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).

I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on land or sea or against any tree… “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” (Rev 7:1, 3)

At Pentecost, we pray:

…send your Spirit into our lives with the power of a mighty wind… Liturgy of the Hours, Morning Prayer, Vol II

 

SHAKEN BY THE WINDS

Whether they are the winds of a personal trial or The Great Storm gathering over the earth, many of you are afraid—shaken by the circumstances in your own life, by the astounding decline in morals, or by what our Lady has warned will come upon an unrepentant world. Discouragement is setting in, if not despair. As I prayed about this, I sensed in my heart:

Each moment—and the Divine Will contained in it—are the wind of the Holy Spirit. In order to sail forward toward your goal: union with God—one must always raise the sail of faith mounted upon the mast of one’s will. Don’t be afraid to catch this Wind! Never be afraid where the winds of God’s Will take you or the world. At each and every moment, trust the Holy Spirit who blows where He wills according to My plan. Even though these Divine Winds may carry you into a great tempest, they will always carry you safely where you need to go for the good and sanctification of your soul or the correction of the world.

This is a beautiful word of assurance! For one, the Spirit is in the wind, even if it bears chastisement. It is the will of God, for the present moment is where God is living, acting, guiding, dwelling, intersecting with the activity of men. Whatever it is, whether it is a great consolation or trial, good health or sickness, peace or temptation, living or dying, all is permitted by the hand of God and ordered to the sanctification of your soul. Each and every moment the Divine Will of God blows in your life within the present moment. All that is required of you is to simply raise the sails of trust into the Winds of the moment and, turning the rudder of obedience, do that which the moment requires, the duty of the moment. Just as the wind is invisible, so too, hidden within this moment is the power of God to transform, sanctify, and make you holy—yes, hidden behind the mundane, the ordinary, the unglamorous; behind crosses and consolations, the will of God is always there, always working, always active. The soul must pull up the anchor of rebellion, and this Holy wind will blow it towards the harbor for which it is destined.

Jesus said,

The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

The Divine Winds can suddenly change, blowing this way one moment and that way the next. Today, I am sailing in sunshine—tomorrow, I am thrown into a terrible storm. But whether the seas of your life are calm or whether great waves assail your from every side, the response for you is always the same: to keep your sail raised by an act of the will; to stand in the duty of the moment whether it is a gentle breeze or a harsh spray of sea salt passing over your soul. For within this divine action is the grace to transform you.

My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. (John 4:34)

The Divine Wind is the necessary force to move your life toward the Harbor of Holiness. What God asks of you is to be docile to this Will, with the trust of a child.

Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:3)

 

AND THE FRUIT WILL COME

Do you lack peace in these times? Joy? Love? Kindness? I asked the Lord once, “Why? Why have all my efforts in prayer, daily Mass, regular confession, spiritual reading, and incessant begging not born the fruit of conversion I so desire? I still struggle with the same sins, the same weaknesses!”

Because you have not embraced Me in the distressing disguises of My Holy Will. You have embraced Me in My Word, in My Eucharistic Presence, and in My Mercy, but not in the disguise of trials, troubles, contradictions, and crosses. You do not bear the fruit of My Spirit, because you do not remain in my commandments. Is this not what my Word says?

Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. (John 15:4)

How do you remain in Me?

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love… Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. (15:10, 5)

My commandments are My Holy Will for you hidden each day in the present moment. But when My Will is not agreeable to your flesh, you refuse to remain in it. Instead, you begin to look for Me in the more agreeable forms of My presence, rather than remain in My love, in My commandments. You adore Me in one form, but you despise Me in the other. When I walked the earth, many followed Me when I presented Myself in the form which was agreeable to them: as healer, teacher, miracle-maker, and triumphant leader. But when they saw their Messiah in the disguise of poverty, meekness, and gentleness, they walked away, looking instead for a powerful political leader. When they saw their Messiah presented to them as a sign of contradiction to their lifestyles, a sign of light and truth and conviction, they would not remain, and looked for one who would applaud their decadence. When they saw their Messiah in the distressing disguise of a sacrificial lamb, bloodied, bruised, scourged, and pierced through as the embodiment of a trial and a Cross, they not only refused to remain with Me, but many became angry, mocked and spit upon Me. They wanted the Man of Wonders, not the Man of Sorrows.

So too, you love Me when My will is agreeable to you, but when My Will appears in the disguise of the Cross, you abandon me. Listen carefully again to My Word if you wish to unlock the fruit of holiness in your life:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith  produces steadfastness… Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life (James 1:2,-3, 12)

Just as the Lily of Life sprung from the Tomb, so too, the fruit of My Spirit, the crown of life, will spring from the soul who embraces My Holy Will in all its disguises, most especially the Cross. The key for you, my child, is FAITH: embrace all in faith. 

Do not be afraid, my dear brother! Do not be anxious, dear sister! The Will of God is blowing this very moment in your life and in the world, and it carries within it all that you need. His Holy Will is your sacred refuge. It is your hiding place. It is the wellspring of grace, the tomb of transformation, and the rock upon which your life will stand when the Storms, which are here and coming, plunge the world into its hour of purification.

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. (Heb 12:11)

 

THE PURIFICATION COMES: A PROPHETIC WARNING

Popular among thousands of clergy for many years were the messages of Our Lady through Fr. Stefano Gobbi and the Marian Movement of Priests. While many were disappointed that the alleged warnings did not culminate around and after 1998 as Our Lady seemed to suggest that they would, significantly, she had also said quite early in the alleged locutions that…

The purification can still be set back or shortened. Much suffering can still be spared you. Listen to me, sons, with simplicity. If you are little, then you will hear me and heed me. Little children understand very well the voice of the Mother. Happy are those who still listen to me. They will now receive the light of the truth and will obtain from the Lord the gift of salvation. —from the “Blue Book”, n. 110

So, either the purification has been delayed, or Fr. Gobbi misunderstood Our Lady, or he was simply wrong. But as Marian theologian Dr. Mark Miravalle points out in cases where a seer may be “off” on a certain point:

Such occasional occurrences of flawed prophetic habit should not lead to the condemnation of the entire body of the supernatural knowledge communicated by the prophet, if it is properly discerned to constitute authentic prophecy. —Dr. Mark Miravalle, Private Revelation: Discerning With the Church, p. 21

For several years, a hidden soul, whom I know personally, had received audible locutions from Jesus and Mary over a period of several years. His spiritual director is Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, the vice-postulator for St. Faustina’s canonization. Several years ago, Our Lady communicated to this man that she would continue to speak to him through the Blue Book messages—the compilation of interior locutions given to the late Fr. Gobbi. Now, from time to time, he visibly sees the number of a message appear before him. (This phenomenon has been confirmed for me personally in that he has sometimes received numbers that correlate perfectly with what I am writing at that moment, even to the point where the messages contain the same words or phrases that I have used.)

For several months now, he has received Blue Book numbers that all fall on “the last night of the year”, ie. December 31st. The messages are powerful and more pertinent than when they were penned two decades ago. The subtle message is clear: the world is on the eve of great change. Last night (Oct. 10th, 2016), he received the number 440. The title is called “My Tear Drops.” It is weepingjesus1significant in that, last week, two statues in his home of Our Lady of Fatima and Jesus and His Sacred Heart began to weep a fragrant oil from their eyes. I quote the message in part here, keeping in mind St. Paul’s edict not to quench, but to discern prophecy. 

Pray in order to ask for the salvation of the world, which has now touched the depths of impiety and of impurity, of injustice and of egoism, of hatred and of violence, of sin and of evil. 

How many times and in how many ways have I personally intervened to urge you to conversion and to a return to the Lord of your peace and of your joy. This is the reason for my numerous apparitions, for [this movement], which I myself have spread in every part of the world. As Mother I have repeatedly pointed out the path along which you must walk to attain your salvation. 

But I have not been listened to. They have continued to walk along the way of rejection of God and of his Law of Love. The Ten Commandments of the Lord are continually and publicly violated. The day of the Lord is no longer respected, and his most holy Name is becoming more and more despised. The precept of love of one’s neighbour is daily violated through egoism, hatred, violence and division which have entered into families and into society, and by violent and bloody wars between the nations of the earth. The dignity of man, as a free creature of God, is crushed by three chains of an interior slavery which makes him a victim of disordinate passions, of sin and of impurity. 

For this world, the moment of its chastisement has now arrived. You have entered the weepingjesus2grievous times of the purification and sufferings must increase for all. 

Even my Church has need of being purified of the evils which stricken her and which are causing her to live through moments of agony and of her sorrowful passions. How apostasy
has spread, because of the errors which are this time being disseminated and being accepted by the majority, without any further reaction! The faith of many has died out. Sin, committed, justified, and no longer confessed, renders souls slaves of evil and of Satan. To what a a miserable state has this, my most beloved Daughter, been reduced!

…the time which awaits you is that time when mercy will be espoused to divine justice, for the purification of the earth. 

Do not await the new year with noise, with cries and with songs of joy. Await it with intense weepingjesus3prayer of one who wants to again make reparation for all the evil and the sin in the world. The hours through which you are about to live are among the gravest and the most painful. Pray, suffer, offer, make reparation together with me, who am the Mother of Intercession and of Reparation. 

Thus you—my beloved ones and children consecrated to my Heart—you become, in these last hours of the year, my tear drops, which are falling upon the immense pain of the Church and of all humanity, as you enter into the grievous times of the purification and the great tribulation. —message given in Rubbio (Vicenza, Italy), December 31st, 1990

Last, I also wish to note a message that has been sitting on the front page of the website Words From Jesus. They come by way of Jennifer, a young American mother and housewife whom I have spoken with (and grilled) personally on many occasions. Her messages allegedly come directly from Jesus, who began to speak to her audibly one day after she received the Holy Eucharist at Mass. The messages read almost as a continuation of the message of Divine Mercy, however with a marked emphasis on the “door of justice” as opposed to the “door of mercy”—indeed, as if the “time of mercy” is being espoused to “divine justice.” Her messages were presented to Monsignor Pawel Ptasznik, a close friend and collaborator of John Paul II and the Polish Secretariat of State for the Vatican. The messages were passed to Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul II’s personal secretary. In a follow-up meeting, Msgr. Pawel said she was to “spread the messages to the world any way you can.” 

Anyone watching the headlines today will see an unsettling parallel to that message that has been sitting on Jennifer’s website for a few years now:

My child, I say to My children that mankind relies too much upon himself and it is there that you become the victim of your own sinfulness. Heed to the Commandments My children for they are your entrance into the kingdom. 

I weep today My children but it is those who are failing to heed to My warnings that will weep tomorrow. The winds of spring will turn into the rising dust of summer as the world will begin to look more like a desert. 

Before mankind is able to change the calendar of this time you will have witnessed the financial collapse. It is only those who heed to My warnings that will be prepared. The North will attack the South as the two Koreas become at war with each other. 

Jerusalem will shake, America will fall and Russia will unite with China to become Dictators of the new world. I plead in warnings of love and mercy for I am Jesus and the hand of justice is soon to prevail. —Jesus allegedly to Jennifer, May 22nd, 2014; wordsfromjesus.com

Perhaps it is time for the cynicism of Catholics toward prophecy to soften, and a spirit of docility and co-operation with Heaven take its place, as we begin to see many of these prophecies on the verge of fulfillment, in one manner or another. The time for us to pray and intercede for the world is long, long overdue, as the winds of change continue to blow. 

You make the winds your messengers; flaming fire, your ministers. (Psalm 104:4)

 

First published June 2, 2009 and updated today.

 

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