FOR several years, I have asked Jesus why it is that I am so weak, so impatient in trial, so seemingly devoid of virtue. “Lord,” I have said a hundred times, “I pray every day, I go to Confession every week, I say the Rosary, I pray the Office, I’ve gone to daily Mass […]
IF you read Custody of the Heart, then you know by now how often we fail to keep it! How easily we are distracted by the smallest thing, pulled away from peace, and derailed from our holy desires. Again, with St. Paul we cry out: I do not do what I want, but I […]
IT was with a strange heaviness of heart that I boarded a jet to the United States yesterday, on my way to give a conference this weekend in North Dakota. At the same time our jet took off, Pope Benedict’s plane was landing in the United Kingdom. He has been much on my heart […]
Photo by Carveli Studios DO you long for peace? In my encounters with other Christians in the past few years, the most evident spiritual malady is that few are at peace. Almost as if there is a common belief growing among Catholics that a lack of peace and joy is simply part of the […]
THE world is thirsting to experience God, to find the tangible presence of the One who created them. He is love, and therefore, it is the Presence of Love through His Body, His Church, that can bring salvation to a lonely and hurting humanity. Charity alone will save the world. —St. Luigi Orione, L’Osservatore […]
IF I may once again bare my soul to you, that somehow you may benefit from my weakness. As St. Paul said, "I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me." Indeed, may He dwell with you! THE ROAD TO DESPAIR Since […]
Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem by Rembrandt van Rijn, Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, 1630 FROM a reader: In my prayer life and in praying for very specific things, particularly my husband’s abuse of pornography and all the things that result from this abuse, such as loneliness, dishonesty, mistrust, isolation, fear etc. Jesus tells me […]
FROM a reader: So what do I do when I forget that sufferings are His blessings to bring me closer to Him, when I am in the middle of them and get impatient and angry and rude and short tempered… when He’s not always at the forefront of my mind and I get caught […]
HIDDEN it seems from the ears of the world is the collective cry I hear from the Body of Christ, a cry that is reaching the Heavens: “Father, if it is possible take this cup away from me!” Letters I receive speak of tremendous family and financial strain, lost security, and growing concern over […]
Photographers in Staffordshire WHY is God letting me suffer in this way? Why are there so many obstacles to happiness and growing in holiness? Why does life have to be so painful? It feels as though I go from valley to valley (even though I know there are peaks in between). Why, God?
MY sixteen year old recently wrote an essay on the improbability that the universe occurred by chance. At one point, she wrote: [Secular scientists] have been working so hard for so long to come up with “logical” explanations for a universe without God that they have failed to truly look at the universe itself […]
WE live in an extraordinary time where there are answers to everything. There is not a question on the face of the earth that one, with access to a computer or someone who has one, cannot find an answer. But the one answer that still lingers, that is waiting to be heard by the […]
Summer Landscape by George Inness, 1894 I have longed to give you the Gospel, and more than that, to give you my very life; you have become very dear to me. My little children, I am like a mother giving birth to you, until Christ is formed in you. (1 Thess 2:8; Gal 4:19) […]
Rembrandt van Rijn, “The return of the prodigal son”; c.1662 MY time in Rome at the Vatican in October, 2006 was an occasion of great graces. But it was also a time of great trials. I came as a pilgrim. It was my intention to immerse myself in prayer through the surrounding spiritual and […]
OVER the past month, there have been several questions which I feel inspired to respond to here… everything from fears over Latin, to storing up food, to financial preparations, to spiritual direction, to questions on visionaries and seers. With God’s help, I will try to answer them.
First published May28th, 2007, I have updated this writing, more relevant than ever… IN a dream which increasingly mirrors our times, St. John Bosco saw the Church, represented by a great ship, which, directly before a period of peace, was under great attack: The enemy ships attack with everything they’ve got: bombs, […]
AS I prayed before the Blessed Sacrament, I heard the words clearly in my heart: The world is going to change. The sense is that there is an enormous event or turn of events coming, which will change our day to day lives as we know them. But what? As I have pondered this […]
The Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, by Michael D. O’Brien THERE is a strange new "virtue" which has appeared in our culture. It has crept in so subtly that few realize how it has become so highly practiced, even among high ranking clergy. That is, to make peace at all costs. It comes with […]
I have spent several weeks dialoguing with an atheist. There’s perhaps no better exercise to build one’s faith. The reason being is that irrationality is a sign itself of the supernatural, for confusion and spiritual blindness are hallmarks of the prince of darkness. There are some mysteries the atheist cannot solve, questions he cannot […]
Christ the Word of Life, by Michael D. O’Brien I will choose the time; I will judge fairly. The earth and all its inhabitants will quake, but I have firmly set its pillars. (Psalm 75:3-4) WE have followed the Passion of the Church, walking in the footsteps of our Lord from His triumphal […]
Crucifixion, by Michael D. O’Brien The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. —Catechism of the Catholic Church, 677 AS we continue to follow the Passion of the Body in relation to the Book of Revelation, […]
“Jesus is condemned to death by Pilate”, by Michael D. O’Brien Indeed, the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants, the prophets. (Amos 3:7) PROPHETIC WARNING The Lord sends the Two Witnesses into the world to call them to repentance. Through this act of mercy, we see again […]
Seven years shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. (Dan 4:22) During Mass this past Passion Sunday, I sensed the Lord urging me to repost a portion of the Seven Year […]
IT is only in hindsight now that perhaps Romans Chapter 1 has become one of the most prophetic passages in the New Testament. St. Paul lays out an intriguing progression: denial of God as Lord of Creation leads to vain reasoning; vain reasoning leads to a worship of the creature; and worship of the […]
Elijah Sleeping, by Michael D. O’Brien RECENTLY, I answered your questions regarding private revelation, including a question about a website called www.catholicplanet.com where a man who claims to be a “theologian” has, on his own authority, taken the liberty to declare who in the Church is a purveyor of “false” private revelation, and who […]
First published March 23rd, 2007. AS I prayed this morning, I sensed the Lord offering a tremendous gift to this generation: complete absolution. If this generation would just turn to Me, I would overlook all her sins, even those of abortion, cloning, pornography and materialism. I would wipe away their sins […]
IS the battle in your spiritual life intensifying? As I receive letters and speak with souls throughout the world, there are two themes which are consistent: Personal spiritual battles are getting very intense. There is a sense of imminence that serious events are about to take place, changing the world as we […]
—THE THIRD PETAL— THIS is the third “petal” of a flower of prophetic words that Fr. Kyle Dave and I received in the Fall of 2005. We continue to test and discern these things, while sharing them with you for your own discernment.
Mark’s Book! — Watch the video — THESE are not normal times. Ask the average passerby if “something strange” is going on in the world, and the answer will almost always be “yes.” But what? There will be a thousand answers, many of them conflicting, several speculating, often adding more confusion to the […]
THE DAY OF THE LORD — PART III Creation of Adam, Michelangelo, c. 1511 THE Day of the Lord is drawing nearer. It is a Day when the manifold Wisdom of God will be made known to the nations. Wisdom… hastens to make herself known in anticipation of men’s desire; he who watches […]
I have often written over the past few years of the necessity to stay awake, to persevere in these days of change. I believe there is a temptation, however, to read the prophetic warnings and words that God is speaking through various souls these days… and then dismiss or forget them because they have […]
A LOT is happening in the world since our ministry and family moved to a new location the past couple weeks. The Pope released a new encyclical which has been widely (if not wildly) interpreted. I have not had time to read the document, but hope to later this summer. In the meantime, […]
IT is Canada Day today. As we sang our national anthem after morning mass, I thought about the freedoms paid for in blood by our ancestors… freedoms which are rapidly being sucked into an ocean of moral relativism as the Moral Tsunami continues its destruction. It was two years ago that a court […]
Veronica, by Michael D. O’Brien SOLEMNITY OF THE SACRED HEART WE often have it backwards. We want to know Christ’s victory, His consolations, the power of His Resurrection—before His Crucifixion. St. Paul said that he wants… …to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being […]
Elijah in the Desert, by Michael D. O’Brien PART of the struggle many Catholics have with private revelation is that there is an improper understanding of the calling of seers and visionaries. If these “prophets” aren’t shunned altogether as fringe misfits in the culture of the Church, they are often the objects of envy […]
The Dream, by Michael D. O’Brien Within the past two hundred years, there have been more reported private revelations that have received some form of ecclesiastical approval than in any other period of the Church’s history. —Dr. Mark Miravalle, Private Revelation: Discerning with the Church, p. 3 STILL, there seems to […]
St. Faustina FEAST OF DIVINE MERCY First published November 24th, 2006. I have updated this writing… WHAT would you say was Pope John Paul II’s central mission? Was it to bring down Communism? Was it to unify Catholics and Orthodox? Was it to birth a new evangelization? Or was it to bring the […]
Canterbury Cathedral, England THERE is a Great Storm coming, and it is already here, in which those things built on sand are crumbling. (First published October, 12th, 2006.) Everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The […]
First published March 8th, 2007. THERE are rumblings throughout the Church in North America about the growing cost of speaking the truth. One of them is the potential loss of the coveted “charitable” tax status the Church enjoys. But to have it means that pastors cannot put forward a political agenda, particularly during […]
Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers… —Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 675 I have quoted this passage several times. Perhaps you have read it several times. But the question is, are you ready for it? Let me ask […]
But Jesus did say that before His return, there would be incredible activity in the cosmos: There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. … As I wrote in The Coming Counterfeit , I believe that after the Illumination (the Sixth Seal of Revelation ), there is going to rise a False Prophet will paint this miracle of God’s mercy as not a Divine encounter with Jesus, but an encounter with “the Christ within” (meaning we are all gods moving to a “higher plane of consciousness.”)
Earth at Twilight IT seems the whole world is crying out in jubilance that we are entering a “new era” with the inauguration of President Barack Obama: an “era of peace,” renewed prosperity, and advanced human rights. From Asia to France, from Cuba to Kenya, it is undeniable that the new president is […]
Artist Unknown I have updated this writing which I first published October 19th, 2007: I HAVE written often that we need to stay awake, to watch and pray, unlike the slumbering apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane. How critical this vigilance has become! Perhaps many of you feel a great fear that you […]
Carl Bloch, The Transfiguration First published June 13th, 2007. WHAT is this great grace that God will give to the Church in The Coming Pentecost? It is the grace of the Transfiguration. THE MOMENT OF TRUTH Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. (Amos […]
Peter’s Denial, by Michael D. O’Brien From a reader: My concern and question is within myself. I have been raised Catholic and have also done the same with my daughters. I have tried to go to church practically every Sunday and have tried to be involved with activities at church and in my community […]