IN my travels throughout North America, I have been hearing remarkable conversion stories from young people. They are telling me about conferences or retreats they’ve attended, and how they are being transformed by an encounter with Jesus—in the Eucharist. The stories are almost identical:
I was having a difficult weekend, not really getting much out of it. But when the priest walked in carrying the monstrance with Jesus in the Eucharist, something happened. I have been changed ever since….
LOVE REVEALS ITSELF
HE was not a righteous man. He was a liar, a thief, and everyone knew it. Yet, in Zacchaeus, there was a hunger for the truth which sets us free, even if he did not know it. And so, when he heard that Jesus was passing by, he climbed a tree to catch a glimpse.
Of all the hundreds, perhaps thousands that were following Christ that day, Jesus stopped at that tree.
Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house. (Luke 19:5)
Jesus did not stop there because He found a worthy soul, or because he found a soul full of faith, or even a repentant heart. He stopped because His Heart was filled with compassion for a man who was out on a limb—spiritually speaking.
THE body constantly needs a source of energy, even for simple tasks such as breathing. So, too, the soul has essential needs. Thus, Jesus commanded us:
Pray always. (Luke 18:1)
The spirit needs the constant life of God, much the way grapes need to hang on the vine, not just once a day or on Sunday mornings for an hour. The grapes should be on the vine “without ceasing” in order to ripen to maturity.
AS the body needs food for energy, so too does the soul need spiritual food to climb the Mountain of Faith. Food is as important to the body as is breath. But what about the soul?
SPIRITUAL FOOD
From the Catechism:
Prayer is the life of the new heart. —CCC, n.2697
If prayer is the life of the new heart, then the death of the new heart is no prayer—just as lack of food starves the body. This explains why so many of us Catholics are not ascending the Mountain, not growing in holiness and virtue. We come to Mass every Sunday, drop two bucks in the basket, and forget about God the rest of the week. The soul, lacking spiritual nourishment, begins to die.
PERHAPS you are overwhelmed by the plethora of spiritual paths you’ve heard and read about. Is growing in holiness really that complicated?
Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt18:3)
If Jesus commands us to be like children, then the path to Heaven must be reachable by a child. It must be attainable in the simplest of ways.
It is.
Jesus said that we are to abide in Him as a branch abides on the vine, for without Him, we can do nothing. How does the branch abide on the vine?
S O N G F O R K A R O L
WHEN I met Pope Benedict in October of 2006, I presented him a copy of Song For Karol which I had written the night Pope John Paul II died.
I recently finished a video tribute to the late Holy Father. Pope John Paul’s words and life have laid the foundation for the times which we live in. They have often inspired my writings and preaching. I often sense his presence very near me in my ministry…
The final words of this song are more urgent now than ever. Here is my tribute to Papa…
CLICK ON THE COVER TO SEE THE VIDEO
WHY are you fixed upon the little storm clouds?
For that is what they are… The Great Deception, the False Light, the False Prophets… storm clouds, which to the human eye, appear enormous. So it is with your personal trials as well. They seem to be obscuring the Son… but are they really?
The Prodigal Son, by Liz Lemon Swindle
ASH WEDNESDAY
THE so-called “illumination of conscience” referred to by saints and mystics is sometimes called a “warning.” It is a warning because it will present a clear choice for this generation to either choose or reject the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ before a necessary judgment. The choice to either return home or remain lost, perhaps forever.
OF significant note in the media is the alarming disappearance of honeybees (a harbinger of famine?). But there is another story that’s been brewing as well: the sudden disappearance of tens of millions of birds.
Nature is intimately tied to man insofar as he is its steward. When man no longer abides by God’s laws, this impacts nature as well, perhaps in ways we do not fully understand.
So that said, the disappearance of the birds and the bees may indeed be a reflection of man’s disregard for… well, "the birds and the bees." The past forty years have been an unprecedented experiment with human sexuality which has led to an explosion of STD’s, abortion, and pornography.
We have destroyed the fundamental truths of "the birds and the bees." Is nature telling us something?
War-torn district in Bosnia
WHEN I visited former Yugoslavia just over a year ago, I was taken to a little make-shift village where war refugees were living. They came there by rail-car, fleeing the devastating bombs and bullets which still mark many of the apartments and businesses of Bosnia’s cities and towns.
AS I prepare to write more of the vision of hope that’s been laid upon my heart, I want to share with you some very crucial words, to bring both the darkness and light into focus.
In Prophetic Perspective (Part I), I wrote how important it is for us to grasp the big picture, that prophetic words and images, though they bear a sense of imminence, carry broader meanings and often cover vast periods of time. The danger is that we become caught up in their sense of imminence, and lose perspective… that the will of God is our food, that we are to ask only for “our daily bread,” and that Jesus commands us not to be anxious about tomorrow, but to seek first the Kingdom today.
St. Michael the Archangel by Michael D. O’Brien
AS we come to see and better understand the vast scope of the enemy’s plan, The Great Deception, we should not be overwhelmed, for his plan will not succeed. God is revealing a far greater Masterplan—a victory already won by Christ as we enter the time of the Final Battles. Again, let me turn to a phrase from Hope is Dawning:
When Jesus comes, much will come to light, and the darkness will be scattered.
I want to take the word which I heard Our Lady speak in Hope is Dawning, a message of tremendous hope, and develop its powerful contents over the course of the next writings.
Mary said,
Jesus is coming, coming as Light, to awaken souls steeped in darkness.
Jesus is returning, but this is not His Final Coming in Glory. He is coming to us as Light.
PERHAPS it’s because she’s about the same height. Maybe it’s because her order is seeking the helpless. Whatever it is, when I met Mother Paul Marie, she reminded me of Mother Teresa. Indeed, her territory is the "new streets of Calcutta."
THE "word" below is from an American priest at whose parish I gave a mission. It is a message which restates what I have written here several times: the critical need at this juncture in time for regular Confession, prayer, time spent before the Blessed Sacrament, reading of the Word of God, and devotion to Mary, the Ark of Refuge.
VIGIL OF THE FEAST OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY,
THE MOTHER OF GOD
AMID the din of Christmas feasting and family frolicking, these words continue to float above the noise with persistence:
This is the Year of The Unfolding…
First published December 25th, 2006…
THOSE hands. So tiny, so small, so harmless. They were God’s hands. Yes, we could look at God’s hands, touch them, feel them… tender, warm, gentle. They were not a clenched fist, determined to bring justice. They were hands open, willing to grab whomever would hold them. The message was this:
THERE was so little time. A stable was all Mary and Joseph could find. What went through Mary’s mind? She knew she was giving birth to the Savior, the Messiah… but in a little barn? Embracing God’s will once more, she entered the stable and began to prepare a little manger for her Lord.
Forgiveness lets us begin again.
Humility helps us continue.
Love brings us to the end.
"Peace Dove" by Christmas Spirit
AS Christmas draws near, the time for families to be together approaches. For some, it also means that the time of tension is drawing near.
THESE are the days when Jesus is asking us to have total and absolute trust. It may sound like a cliché, but I hear this with all seriousness in my heart. We must totally and absolutely trust Jesus, because the days are coming when He is all we will have to lean on.
FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
POPE John Paul II called her the Star of the New Evangelization. Indeed, Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Morning Star of the New Evangelization which precedes the Day of the Lord.
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. (Rev 12:1-2)
I hear the words,
There is coming a powerful release of the Holy Spirit.
I rose at 3:30 am on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception this past December 8th. I had to catch an early flight on my way to New Hampshire in the U.S. to give two parish missions.
Yes, another border crossing into the States. As many of you know, these crossings have been difficult for us lately and nothing short of a spiritual battle.
“The Pill”
Man cannot attain that true happiness for which he yearns with all the strength of his spirit, unless he keeps the laws which the Most High God has engraved in his very nature. —POPE PAUL VI, Humanae Vitae, Encyclical, n. 31; July 25th, 1968
IT was nearly forty years ago on July 25th, 1968, that Pope Paul VI issued the controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae. It is a document in which the Holy Father, exercising his role as chief shepherd and guardian of the faith, decreed that artificial birth control is contrary to the laws of God and nature.
DOES this Scripture have anything to do with the sense of urgency which I am hearing in letters from around the world:
Forty years I endured that generation. I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know My ways.” So I swore in My anger, “They shall not enter into My rest.” (Psalm 95)
PEOPLE have been predicting the day of Christ’s return for as long as Jesus said that He would. As a result, people get cynical—to the point where any discussion of the signs of the times is considered "fundamentalist" and fringe.
Did Jesus say we would not know when He was returning? This has to be answered carefully. Because within the answer lies another answer to the question: How I am to respond to the signs of the times?
EARLIER this week, I thought I heard the Lord say,
Listen very carefully to the Advent readings!
Elijah in the Desert, Michael D. O’Brien
Artist Commentary: Elijah the Prophet is exhausted and in flight from the queen, who seeks to take his life. He is discouraged, convinced that his mission from God has come to an end. He wishes to die in the desert. The greater part of his work is about to begin.
COME FORTH
IN that place of quiet before falling asleep, I heard what I felt was Our Lady, saying,
Prophets come forth!
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But who will endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire… (Mal 3:2)
I BELIEVE we are drawing nearer and nearer to the dawning of The Day of the Lord. As a sign of this, we are beginning to feel the heat of the approaching Sun of Justice. That is, there seems to be a growing intensity in purifying trials as we near the Refiner’s Fire… just as one does not need to touch the flames to feel the fire’s heat.
MY recent article called Dead End probably elicited the most email responses from anything I’ve ever written.
The Conversion of Saint Paul, by Caravaggio, c.1600/01,
THERE are three words which I feel describe the current battle many of us are going through: Distraction, Discouragement, and Distress. I will write about these shortly. But first, I want to share with you some confirmations I have received.
THE evening that I wrote Signs From the Sky (but had not yet published it), a reader had a dream and relayed it to me the next morning. That is, she had not read Signs From the Sky. Coincidence, or a powerful confirmation? For your discernment…
The young have shown themselves to be for Rome and for the Church a special gift of the Spirit of God… I did not hesitate to ask them to make a radical choice of faith and life and present them with a stupendous task: to become “morning watchmen” at the dawn of the new millennium. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Novo Millennio Inuente, n.9; (cf. Is 21:11-12)
AS one of these “young”, one of the “children of John Paul II,” I have tried to respond to this overwhelming task asked of us by the Holy Father.
I will stand at my guard post, and station myself upon the rampart, and keep watch to see what he will say to me… Then the LORD answered me and said: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily.(Habb 2:1-2)
And so I wish to speak what I hear, and write what I see:
We are approaching the dawn and are crossing the threshold of hope into the The Day of the Lord.
Keep in mind, however, that the “morning” begins at midnight—the darkest part of the day. The night preceeds the dawn.
AFTER I wrote A Circle yesterday, the image of a spiral came to mind. Yes, of course, as Scripture circles through each age being fulfilled on more and more dimensions, it is like a spiral.
But there is something more to this… Lately, several of us have been talking about how time seems to be accelerating rapidly, that time to do even the basic duty of the moment seems elusive. I wrote about this in The Shortening of Days. A friend in the south also addressed this recently (see Michael Brown’s article here.)
IT may seem that to apply the words of the Old Testament prophets as well as the book of Revelation to our day is perhaps presumptuous or even fundamentalist. I have often wondered this myself as I have written about coming events in light of the Sacred Scriptures. Yet, there is something about the words of prophets such as Ezekiel, Isaiah, Malachi and St. John, to name but a few, that is now burning in my heart in a way they did not in the past.
THE past few days, my spirit has felt as if an anchor is tied around it… as if I am looking up towards the surface of the ocean at fading Sunlight, as I sink deeper and deeper into weariness.
At the same time, I hear a voice in my heart saying,
Don’t give up! Stay awake… these are the temptations of the Garden, of the ten Virgins who fell asleep before their Bridegroom’s return…
I HAD this feeling we were not going to be admitted to the United States.
THE LONG NIGHT
Last Thursday, we pulled up to the Canadian/U.S. border crossing and presented our papers to enter the country for some ministry engagements. "Hello, I’m a missionary from Canada…" After asking a few questions, the border agent told me to pull over and ordered our family to stand outside the bus. As the near freezing wind gripped the children, mostly dressed in shorts and short sleeves, the customs agents searched the bus from end to end (looking for what, I don’t know). After re-boarding, I was asked to enter the customs building.
Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, by Tommy Canning
Then he led me to the gate which faces the east, and there I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. I heard a sound like the roaring of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. (Ezekiel 43:1-2)
MARY is calling us to the Bastion, to a place of readiness and listening, away from the distractions of the world. She is preparing us for the Great Battle for souls.
Now, I hear her saying,
Look to the East!
Exiles of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
FIRST published September 7th, 2006, this word has grown in strength in my heart just recently. The call is to prepare both physically and spiritually for exile. Since I wrote this last year, we have witnessed the exodus of millions of people, particularly in Asia and Africa, due to natural disasters and war. The main message is one of exhortation: Christ reminding us that we are citizens of Heaven, pilgrims on our way home, and that our spiritual and natural environment around us should reflect that.
EXILE
The word “exile” keeps swimming through my mind, as well as this:
New Orleans was a microcosm of what is to come… you are now in the calm before the storm.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, many residents found themselves in exile. It did not matter if you were rich or poor, white or black, clergy or layman—if you were in its path, you had to move now. There is a global “shake up” coming, and it will produce in certain regions exiles.
LIKE the dawning of the Sun, is the rebirth of the Latin Mass.
FIRST SIGNS
The first signs of morning are like a dim halo on the horizon which grows brighter and brighter until the horizon is engulfed in light. And then the Sun comes.
So too, this Latin Mass signals the dawning of a new era (see The Breaking of the Seals). At first, its effects will be barely noticed. But they will grow brighter and brighter until the horizon of humanity is engulfed in the Light of Christ.
FROM a reader:
While I enjoy your writings, you need to get a life with regard to Harry Potter. It’s called fantasy for a reason.
And from another reader on this “harmless fantasy”:
Thank you so much for speaking out on this issue. I was one who found the books and movies to be “harmless”… until I went with my teenage son to see the latest movie this summer.
FOR several months, I have been hearing the words of Jesus roll through my heart:
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law… why do you not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:51-56)
Plain and simple, we are seeing this divide occur before our very eyes on a global scale.
Mary, presenting Jesus, a Mural in Conception Abbey, Conception, Missouri
From a reader:
If we must enter into the ark of protection provided by our Mother, what will happen to Protestants and Jews? I know many Catholics, priests as well, who reject the whole idea of entering the “ark of protection” Mary is offering us—but we don’t reject her out of hand as other denominations do. If her pleas are falling on deaf ears in the Catholic hierarchy and much of the laity, what about those that don’t know her at all?
The Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem
FEAST OF THE BIRTH OF MARY
AS I wrote in The Time of Transition, I sensed a quickening in that God is going to speak very plain and direct to us through His prophets as His plans reach fulfillment. This is the time to listen carefully—that is, to pray, pray, pray! Then you will have the grace to understand what God is saying to you in these times. Only in prayer will you be given the grace to hear and comprehend, to see and to perceive.
