “other side of the coin” of the institutional warnings of the Church. This is most evident in my writing Why Aren’t the Popes Shouting?

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Raise Your Sails (Preparing for Chastisement)

Sails

 

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. (Acts 2:1-2)


THROUGHOUT salvation history, God has not only used the wind in his divine action, but He Himself comes like the wind (cf. Jn 3:8). The Greek word pneuma as well as the Hebrew ruah means both “wind” and “spirit.” God comes as a wind to empower, purify, or procure judgment (see The Winds of Change).

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Is Jesus Really Coming?

majesticloud.jpgPhoto by Janice Matuch

 

A friend connected to the underground Church in China told me of this incident not long ago:

Two mountain villagers descended into a Chinese city looking for a specific female leader of the underground Church there. This elderly husband and wife were not Christians. But in a vision, they were given the name of a woman they were to look for and deliver a message.

When they found this woman, the couple said, “A bearded man appeared to us in the sky and said we were to come tell you that ‘Jesus is returning.’

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