“With the heart of a father We exhort all those who from whatever cause are plunged in grief and anguish to lift their eyes trustfully to heaven and to offer their sorrows to Him who will one day reward them abundantly. Let them all remember that their sufferings are not in vain, but that they will turn to their own immense gain and that of the Church, if to this end they bear them with patience” [Mystici Corporis Christi #107].
[continuing from where this left-off about the “7” overlaying the Moon as a sign and concerns with Amoris Laetitia]
Signs of the times: about apparitions and chastisements
No, I do not know the future. It is contingent on mankind’s repentance and choices inside God’s plan in Christ. Many religious suffer and sacrifice silently for souls inside their monasteries and cloisters. Nor have I personally ever seen signs accompanied by heavenly messages, so there is no logical certainty to my reflections which will follow this current essay segment on understanding chastisements or “disciplinary judgments.” In fact, I feel better and less anxious not really knowing the future or pretending to be a prophet.
In no way have I been appointed to announce I know the future. Nor do I personally think the Second Coming is this year even though I daily remember to be ready to meet the Lord as the New Testament admonishes every Christian. As Michael Brown recorded for his readers at his Spirit Daily website in 2010 (16 years ago): “In this time, expect the error of premature expectation, but not [error in] the truth of the expectation itself.”
Nevertheless, I do read the signs of the times as prayerfully as a sinner like me can. It doesn’t take a genius or holy person to see the writing on the wall. Like many others, it is my opinion there will be chastisements and real signs from God now and into the near future. I say this because I do not think the alleged visions of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje should be taken too lightly or superficially. The visionaries and the millions of pilgrims who have gone to Medjugorje have seen way more signs than myself and they’ve led greater lives of repentance. It was nice to see the Pope address all the youth recently gathered in Medjugorje the end of July. Additionally, the alleged visions of the Virgin Mary at Akita Japan in 1973 warned of compromises and chastisements due to them (more on that in a moment).
Simultaneously, such alleged messages from apparitions should be taken with a grain of salt due to the weaknesses of human visionaries, pilgrim tendencies to not take apparitions in context, and the fact that Jesus already taught all that we need for salvation. Signs and visions are to be considered only insofar as they help us repent of our sins, adhere to the Gospels and our Lord in Holy Communion, and live balanced lives focused on charitable works. Apparitions are reminders that the supernatural is more real than the natural order and of the importance of leading holy lives.
Providential chastisements from heaven are meant for the salvation and renewal of the world even though all birth pangs are difficult for those experiencing them. We should pray daily that our merciful and loving Lord lessens their ferocity for the sake of our human weaknesses and God’s “elect” (cf. Matthew 24:22). We should pray it all the more as we watch the horrible sufferings of peoples under today’s wars.
Ten chastisements from heaven freed Israel from bondage to sin 3,500 years ago and initiated the Old Covenant era of Moses and the prophets. The Messiah refashioned Israel 2,000 years ago in the New Covenant (cf. Heb 9:10). Perhaps God sees his people today, the new Israel, again becoming enslaved by the world and sin & wishes to break the current darkness of a new Egypt that has infiltrated hearts worldwide. Perhaps this is why ten chastisements/signs allegedly were given as secrets to be announced by the Medjugorje visionaries to the world? If it did begin, what might we make of it?
Saint Augustine explained in the City of God, Book XX, Chapter 11, how chastisements and persecutions can arise quickly when the dragon is released after “a thousand years” [cf. Rev 20:7-9] and leads the nations to war:
“And the words he shall go out mean, he shall burst forth from lurking hatred into open persecution. For this persecution, occurring while the final judgment is imminent, shall be the last which shall be endured by the holy Church throughout the world, the whole city of Christ being assailed by the whole city of the devil, as each exists on earth. For these nations which he names Gog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some part of the world…”
Likewise, the Church is the new Jerusalem:
“The words, ‘And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city,’ do not mean that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of the saints and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the whole world. And consequently wherever the Church shall be — and it shall be in all nations, as is signified by ‘the breadth of the earth,’— there also shall be the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and there it shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of all its enemies.” [See also Chapter 21 of Augustine’s City of God]
While Augustine was speaking of the Second Coming, chastisements before that time are also necessary to break the current power of darkness, rampant murder and adultery and corruption. Who hasn’t been horrified by corruption revealed in the release of government files and lack of accountability? Unrepented sin causes real lasting effects which can multiply badly and harden structures of sin. Structures of sin enslave us and eventually produce the environment for persecutions.
In 1943, using the Book of Wisdom, Pius XII warned the world in Mystici Corporis Christi:
“We must plead with God to grant that the rulers of nations may love wisdom, so that the severe judgment of the Holy Spirit may never fall on them: ‘Because being ministers of His Kingdom you have not judged rightly, not kept the law of Justice, nor walked according to the will of God; horribly and speedily will he appear to you; for a most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule’…” [#105].
“For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb 12:6 RSV-CE). God in his mercy renews and heals what sin tarnishes but we can experience renewal as very sorrowful and painful chastisements or disciplines. “God forgives, but nature doesn’t.” The effects of sin have to be dealt with in order to free us. Prayer and fasting help to reduce chastisements and save souls from hell. We have to live with hope, even in terrible trials, because with Jesus we overcome death.
“With the heart of a father We exhort all those who from whatever cause are plunged in grief and anguish to lift their eyes trustfully to heaven and to offer their sorrows to Him who will one day reward them abundantly. Let them all remember that their sufferings are not in vain, but that they will turn to their own immense gain and that of the Church, if to this end they bear them with patience” [Mystici Corporis Christi #107].
Even in sufferings we can have joy and consolations in belonging to Jesus Christ. Through faith in Christ’s love and his death for us, death no longer has power over our souls and even our bodies in the second Resurrection. [Grace is the first Resurrection, the body is the second Resurrection per Saint Augustine.]
Chastisements can involve spiritual deceptions and false signs from demonic powers. “The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish because they refused to love the truth…God sends upon them a strong delusion” (2 Thess 2:9-11). Jesus and all that he taught is the truth about God and man (and marriage). [I already speculated about deceptions in the Substack article: “War of the ‘gods’…” as it relates to UAP “disclosure.”] Delusions can involve misappropriation of Christian doctrine.
Christians follow the Gospels not government “disclosures” nor private revelations from seers which may be false. Even in a distasteful time of pastoral compromises, the Church remains Christ’s dispenser of the mysteries of God and: “He who hears you [the Church], hears me.” This means in so far as they do not contradict the Apostolic witness entrusted to them and preserved in Scripture (cf. Mt 19:9-10; 6:32). There is a diachronic [through all time and into the past] unity that must be maintained.
Throwaway any private revelations which go against the traditions of the Church “the traditions you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thes 2:15). “Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess 5:19-22). Lex orandi, lex credendi. [How the Church teaches us to pray, the liturgies, are the rule of what we believe.] Despite sins or weaknesses of leaders on earth, Christ is still present in his one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
Spooked by Russia and Ukraine, motivated to write Transcendence After America
As Covid shutdowns and regulations rolled from 2020 into 2021, I was receiving Communion with a Ukrainian Catholic church (here in America), at one point even in outdoor liturgies for months. Russia began its first threatening increase of troop deployments on its border with Ukraine in March 2021. Minsk agreements were shaky and the world was still a year from the February 2022 invasion by Russia.
It was hard not to be concerned a year in advance due to prophecies I remembered because of the Ukrainian bishop who administered my wedding. He was friends with the Ukrainian mystic Josyp Terelya, of whom Michael Brown of Spirit Daily co-authored a biographical book and wrote many essays. Michael and I exchanged emails on the matter of Ukraine, prophecy, and Terelya as the Russian troop deployments and threats developed. I was about to write about the concerns but was knocked down with Covid and pulmonary embolisms the second week of April 2021. Michael shared the danger of the situation with Russia.
Skipping a lot of other dramas, I was offering all of my sufferings in union with Christ’s sacrifice [cf. Col 1:24; Rom 12:1; 1 Pet 2:], and the intentions of the Blessed Mother for the Ukrainians and peace with Russia. Very sick with Covid, breathing through broken ribs, low on oxygen in an ICU, a hernia bulging whenever I coughed, I could not take much more of just offering it up. A nurse had just asked me if I wanted medical staff to try and revive me (CPR, etc…) if I succumbed.
I asked heaven not to expect me to have to offer any further for a people I barely knew and who would never know what I was going through spiritually and physically thousands of miles away. I had kids who still wanted me and I wanted to see my loving wife and family on earth again. I share some of the story now so no one doubts my love for the Ukrainians in the hyper-polarized politics of today & because this essay challenges American policies. I offered spiritual sacrifices according to the best of my ability. Let no one doubt my American patriotism. I wished peace, freedom, and salvation in Christ for all peoples.
I had left home to be admitted to the ICU in a rather low-oxygen state. I was isolated in an ICU now, had just signed not to revive me [too many broken ribs already], and was not allowed visitors. Medical staff only entered in specialized and fully-hooded protective gear looking like hazmat outfits. I didn’t want to die alone and still tear-up when I think about friends and those who did. I swore I would expose all the lies and liars when I got better [not knowing how deep it went at the time & the deep state’s involvement]. I began to get better on the day of the Saint I took years earlier as my patroness, Saint Catherine of Siena. I took that as a motivation that I still had work to do. I had received the anointing of the sick from a priest with great devotion to Saint Catherine before going into the hospital and didn’t know a few days before going into the hospital that Russia pledged to reduce troops on the border by May 1.
Several days after improving, the start of May 2021, Russia was almost finished troop reductions on the border of Ukraine. Days earlier, a bishop of my eparchy got Covid and took his place in another hospital having to offer his sufferings for his flock and the world along with many other unknown souls offering and praying for peace. The same day Russia was finishing the troop reductions, the hospital released me to go home on an oxygen tank. The news was joyfully received by me. Before coming down with Covid and going into the hospital I was supposed to write about Russia and Ukraine. Five years later, with this essay, I’m writing what I can to contribute on the topic from a subjective theological level and cultural concerns.
As my wife drove me home from the hospital, I heard the hourly news update on the radio of all the Covid patients dying in India because they couldn’t get oxygen assistance. There was a shortage. Words fail to express what it was like to have an oxygen tank saving my life while hearing that horrid news. Needless to say, imagined or not, I developed an emotional tie to peace for the Ukrainians and Russia and certainly a reminder to care about those who had no voice or resources as in India. Subjectively, we’d been through a close scare whether anyone else could understand my experiences. The sign of the “7” which I wrote about in the first part of this testimonial was a bit on my mind. It had been confirmed with Covid shutdowns and now I had felt it keenly in a beat-up body and survived it.
One can imagine how upset I got again 5 months later in October of 2021. Russia began to amass troops again on Ukraine’s border. NATO and America were not working to keep the peace and work with Russia’s concerns about NATO expansion. I no longer believed anything the Biden administration said after I saw the policies of his administration causing so much suffering to the American people. As far as I was concerned, Covid and the “vaccines” proved that most media was controlled for the military industrial complex, the deep state, and had become what was later coined the media industrial complex. The American government was becoming a persecutor of truth-tellers, whistleblowers, and orthodox Christianity (those who profess the Nicene Creed, attend the Divine Liturgy or Mass, and consciously try to follow Christ).
Oddly, my 7th year sabbatical semester break as a professor had coincided with my getting out of the hospital that May 2021. On an oxygen tank and grateful to rest, I immediately relinquished my role as chair of theology, finished grading student essays for final grades, and started the sabbatical. Late October 2021, as the new Russian troop build-up continued, the sabbatical break was coming to an end. I was trying to get better still from long-Covid and struggling with brain fog & blood pressure from lingering issues. Pharmacies like CVS were denying one of my legitimate medical doctor prescriptions for ivermectin and I was tiring of the official lies and coverups fostered under Biden. It was clear to me the government had grown arrogant and become a strange parody of the propaganda I was raised to reject during the Cold War. I gave interviews saying as much.
I began writing the Transcendence After America Project by the start of November 2021. Every student of religion and history knows that pride comes before the fall. Russia under Putin was genuinely trying to become more culturally Christan while America under Biden policies was becoming more antichrist and hoisting everywhere the LGBT “pride” flag. As Russia was moving away from Marxism, the West was becoming Marxist in its rejection of Jesus Christ and his doctrines on faithful love. Russia, was not perfect, but at least they were promoting Christian marriage to rebuild their civilization and resisting homosexual ideologies. Truthfulness is the foundation for a future.
So, if the GOP wants to identify the cultural Marxist threats it now warns about, hint: look for those opposing the Catholic teaching on marriage and resisting Jesus as the Messiah of the world. Look for those persecuting nuns who while caring for the dying and giving free care to the dying are hounded by the State of New York to promote transgenderism or be shut down. Probably as early as 2021, Catholics were being monitored by the FBI for their pro-life activism and defense of the Bill of Rights: “[Congressman] Jordan in a statement to CNA said lawmakers ‘knew the Biden-Wray FBI was targeting Catholics, but new documents obtained by the committee — thanks to the leadership of FBI Director Patel — shows that it was worse than anyone thought’.”
Simultaneously, Cardinals were concerned the Vatican was compromising even more on doctrine and pastoral issues as Francis began the Synod on Synodality meetings October of 2021 (and the Russian troop build-up reinitiated immediately after it). My hero and a patron during my time in Australia decades earlier, Cardinal Pell, was beginning warnings about the Synod on Synodality and on-going compromises since Amoris Laetitia.
This is the timeline the Archdiocese of New York gave for the Synod on Synodality in a 2023 report from OSV [bold and brackets mine]:
Pope Francis announced in March 2020 [7 moons after the sign from Part I actually March 7, 2020] (at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in Italy) that the next Synod of Bishops would be held in October 2022 on the theme “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission,” which quickly became known as the “Synod on Synodality.” In May 2021, he postponed the two-part meeting to 2023 (with a second gathering in 2024), due in part to the pandemic, and announced that it would be preceded by a two-year process.
That decision reflected Pope Francis’ vision for the Synod of Bishops outlined in the 2018 apostolic constitution “Episcopalis Communio,” including what Cardinal Mario Grech, the general secretary for the Synod of Bishops, described at the time as “transforming the Synod from an event into a process.” Pope Francis officially opened the “synodal path” with a Mass October 10, 2021, with dioceses around the world following suit. [The Russian troop build-up reinitiated October 26, 2021]
Alleged messages from Our Lady of Garabandal (1960’s) spoke of a unique “synod” before warnings from heaven and chastisements would begin. I began writing the Transcendence After America Project November 2021because I wanted to pass on to my sons in writing the truth that sets us free [Jesus] and remains a light even in the greatest of darknesses: the 7th day is about union between God and man & reveals that God always intended to deify us. It is foundational to understanding the truth about covenant renewals and marriage. It can help modern societies reintegrate eternal, divine, natural, and civil laws. The Transfiguration expresses the fuller meaning of the 7th Day of Creation, etc…
By October of 2021, the message of the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Akita, Japan in 1973 were on my mind again, especially the one of October 13. The signs of the weeping statue of the Virgin Mary of Akita had the approval of the local bishop by 1984. The last alleged message from Akita on October 13, 1973 by the Virgin Mary warned:
As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never [have] seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.
The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres...churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.
By Christmas Eve of December 24, 2021, a long “Introduction” of the Transcendence After America Project was made available online and free to the public by Homiletic and Pastoral Review. Jesus taught: “You received without pay, give without pay” (Matthew 10:8). This is about sharing with the public what I hope to leave with my sons, family, and friends. It’s about restoring participation in the transcendent and authentic freedom that has a right for proclamation in the public square.
Two months after publication, Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. It was not on accident that Pope Francis recognized the danger of the secular situation and immediately consecrated the world again to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 2022 as the war started, specifically praying for Russia and Ukraine. In an unprecedented move, Francis even went on to Russian territory, their embassy in Rome which represented Moscow, and pleaded for peace the day after the war was launched (cf. alleged Garabandal prophecies spoke of world war from Russia after a pope visits Moscow). Francis was an interesting mix of Marian devotion but also seemingly unorthodox pastoral policies which many Cardinals believe still need correction (more in a moment).
At the end of the original Introduction [it’s since been revised], I had asked readers to beat me to finishing the project as I knew my schedule for a manuscript would slow tremendously with workloads weeks after sharing what I had. Many people were already writing the things that needed writing before I ever made public emphases, and many have written beautifully on things I have not yet written upon but hoped to. There are plenty of other edifying voices. I never felt like I had to pretend to have all the answers because I don’t. I’m just interested in sharing some syntheses I already teach but haven’t fully committed to writing. Seeds of it are in previous essays and I’ll be releasing relevant excerpts from the manuscript these next several months.
However, I’m reading the signs of the times and maybe I’ve been too slow writing and sharing. Maybe I’m just impatient? God is all-wise and more patient than we are: “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Nevertheless, after so many warnings, maybe we’re nearing what was nagging at me the end of 2021 when I started writing. Beyond the obvious observations in the public news, it’s my educated guess that things will intensify now in the spiritual and political realms of warfare. Again, your average Joe watching the news could have told you that, but I have other concerns.
Soon after Pope Francis tried answering “Dubia” concerning Amoris Laetitia, on October 13, 2023 Cardinal Mueller warned the responsa of October 3 made things worse. The National Catholic Register reported: “Cardinal Müller responded on Oct. 13 by releasing his own analysis of the Vatican’s responsa, calling it a ‘rupture’ with the clear teachings of Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. He said it also stands at odds with the Church’s established doctrines about grave sin and the licit reception of the Eucharist.”
Let us not forget that as Christ died on the Cross, the veil of the earthly temple in Jerusalem tore from top to bottom. What happened to Christ affected the order which was a preparation and sign of him. Christ’s mystical body on earth is a sacramental mystery in him (cf. Eph 5:32). It has been restraining the forces of chaos and the demonic, but as its earthly members are filled with compromise, then divisions on earth tear and grow pronounced. The dragon begins to be released and the smoke of Satan spreads. Signs of the times seemingly show we moved from war between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 to greater conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in 2023 to minimally ethnic cleansing (likely attempted genocide) in 2024 and regional wars in the Middle East 2025 into 2026. This is clearly just my opinion, but we are probably coming full circle now with Russia and we really don’t have to.
Pope Leo XIV wishes to celebrate Amoris Laetitia from October 7 to October 14, in 2026. He has invited heads of bishop conferences from around the world to help further implement it. Could we please just make things better instead of worse for the mystical body of Christ? Repeal Fiducia Supplicans which has upset so many bishop conferences and give clarity again to indissolubility of sacramental marriages. Since synods are supposed to include listening to the people, start by listening to the people in the pews every Sunday and the bishops who are dismayed by the documents.
Come, Lord Jesus!