The Future of the United States of America.

I think Kathleen that in a way God is like a hunter and pursues souls. If any of us knew at the outset of our prayer journey how much God demands of us we would flee from Him as someone berserk. For God does not demand 1% or 10% of our hearts, HE WANTS IT ALL. And He wants it because He is utterly and completely daft, mad, blindly in love with us. If we knew how much He loves us we would die of joy. But I think the eyes of our hearts only open slowly to see this and respond to it. First we crawl, then we toddle, then we walk. Finally we start to wake up a little and we really run into the heart of God's love.

In a way it is like a little magnet before a great magnet. At the start the magnet moves a little but at the end it just binds, jumps and throws itself into the heart of God.

So, I suppose in a real way we could say God is nuts, nuts with love and in another way that we become nuts with love when we are drawn to Him.

But in another way it is those who do not follow Christ, who even with hold belief are nuts, for it was love that made us and Love that draws us to itself.

 

Padraig has just proclaimed the greatest truth about the nature of God. God's all-consuming love for us is so incredible that it is very hard to describe in words -

Here is my weak attempt to describe it to my son at bedtime when I gave him a big warm hug and told him I loved him soo much and he told me that he loved me soo much too!! I said to Niall that if my love for you was like the light of a candle or the light-bulb, enough to light up the room then God's love is like the heat of the raging Sun only greater!! It is an incredible love.

Human love is important <especially the love of a mother & father for a child> and gives us a sense of security and an understanding of the love of God. But the reality of God's love for us is the great news that mankind needs to hear - God's love is an overwhelming love; a pursuing love, a love that has no end, a consuming fire of passion, a holy love that knows no bounds. GOD IS LOVE. How pure is that? And God is Trinity, 3 yet one so we are loved, loved and loved!

Do we get it? Do we believe it? The saints do - why do some people abandon all for God, and go beyond what is humanly possible in their Christian vocation? - Padre Pio, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul - Because they discovered the pearl of great price and abandoned all to possess the pearl. God's love is like the best kept secret in the world - a pearl of such enormous value that it is worth every sacrifice and every effort to pursue and embrace. The saint is the one who allows the love of God to tranform him/her and they understand that this love is personal and transforming.

God is Love. Three words that can transform and heal the world. Yet there is so much sadness and depression in our world as families break up and children are abandoned and so little love experienced in some families. How are they ever to know the great love of God when they may have never experience the love of a Mum and Dad? This is why this generation is so unhappy - many, many people have not experienced the love of family and therefore cannot believe that God is love. It must be very hard to become a saint if from a dysfunctional family - perhaps I am wrong here but most saints appear to have come from stable loving families > but God's love can transform all things because God's love is also a healing love.

So many people pursue and crave human love > they pursue the candle-light & this is fine because this love merely reflects the love of the creator > but when they do not find this love they fall into despair > I say to them > Human love is a good but it is not the ultimate goal of human existence but merely refelects a deeper truth for all love has its foundation in the love of the Creator-God, who made us in His image and likeness and has made us to love Him. We are fully human when we love God fully. Pursue the love of God, and you will not be disappointed for God's love is the ultimate goal and does not disappoint but fulfils. It is the pearl of great price and worth abandoning everything for. God first loved us and in creating us has a Divine plan for us. Jesus tells us to 'seek first the kingdom of God and all of these things will be given unto you'. If we seek God first all falls into place!

One short sentence in the Garabandal messages is very striking and pertinent to this post and for this generation, Our Lady told us to 'Think often of the Passion of Jesus'. By reflecting on the Passion we come to know of the great love of God which inspires us to love God in return. What about those who have never experienced the love of family? God's heart aches for them. I believe < and again I may be theologically wrong!> God's heart literally aches for this generation and he is Broken-Hearted like the Prodigal Father. I sense that the Father longs to reveal his love for poor broken humanity - even though His Son Christ died for us on Calvary & this generation rejects the Son> but a father always loves so I suspect that the Warning is a preparation for the Miracle Day of Healing - physical and spiritual healings in incredible numbers - many, many people will experience the love of God on that day for the first time because God longs to embrace them as they have been broken by their upbringing and wants them to experience love. The warning and the Miracle go close togeher as one is the preparation for the other. The response of humanity to the intervention of God in time and space will then determine the future path of humanity. The Father's last card is to reveal the depth of his Love - if the children do not respond to his Love then the Father needs to get tough! Tough Love is needed sometimes and Justice demands an account. Should humanity reject the Loving guidance of the Father then he needs to use other means of correction - and this is what we call the Chastisement. For mercy and justice are compimentary as they get the same outcome only by different routes!!

 

Looks like under the Obama liberal administration that religious freedom is being under-mined by legislators who do not know the difference between right - there is a growing dictatorship of relatavism.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062806.html

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jng0hNpiYsWxkKE1Qkx01OrTCtvQ

 

Relativism is actually being taught in schools so there is no surprise there. Ignorance and fear abound.

I think trust in love is a challenge for those who grew up in tough family situations, but having an open heart results from having at least one parent who puts their child's needs ahead of their own. The tendency of selfish behavior is what destroys the child's ability to trust in their parents and then others. It is the "Me" generation, single parents with little time and patience (I have seen many single parents with the patience and the willingness to bring up fabulously beautiful kids- so don't get me wrong), parents more wrapped up in each other (cheating, fighting, or doing their drugs), you get the picture.
I spend my days at work trying to mend these children but the one thing I know I must do, I legally cannot: teach them the Rosary. I feel trapped, hands tied, sad and frustrated about not being able to do what is right. I feel God wants me where I am, but I truly want to be doing something more effective with the children and parents he sends to me. So, I wait, hoping that the warning will come soon so I can break out into praise in public.
(thats my secret wish)

God's Love to you all, Kath

 

(Mine Too!)

 

Yes, Kathleen - after the warning we will be able to be 'ourselves' and be guided to help others spiritually. I think teaching the Rosary is a great way of teaching the faith as it is a compendium of the Gospels. It is both contemplative and transformative prayer especially if we allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us when we pray and contemplate the mysteries.

I must stock up on leaflets that instruct people how to say the Rosary.

Each day brings us closer to the Warning but I wonder how bad things must get before it comes? God is so patient giving us this time of Grace to convert and change our lives.

 

Our Lady has said, 'I have buried you with Signs'.

....and the Signs are all around us, we are in the very last second, of the very last minute of the very last hour:

http://globalist.org.ua/eng/1443992-dow-jones-industrial-is-preparing-hang-seng-and-the-entire-asian-market-for-great-collapse

 

You know what's weird? I got a bunch of those leaflets on how to say the rosary to put in my car, and now I can't find them! Is somebody playing a little game of cat-and mouse with me?

 

A Reflection on the second Icon.

Thank goodness for Mark Mallett whose writings are filled with imagery and quotes that are much more dynamic than my own. I am stealing a quote of his which he had borrowed from Catherine Doherty of Madonna House fame.

What kind of Christian would you be if there were no pain in your life? Expect it, therefore, and welcome it, because pain is like a fire sent by God to cleanse your soul, your heart, and your mind. Because of it, you can cease to be self-centered, and go out to all your brothers and sisters. So when there is pain in your life, try to add the words, "Praise be to God for the pain!" —Servant of God, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Grace in Every Season.

I believe this quote ties in beautifully with the pain we will experience when the Second Icon of Padraig unfolds: the loss of the Eucharist and the power of the Holy Mass in our daily lives. This will be no empty pain. For those of us who find our sustenance in our Eucharistic Lord, it will become a deep ache. But gone will be the occasions of distracted receptions. The times we encounter an available Holy Mass will find us in rapt attentiveness and overflowing joy.

When I was praying over this icon, I felt Our Lady wished to tell me that true tabernacles will never be empty. It was impressed upon my heart to recall that Our Lord in the church tabernacle is analogous to our waiting for a connection at a distant airport on the way home. The ultimate tabernacle in which Our Eucharistic Lord intends to dwell is each of our hearts. Yes, he is in the tabernacles of our churches and from there he radiates love and grace to all who visit. But Jesus wants to do more than radiate; he wants to indwell. And where Jesus dwells, there is the Father and Spirit as well!

Jn 6:56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.

Jn 14:23 ...If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

1Cor 6:19 Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God.

And so, the offering up on our part, this absence of Jesus in the Eucharist, will be a pain that purifies and detaches us from earthly things. It will lead us to reach out to others so that they too might come to experience, to taste, the goodness of the Lord, when He is available. Even so, I am tempted to cry out, "How can I be sustained without you, Lord?" One image I try to steer clear of is the idea that when I receive Holy Communion it is like filling up at the gas station. Grace does not dissipate and require another fill up. No, when God indwells us, his love forms a spring to well up, to overflow, to touch the lives of others! Speaking of each of us, Jesus said:

Jn 7:38 ...Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water!

It will be this spring of life which God has deepened within our hearts with each reception of Holy Communion that shall both sustain us and enable us. I remember the first time that I rested in the Holy Spirit. God did a mighty work healing me of the remorse I felt over the time I cruelly hurt a girlfriend while in college. God used a vision in this healing. In part of the vision, I was a young boy being carried on the shoulders of God the Father. He carried me as he ran through a field of wheat. I have come to realize that that field represented many Holy Communions I have received throughout life, many which have had seemingly little impact. Yet, here they were converging a multitude of graces that swept away the pain and separation I had experienced for two years. Alleluia! It has been 32 years since then and the memory still stirs my soul!

It will be like that for us during the time of the second icon. The spring within us will flow because the Lord will honor the many receptions of Holy Communion in our lives. Remember the example of Saint Isaac Jogues who was captured, imprisioned, and tortured by the Iroquois. After over a year he managed to escape with the help of Dutch settlers and made it back to France on Christmas Day, 1643. It was a moment of profound adoration when after confessing his sins, he approached and received his Eucharistic Lord after what seemed like aeons.

God had sustained him. God will sustain us through this pain of absence! Praise be to God for the pain!

Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, pray for us!

 

I think its true that we cannot really find something until we have lost it. I wonder what it was like for the Early Christians in the Catacombs? At least they had their Bishops and priests with them,,surely they must have said mass every day?

I notice that the present Pope has forecast the possiblity of mass martyrdom for the Church several times in his speeches and writings. He stated that he thought the Church might become a tiny persecuted minority and so become the yeast to change the world..

For instance back in 2007 at the canonisation of the Spanish Martyrs:

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=25782



....and recently at Fatima:

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/pope-secularism-seek-dialogue-be-ready-martyrdom



The thing about Popes is that by virtue of their roles they function, I believe as Prophets and can give us insight into the Signs of the Times. As well as that the Vatican functions as a kind of clearing house for mystics and visionaries throughout the world, in fact the Pope in his former role as Cardinal was in charge of this and in doing so, spoke of this being a , 'Marian Age', because there were so many sightings of Our Lady all across the globe. Also I suspect things that Our Lady told visionaries in secret are known to the Holy Father and the Vatican and that these secrets concern generalised global suppression of the Mass and the Church itself.

This persecution has never of course ceased, since the death of Christ when the discipled fled, right up until the present day, but I think the Holy Father is pointing to something huge and right across the world, which no one will escape:

 

I have just lost what I was about to post! Annoying but the main tenet of what I was saying was that we are headed rapidly towards a new form of dictaorship in the West.

The alarm bells are ringing in my ears!!

THE BELLS
Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now–now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
EDGAR ALLAN POE [1849]

 

What has happened to America?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-random-facts-that-make-you-wonder-what-in-the-world-has-happened-to-america

 

Padraig - Chuck Colson in a '2 minute warning' video is sounding the alarm bell that religious freedom is under threat in the USA and the framework for such a change will be the use of language as the government can enforce the 'freedom of worship' allowing all sorts of retrobates access to our churches Catholic and Protestant. He bases his case on a speech by Hilary Clinton in which she promotes the idea of freedom of worship which is very different from freedom of religion. I really believe this is a prophetic talk and teaching.




I also found it kind of scary that having recently posted about the 'alarm bells' that Colson should give his talk beside a huge Bell !!

 

Bobby,

I don't know if you noticed the readings for yesterday at mass, I just feel so strongly the reading from the prophet Amos is aimed perfectly at our generation:

Amos
Chapter 8

4
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!
5
1 "When will the new moon be over," you ask, "that we may sell our grain, and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat? We will diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating!
6
We will buy the lowly man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!"

9
On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun set at midday and cover the earth with darkness in broad daylight.
10
I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentations. I will cover the loins of all with sackcloth and make every head bald. I will make them mourn as for an only son, and bring their day to a bitter end.
11
Yes, days are coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send famine upon the land: Not a famine of bread, or thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the LORD.
12
Then shall they wander from sea to sea and rove from the north to the east In search of the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.



I don't know if you noticed but apparently the Equality Commission is considering legislation that will force, priests, ministers, Rabbi's, whoever to carry out religious marriages to be forced to have them for homosexuals. Thus if a homosexual couple wish to marry in say a Catholic Church with all the trimmings the priest will have to do it.

Maybe I misheard it sounds so mad , but things are changing so fast.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7715806/Equality-minister-Lynne-Featherstone-says-full-gay-marriage-a-step-nearer.html

As for people like Hillary Clinton and so many others. In some ways I like it when folks care about the poor and marginalised. I find this very attractive and scriptural. But I think there is such a parting of the ways over a huge range of moral questions. I do not think it is possible to pick and choose over deep, deep issues like abortion. So we cannot say, well I agree with her about these things but disagree with her about others and so I will vote for her... I do not think we can vote for anyone who, say supports abortion with out serious sin. In fact I believe all Catholics who do so should be excommunicated..and by excommunicated they should be fused all the Sacraments including funerals.

But the Bishops will not do this because they regard human respect too highly and are afraid. They are right in a way to be a little afraid for if they carried out things the way they are supposed to and close the Church doors right in the face of these people the biggest persecution in the history of the world would start. People like, say Hillary may smile and look inoffensive but I guarantee when the time comes they will turn into tigers.

...and you know this is the direction I believe Pope Benedict is leading us in, God Bless him for his courage.

 

Funny you would mention the readings from Amos, Padraig. I was particularly struck by them this year as well. Although, given the increasingly urgent "prophetic pulse" that we have all been discerning, I guess that I should not be surprised that God speaks to us in the daily readings as well!

I also was taken aback by last Saturday's reading from Lamentations Ch. 2, particularly the passage: "Lift up your hands to him for the live of your little ones who faint from hunger at the corner of every street." With two little ones of my own, I perish the thought of them being exposed to such things. But... Jesus, I trust in you!

 

There was a reading, yesterday at mass, BC which you might have noticed. It refers to God punishing people with a , 'Wasting disease' if they did not reform. AIDs of course is a , 'wasting disease', if anything ever was.... It makes me wonder if AIDS, or something like it, may have existed in the past...in either case Scripture is so relevent to what we are going through....




Isaiah 10:13-16

13 For he says: "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I have removed the boundaries of peoples, and have plundered their treasures; like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones. 14 My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as men gather eggs that have been forsaken so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing, or opened the mouth, or chirped." 15 Shall the axe vaunt itself over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood! 16 Therefore the Lord, the LORD of hosts, will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire.

( I also think the , 'Burning that will be kindled', 'like a fire' refers to the Signs that are to be left at apparition sites.}

 

Last Icon.

( The Icon of Comfort}

I stood in a very small wooden Church, it could hardly have been much larger than my cless room at school, compsed entirely, it looked like of simple wood iwth no real decoration. Our Lady stood at the front of the Church dressed unusually but very beautifully. She wore a folwong dress of deepest blue, almost black. Over it was like a white lace through which you could see the dress the colour of the sky just before it turns to night. On the dress were like pearls or stars that shone on and off slowly and beautifully. On her head was a flowing white mantle, something between a shawl and a wimple a little like this...



She gestured with one hand towars the pen door at the side of the little Church and in her other hand was a set of roasry beads, like the most beautiful pearls. As I looked out the door I realsied that this was the very heart of a little Catholic Community that the Church was the heart of the commnuity and that the Chruch , the community had become the Heart of America. That it had returned in a way to its roots in faith and rediscovered itself in great simpicity and prayerfulness. It reminded me a little of Laura Engles series of books, if you recall, 'Little house on the the Prairie' Or, I suppose, 'The Waltons' But a simplicity born of deep ,deep faith.

The following was impressed on me. that love for country; love for anything, wife , husband, neighbour, self can only spring from love of God. Anything , including love of country that does not find its source in this wellspring is vain. But that so long as men love God America will always e3xist and always be free. That however MAerica as a Nation finds its source not in a COnstituaion or on laws or law makers but on this love for God and so long as men love God America will always exist. Men may give way to despair as they see waht they flasely concieve America to be to Fall, but America will never truly Fall for while men love God America will always exist...though not in its present form.

]

 

I've been thinking and praying about everything discussed in this thread, and something someone else said in another forum struck me . This person suggested that the future of America may be the first secret of Medjugorje. Here is known information about the first secret:

I suppose the dissolution of the United States--caused by an event, natural disaster or terrorist attack or something of that nature that would cause desolation and a breakdown of infrastructure-- could be the "upheaval in a region of the world." I don't mean to fuel speculation, but I am curious to what others think of this possibilty.

 

I feel like a nut when I say this (I always have to shake my head at myself to keep from going overboard with these concerns- I can't spend the time worrying about everything that Might happen) but I'm very worried that the sea bed will crack with this well they have capped and this will cause a great upheaval in the ocean, causing a Tsunami- there has been speculation....

So anyway I've been ignoring this fear, but I may start praying for "minimal damage and cost to life in what is to come"- its a vague enough prayer and God knows what I mean.
We recently had a report from Pedro that Mary said there would be death in the gulf, as well as troubles all around the globe, so I'm thinking we just need to pray for everyone.

Pray Pray Pray

 

Same here, too...Like Kathleen, I had been wondering that with the oil well being capped off...something may go wrong...explosion? or a big earthquake at the New Madrid fault (center of U.S.) and as well as state of California...there was already recently an unusual 3.7 earthquake happened in/or near Washington, D.C....there were a few messengers that have said the big one/earthquake is happening soon...so who knows...but no matter what it may be...we all still need to pray, pray, and pray....