Where Did God Go?

I will lead you into the desert…
I will strip you of everything
that you are depending on now,
so you depend just on Me.
A time of darkness is coming on the world,
but a time of glory is coming for My Church,
a time of glory is coming for My people.

—The “Prophecy at Rome“,
St. Peter’s Square, Pentecost Monday, 1975
in the presence of Pope Paul VI

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There is coming a time, if we have not already entered it, when our religious clichés will collapse, when our formulas will fail, when all the supports upon which we have relied in the past will be pulled from beneath us.

As I pondered this “now word” over the past few weeks, I was surprised by the “confirmation” that our translator sent to me a few days ago in a message allegedly from Our Lady:

Dear children, I ask you to keep the flame of your faith alight. You are heading towards a future of great spiritual darkness, and only the light of faith will guide you on the path to salvation. —to Pedro Regis, Brazil, January 13, 2026

Years ago, as I walked along a country road, praying and reflecting, a word came to me out of the blue:

It is only by faith alone that you will pass through the Great Storm.

Our talents, charisms, knowledge, understanding… none of it will be enough. Only complete trust in the Father’s providence will carry us, like an ark, through the Storm.

I recently wrote about The Wearing Down of the Saints. This is a real thing many of us are experiencing. Spiritual darkness is falling upon the Church and the world. We can all see it, at least those who are not in denial. What is happening around the globe — the violence, callousness, chaos and lawlessness — is traumatizing. St. Paul warned that it would be:

Understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God… (2 Timothy 3:1-4)

Jesus put it simply:

…because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold. (Matt 24:11-12)

The constant exposure to evil, the dimming of the flame of faith in our communities, the collapse in credibility of the Church’s leadership, the intense divisions playing out on social media… it is exhausting as much as it may be challenging to our faith. We may start to feel like evil is winning; that God is powerless, or perhaps, that there is no God!

This week’s Mass readings are a timely parable of what is being said here…

Where Did God Go?

The Philistines set out to attack the Israelites, who came out to meet them in battle. But Israel lost four thousand men. So they said,

Let us fetch the Ark of the Lord from Shiloh that it may go into battle among us and save us from the grasp of our enemies. (1 Sam 4:3)

Yes, they turned to their clichés, formulas, and past supports. But when Israel went into battle again, not only did they lose 30,000 more soldiers, but the Ark of the Covenant was taken by the Philistines! To make matters worse, when their high priest Eli learned of this, he fell backward in his chair and died from a broken neck. It was just one dark turn after another for the People of God, so much so that Eli’s daughter-in-law named their son Ichabod, which means, “Gone is the glory from Israel.”^[1]1 Sam 4:21

Idolatry

The Eastern goddess Astarte

In the case of the Israelites, you have to read a little further to discover what was at the root of this seeming abandonment by God.

Then Samuel addressed the whole house of Israel: “If you would return to the LORD with your whole heart, remove your foreign gods and your Astartes, fix your hearts on the LORD, and serve him alone, then the LORD will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” So the Israelites removed their Baals and Astartes, and served the LORD alone. (1 Sam 7:3-4)

Idolatry. The Israelites had allowed idolatry to enter their camp, and as such, God handed them over to their enemies for a time in order to purify them. We can’t lose sight of why God did this:

Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?… At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7-11)

In my last article, I spoke of 10 Reasons why the Fuse is Short. By the way, after writing that, Our Lady had given much the same message to Eduardo Ferreira of Brazil the next day:

My children, you are already in the decisive times. Accept these messages of mine that I have brought you here. I ask you to return to God as quickly as possible. Time is running out. Pray for my sons who are priests. With love I bless you. —on January 13th, 2026

Reason No. 5 for why time is running out is precisely because of idolatry. It’s when we give our love to others or possessions in such a way that they come before the love and obedience due our Creator. It is one of the main reasons that God will discipline us before our false idols consume us. Another way to think of idolatry is lukewarmness.

Children, hard times await you, times of trial and pain. But for me, the greatest pain and suffering is knowing that many of you will betray me. Yes, children, many of you will not only betray me, but will retreat and deny your faith in Jesus. Pray that this lukewarmness that is flooding the world would become a flame that illuminates and warms your hearts. —Our Lady of Zaro di Ischia (Italy) to Angela, January 8, 2026

This recalls the words of Jesus to one of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation:

I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16)

The Last Chastisement

Though it says that the Israelites removed their idols and served the Lord alone, it was apparently short-lived, for their hearts grew restless again. They were not content to walk by faith in an invisible God, and so cried out to the prophet Samuel for a king to rule over them. So the Lord replied:

Listen to whatever the people say. You are not the one they are rejecting. They are rejecting Me as their king. (1 Samuel 8:7)

They got the king they craved — and lost their freedom in the process.

This is precisely what is playing out in the world today. The lukewarmness that is flooding the earth, particularly within the Church, has led to a state of chaos and restlessness. The youth are now turning to Marxism, Socialism, and Communism,^[2]cf. msn.com, usnews.com casting aside mainstream religion, especially Catholicism, which is increasingly viewed with skepticism if not hatred due to our poor witness, sexual scandals, and vague messaging. The young, disgusted with the status quo and old political parties, desperate in the face of enormous inflation, are begging for a king who will pay for their education, their health, their future… and erase any moral demands upon them, other than caring for Mother Earth and defending everyone’s right to be whatever they want to be. This, dear reader, is the very heart of Freemasonry’s designs: paganism.

The bloody French Revolution, engineered by Freemasonry, was a microcosm of what that secret society intends for the world. Freemasons played upon the corruption of both Church and secular leadership and fomented divisions among the people through their philosophical sophistries. Freemasonry prepared the intellectual, moral, and social conditions that made the Revolution inevitable with their countering battle cry of “liberty, equality, and fraternity”! In the words of Monsignor George Dillon, one of the foremost historians on Freemasonry whose writings were funded by Pope Leo XIII, warned:

What Freemasonry did in France, it now labors, with greater caution, to effect on some future day throughout the entire world. It then submitted, with perfect docility, to a great military leader, who arose out of its own work and principles.^[3]Napoleon Bonaparte, a Freemason Such another leader will finally direct its last efforts against God and man. That leader will be Antichrist… A universal monarchy is, in their idea, the most efficacious means for arriving at a universal republic. —Monsignor George F. Dillon, DD; The War of the Antichrist With the Church and Christian Civilization, p.69, 82; TAN Books, 2023

The Antichrist is the last chastisement God allows against His People, not because He abandons them, but precisely because He respects the collective free will of the nations. They will get the king they deserve.

When they sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind. (Hos 8:7)

Through this tribulation, however, God will make His bride holy, spotless, and without blemish.^[4]cf. Eph 5:27; And thus, to the lukewarm, Jesus says:

I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. (Revelation 3:18-19)

Time for Perseverance, Not Panic

The Passion of the Church is upon us, not because God is abandoning His people, but preparing them — us — for glory. The new garment God wishes to adorn His Bride with can only come through this final chastisement of Antichrist.

The time is here and coming when everything that we are depending on now will be stripped so that we will depend solely upon Jesus, our invisible King, who says:

I am coming quickly. Hold fast to what you have, so that no one may take your crown. (Revelation 3:11)

Perhaps the only cliché that will be left is the one that dissolves all other clichés:

…we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)