Understanding This Calm Before the Storm

 

What’s happening with The Now Word? Where are we at in the world…?

I’ve received many letters of encouragement recently, others asking me if the Now Word is continuing, etc. I wrote sometime ago that I was going to take this summer to reflect, listen, and discern the direction to go. Certainly, the faucet of “now words” that was wide open over the past 20 years has been slowed to a trickle. But the Lord is not done… far from it. 

 

The Calm Before the Storm?

You may recall back in April that I shared a word I sensed while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, that the world has reached The Tipping Point. Unknown to me at that time was another word from Our Lady to Angela in Zaro, Italy that had just been released for publishing:

Children, the hour of trial is near, but do not be afraid. —February 26, 2025

Of course, there will be cynics who point out that Our Lady has been saying such things for decades. And it is true: from the messages at Fatima over a century ago, to the approved messages of Medjugorje,^[1]the Church recently granted its highest level of discernment, a nihil obstat, to the apparitions to Servants of God Luisa Piccarreta and Fr. Stefano Gobbi, there have been such warnings that humanity is on the brink.  Were they wrong?

Only if you view history within your own life span. But if you take into account the past 4-5 centuries, another rather ominous picture comes into view. It was during the 16th and 17th century that the “Age of Enlightenment” was birthed, sowing the seeds that, today, have fully matured: deism, rationalism, scientism, materialism, atheism, Marxism, communism, (radical) feminism, individualism, and so forth. Today, these “isms” and all their consequences, have reached the point of harvest.

With the apparitions, in particular to the children of Fatima and to St. Faustina, it was clear that the apostasy of the previous centuries was leading humanity to a point of no return, one that demanded Divine Justice. 

I saw the Lord Jesus, like a king in great majesty, looking down upon our earth with great severity; but because of His Mother’s intercession, He prolonged the time of His mercy… [Jesus]: I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart. I use punishment when they themselves force Me to do so; My hand is reluctant to take hold of the sword of justice. Before the Day of Justice, I am sending the Day of Mercy… I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of [sinners]. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of My visitation… —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 126I, 1588, 1160

Still — as if to underscore the Divine Patience — we watched a Second World War break out, the devastating spread of communism in multiple countries, the explosion of new genocides, the sexual revolution, radical feminism, birth control, abortion, gay “marriage”, gender ideology, assisted suicide, and the emergence of artificial intelligence, which is essentially the new “Baal” and Tower of Babel of our times. All the while this unfolded, modernism descended upon the Church like a tempest, gutting religious orders, staining the priesthood, distorting the Liturgy, muddying the Church’s mission, and watering down the Faith — all, which only abetted the aforementioned revolutions. 

And now, everything is coming to a head. As the song I wrote asks, “How long Lord?

I think what many people may not understand is that all of this is culminating into a Great Storm, or what St. John Paul II called “the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel, of Christ versus the Antichrist.”^[2]Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (JOHN PAUL II), at the Eucharistic Congress, Philadelphia, PA; August 13, 1976; cf. Catholic Online; quote confirmed by Deacon Keith Fournier who was in attendance If you were left with any doubt as to what he meant, that should have been made abundantly clear in 2002 when the same Pope made a startling call to the youth:

Dear young people, it is up to you to be the watchmen of the morning who announce the coming of the sun who is the Risen Christ! —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Message of the Holy Father to the Youth of the World, XVII World Youth Day, n. 3; (cf. Is 21:11-12)

So we’re not talking now about just another tragic blip in human history (according to popes and private revelation alike) but the Great Transition  into the Day of the Lord, which is not a 24 hour solar day but, according to the Early Church Fathers, that final period of human history after the death of Antichrist. It is a period of triumph when all the Scriptures will come to fulfillment, most notably, the Our Father when Christ’s Kingdom will reign “on earth as it is in Heaven.” This, of course, is not the same as Heaven nor is it the end of human suffering, as the 20th Chapter of Revelation makes clear. But it is the final preparation of the Bride of Christ for the eternal Wedding Banquet. Moreover, it entails the binding of Satan in the “abyss” for a time and the purification of the wicked from the face of the earth. 

So, I think you can understand now why the years turn into decades, and decades into centuries. Because when God acts at the end of this “time of mercy,” the world — nay, the universe — will never be the same. 

 

Instrument of Purification: The Great Storm

As I have shared countless times before, at the beginning of this writing apostolate, I sensed the Lord speak one afternoon of a coming Storm “like a hurricane” upon the world.^[3]cf. Brace for Impact Shortly after, while reading of the seven seals of the 6th Chapter of Revelation, I sensed the Lord say: This IS the Great Storm. 

I think what is stunning for me personally today is that I see all of those seals literally lined up to be fulfilled, playing out in the headlines all at once. In fact, I wonder if St. John didn’t simply see them unfold exactly as he describes them: global war (2nd seal), followed by economic collapse and hyper-inflation (3rd seal), followed by disease, broken food supply chains, and social chaos (4th seal), accentuated by an explosion of violence toward the Church (5th seal), culminating in what many mystics call “The Warning” (6th seal) and short period of reprieve (7th seal) where people must make the choice of whether they will follow Christ the Light or the deceiving powers of darkness.^[4]cf. see the Timeline of the Church Fathers as they understood it. 

So where are we at now? I was passing by the TV one day as my children were watching Part III of the Lord of the Rings when suddenly the words of Gandolf leapt straight from the screen into my heart:

Things are in motion which cannot be undone.

I stopped in my tracks to listen, my spirit burning within me as Gandolf continued:

…It’s the deep breath before the plunge… This will be the end of Gondar as we know it… We come to it at last, the great battle of our time…

When, I do not know. But I consider these days of relative calm to be a tremendous grace, an opportunity for continued conversion, sanctification, and evangelization. It may be tempting to become cynical about the prophets who speak of things as though they are imminent.  The truth is, we are already in the battle to a certain extent; we are already in that “final confrontation”, even if it is not yet the decisive moment. But we seem to be coming to that tipping point when the Great Storm prophesied by Our Lady will fully assail all of humanity. 

 

Epilogue

As I was finishing this article, I learned that Evangelical American debater, Charlie Kirk, who has been brilliantly defending orthodoxy on college campuses, was assassinated. He was speaking at a Utah college campus for Turning Point, USA, the organization he founded. Yes, it seems that freedom of religion and freedom of speech are indeed at a turning point…

As for the Now Word, the Lord has not asked me to stop writing or speaking — but to wait. Russia’s incursion into Poland yesterday, the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the bombing by Israel in Qatar… these are all but signs that the labor pains are advancing to the new birth that will come after these years of sorrow are over… 

 

Related Reading

Dear Holy Father… He is Coming

The Day of Justice

Interpreting Revelation

Antichrist in Our Times

 

 

So grateful for your prayers and support.
Thank you!

 

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