THE WARNING: THE MIRACLE WILL BE A REVELATION

The "Pines"

The Miracle will be a revelation. The Marian visitations, like biblical events, are
revelatory in every respect. They convey a message, not only in the verbal communications of the Mother of God, but in the events themselves, the persons
involved, the circumstances, the surroundings. The symbolism, for instance, of The Spring at Lourdes obviously presents a Baptismal message, a revelation that reinforces the Church's teaching on that Sacrament. God's healing power is clearly evident in the many miracles that occur at the grotto. The Rock of Lourdes is the Church in which Mary dwells and from which the living waters flow, giving life to the whole world. Study of the Marian events uncovers so much meaning hidden away in what at first glance may appear inconsequential.

[To be continued . . .]

FROM MARK MALLETT: - SPIRITUAL FOOD FOR THOUGHT -

Mark has written another great insight about the Illumination (The Warning) which I thought you might like to read:

The Present and Coming Transfiguration

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 3:7)

But if God gives His secrets to His prophets, it is for them, at the appointed time, to announce them. So too, Christ has been revealing in these days His plans, just as He did prior to His Transfiguration.

The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised… If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it... Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. (9:22-24, 28)

I have written extensively here about the many signs of a present and coming persecution of the Church. But before that, I believe the Church will experience, for a brief moment, an interior transfiguration of the soul, an "illumination of conscience."

As he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white. (29)

Those who have heeded the call to "prepare" in these days will, I believe, see their soul in an anticipated union with God (as well as those things which are present obstacles to that union. This will occur for everyone on earth at that time.) At the same time, we will also be given the prophetic understanding of what is to come, and the strength to persevere in it—symbolized by the prophet Elijah, and Moses, the fearless leader of the Israelites:

And behold, two men talked with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. (30-31)

For those in the Church who have been less prepared, and those in the world who have fallen into a heavy sleep of sin, the light of this illumination will be both painful and confusing.

Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, and when they wakened they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him… Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah" — not knowing what he said. (32-33)

THE MOMENT OF DECISION

The illumination of souls will be for a small number in the Church like a "new" Pentecost, releasing new charisms, holy boldness, and Apostolic zeal, while infusing at the same time a general understanding of the coming Passion. For others, it will be a moment of decision: to either accept the sovereignty of Christ, and the authority of His Church built upon Peter, the Rock—or to deny it. In essence, to choose whether or not to listen to the Father speaking through the Holy Spirit. It will be a time of evangelization when the Church will make a "last call" to this present age to heed the Good News.

And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" (35)

What a moment this will be! The world will be turned upside down, and everything hidden in its pockets will fall to the ground. How much sin and rebellion will then be picked up and put back into the soul is dependent, in part, on free will… and contingent upon the intercessory prayer of the Church during this present time of grace.

It also seems to me that this Transfiguration has already begun in many souls—a slow awakening—and will culminate in this single event. I like to think of the Triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem as the peak of this Illumination of Conscience when there is a joyful recognition by the many that Jesus is the Messiah. At the same time, of course, there were also those who began to plot His death…

This will not be the final nor definitive coming of the Holy Spirit. It will be but the beginning of an outpouring of the Spirit which will culminate in the Second Pentecost—the beginning of a new and universal Era of Peace.

The internal experiences of several 20th century mystics describe the pneumatic coming as a new presence of the Holy Spirit in the human spirit revealed exponentially at the threshold of the third millennium. —Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi, The Splendor of Creation, p. 80

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 Millenio Inuente, n.9; (cf. Is 21:11-12)

FURTHER READING

• Paralyzed by Fear—Part II

THE WARNING: THE MIRACLE

Only one person has seen The Miracle, in vision. His name was Father Luis Andreu, a Jesuit seminary professor who came to the village in 1961 less than a week before the Feast of the Assumption. He never returned home from his visit to examine the situation. He was unexpectedly swept into the children's vision of Our Lady, and then caught up by himself into the experience of the coming Miracle. Of course, this convinced him of the authenticity of the apparitions. His heart was so full of joy that it overcame him. On the way back to the seminary, in the early morning hours of the next day, he quietly expired. He did not live to describe The Miracle.

The Blessed Virgin assured the children that "nothing bad would happen" on the day of The Miracle. Presumably this is an assurance that no one else will die from seeing it, as Father Luis did. But his experience of such joy and the remarks he made afterwards about what he saw, taken together with statements by the other visionaries which repeat what Mary told them about The Miracle, reveals that it will be a glorious manifestation of God's love and mercy for us all.

Millions will be able to see it on that day, for Garabandal is perched among hills forming a broad natural amphitheater well able to accommodate the vast multitude which will journey to that remote place when it happens. Somehow, despite the fairly primitive circumstances, their needs will be provided for. A great assembly will converge on the village from everywhere, and all who manage to reach its environs will behold the same vision of joy that sent Father Luis to heaven.

[To be continued . . .]

THE WARNING: TOMORROW

To be read as though the Warning had just come . . .

Chapter Three

The Miracle

Since we have not yet experienced The Miracle, we know only what the Blessed Virgin told us about it. She has revealed enough for us to prepare for this world-shaking occurrence, which will take place at Garabandal within a year of The Warning. We can therefore expect it to happen soon, since we have already felt and seen The Warning. The Miracle is only a short time away from us.

Its exact date is not known, except by Conchita, who knows the day, the date, and the year. She has been forbidden by the Blessed Virgin to disclose it until eight days before it is to happen. At that moment she will announce it to the whole world. She has never revealed the date to anyone.

For twenty years we have waited for the "greatest miracle the Lord has ever worked for the world," during which "the sick" who are at the site "will be cured" and the "unbelievers will be converted." This long waiting-period strikingly distinguishes Garabandal from Fatima, where the predicted miracle of the sun was worked during the course of those apparitions. Also, there was no promise of wholesale healing and conversion at Fatima, but at Garabandal this promise is made.

[To be continued . . .]

THE WARNING: GARABANDAL

Garabandal: 1961

Lucy of Fatima has testified that Our Lady appeared to her a "seventh time" at the Cova da Iria, where the sun had whirled in the sky. Our Lady of the Rosary was fulfilling a promise she had made to her during the apparitions of 1917, when there were the three of them, Lucy, Francisco, and Jacinta. But now the latter two had gone "to heaven," as the Lady had promised they would, and Lucy was leaving Fatima for school and a new life. She visited each of the sacred places where they had met their heavenly visitors, the Angel of Peace and Our Lady. It was night, and that very morning, before the sun rose, she would leave Fatima for good. When she at last reached the "Cova" Our Lady kept her promise. Lucy saw her there a seventh time. It was June 18th, 1921.

Forty years later to the very day, on the evening of June 18th, 1961, the apparitions of Garabandal began. As at Fatima and Paris, an angel prepared the way. In this case he identified himself as Saint Michael the Archangel. Soon Our Lady of Mount Carmel arrived, on July 2nd, the Feast of the Visitation.

It was time to remind us of the message again. After forty years of tumult in history and in the life of the Church, Fatima was failing to keep the interest of the new generation. Our Lady of Mount Carmel repeats herself with dramatic intensity in a little village in the hill country of Spain. She calls these "the last warnings," and foretells catastrophe if, in this, the final hour, the world still refuses to listen.

The Garabandal apparitions continued for four years in a great profusion of phenomena never seen before in previous visitations she had made. At last the visions became less frequent, until they ceased in 1965. A final message was given in that year to the world, again on that mysterious date, June 18th. Some estimate that during those years there were about 2000 meetings between Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the four young seers: Conchita, Loli, Jacinta, and Mary Cruz. The Lady was very beautiful, according to their reports, and quite motherly, kissing the children on each occasion that she visited them, especially whenever she bid them goodbye. She taught them to pray, guiding them in the recitation of the Rosary, chided them about their conduct, chatted, and played with them
as a mother with her young children, and she even allowed them to play with the Infant Jesus, whom she frequently carried with her. She affirmed in various ways those doctrines and devotions that would shortly come under attack or be abandoned, such as the devotion to herself that had long been traditional, love for the Eucharist and visits to the Blessed Sacrament, the importance of prayer, the validity and power of blessings, particularly of religious articles, which she kissed and gave back to their owners to take home. She also stressed the importance of frequent, even daily reception of Holy Communion, the power and dignity of priests and the Mass, the necessity of obedience to Church authority (emphasized as a key point), and belief in and reliance on the ministry of angels and saints. Above all, she repeated the injunction to repent of our sins and seek forgiveness, especially in confession. She recommended we perform much penance, and
make many sacrifices. She said we should sacrifice ourselves more. She warned of
punishment to come, worse than any that had yet been experienced, if we did not amend our lives.

Many all over the world received the faith to believe in the visions and the message of Garabandal, and sincerely reformed their lives. The religious articles carried from town to town after having been "kissed" by the vision wrought healings and conversions.

For those who felt Our Lady's kiss touch them in the power of her love, the reality of the appearances and the importance of the message have never been in doubt.

But Our Lady of Mount Carmel had also revealed that confusion would assail the
Church, and that "in the end, few would believe." This statement of hers seems to have been amply fulfilled at the time we are writing this book (1982). It appears that all the visitations and the messages of Mary have been practically forgotten or are ignored by most Catholics, including the clergy. Until The Warning stuck us, confronting us relentlessly with the truth of her words, we seem to have put them all aside as past and pointless history.

The Warning pulls the veil of Satan's deception away from our eyes. God now demands that we listen. Up to now we have not chosen to do so, especially when Mary has called on us to change our lives. The Warning is God's mercy to us, showing us that we must change, we must repent, we must listen --- or we perish.

The finality of the Garabandal series of apparitions is underlined by her words to the visionaries, "You are now in the last warnings!" Garabandal recapitulates all the previous Marian apparitions as it focuses in on the "end of the times." Her self-designation there as Our Lady of Mount Carmel digs back into history over 730 years to her meeting with Saint Simon Stock. She gave him the Brown Scapular, since then a traditional symbol associating salvation with her protection. Guadalupe (Mexico: 1531) presents her as the one who crushes the serpent's head. Her intercession releases grace for world conversion. The Miraculous Medal given in 1830 depicts her as "Mary, conceived without sin," and
again recommends seeking graces from her intercession in order to battle the sinful times we were then entering. LaSalette in 1846, Lourdes in 1858, Fatima in 1917 each explicitly identify sin as the source of the "troubles" the Virgin predicted to Saint Catherine Laboure would afflict the "whole world." When she begins to appear again at Garabandal, she reminds us of all the lessons she taught in foregoing ages, and then applies them precisely to current evils soon to infect the Church's life. The high point of these encounters at the tiny mountain village of Garabandal is a mid-night rendezvous in 1962 between Conchita and the Archangel Michael, who gives her Holy Communion in the street, in pitch darkness. It is July 18th, 1962, the very anniversary of Saint Catherine
Laboure's first visit with the Blessed Virgin in 1830. The Eucharist is visible on her
extended tongue and luminous, so that the bystanders, huddled around her in the dark, can see the miraculous host. Again Mary reiterates the teaching that the Eucharist is the light that conquers the darkness engulfing the world, repeating what had been indicated to Saint Catherine Laboure, brought to the altar in the brightly illuminated chapel at midnight.

[To be continued . . .]

THE WARNING: FATIMA

Fatima: 1917 May 13 to October 13, the thirteenth of each month

Again it is to children that the Virgin reaches out, on this occasion, in Fatima, Portugal. An angel first visits them in 1916, to prepare their hearts to commune with the Mother of God. When the Lady arrives, brighter than the sun in her beauty, she introduces them into the secret of her Immaculate Heart, which she offers as the solution to the problems the world is suffering. In her Heart there is no sin, and therein lies the victory that she predicts, "My Immaculate Heart will triumph!" She points out to the children (and to us) the consequences of sin, and shows them "Hell, where the souls of poor sinners go." This vision displays to their innocent eyes a sea of fire in which they behold the damned. A dire prophecy follows foretelling what will happen on earth if people will not amend their lives: famine, wars and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father, the martyrdom of many good people, and even the annihilation of some nations. Russia will continue to spread her errors throughout the world. But, she asserts with authority, "If people will do as I ask, there will be peace." She declared to the children that the peace of the world has been confided into her hands. And, despite what may befall humanity if we refuse to listen she announces that, "In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph, the Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, Russia will be converted, and an Era of Peace will be given to the world."

Instead of a spring such as she left for us at Lourdes, "Our Lady of the Rosary" (for that is how she identifies herself) promises, months ahead of the event, that on October 13th, at the last appearance, she herself will work a great miracle, "so that all will believe." When the day arrives, 70,000 pilgrims are assembled at the "Cova da Iria," a natural amphitheater seemingly designed for such a spectacle. At noon, sun-time, the clouds part after an all-night rainstorm, and every eye is able to view the sun directly without strain. Shafts of rainbow-like light spin from its orb, dazzling and delighting the onlookers. But suddenly the multitude is appalled as the sun seems to lose its moorings in the heavens; it lurches downward, threatening everyone with obliteration. They are convinced it is the
end of the world. Their relief when the sun bounds back to its ordained place in the firmament is beyond expression. But express it they did. There are those still living who were present at that wonder, who continue to render their moving testimony. Not all were professed believers who saw, but even the confirmed skeptics were compelled to speak. The secular and atheistic chronicles of the time recorded in print the witness of those who came to scoff and went home stunned by what had happened at the Cova da Iria.

Fatima is pivotal. It plunges the message of Mary into the sphere of world-wide events. No longer is it only France or some other particular country that receives specific attention. The whole world must listen. In the course of the Second World War, Fatima prophecies were released which, in 1917, had predicted that conflict; soon afterwards the now famous Pilgrim Virgin statues began to travel to every corner of the globe. In the late fifties, the Western World was hearing the message of Fatima from every side. A major motion picture on the subject was distributed. Television programs highlighted the story of Our Lady of Fatima. All waited with anticipation for the "secret" of Fatima to be revealed, for there were tales of a letter sealed with a secret that could not be disclosed until 1960.
[Editors note: The 3rd part of the Secret was revealed by the Vatican on May 13, 2000. Here is the official text: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html ]

By the time the Fatima events had become known throughout the Catholic world, the Second World War was already in progress. No further proof of their authenticity was necessary, for that war had been foretold as a punishment, and we were right in the middle of it. It was clear that we were not amending our lives according to her requests. There was not enough response in prayer and penance to bring about the peace Our Lady of the Rosary had promised, "If people do as I ask." Peace had not come. The war ended with the explosion of two mighty bombs which introduced us into the nuclear age of annihilation. The situation was deteriorating rather than improving, and the moral fabric of society began to disintegrate badly. Great fissures opened up between the "Third World" and the rich nations, and Communism continued to "spread her errors throughout the world."

What did the "Secret of Fatima" contain? [See link to Vatican above. Ed.] The curiosity of so many was disappointed when Pope John XXIII, according to the story, opened the sealed letter from Lucy (the sole remaining visionary of Fatima) in 1960, and chose not to reveal what was written in it. Just a year previously he had announced, on January 25, 1959, the convocation of an Ecumenical Council at the Vatican. As this history making gathering of the world's bishops unfolded, the Fatima "secret" was gradually forgotten, and somehow, despite the solemn exhortation of the Council Fathers to maintain devotion to the Mother of God, and even though Pope Paul VI proclaimed her as "Mother of the Church" (with the immediate acclamation of the Council), not only did devotion to the Blessed Mother decline; a general disappearance of expressed love for her ensued, as changes in theology, liturgy, and devotional practice flowed from the Council.

[To be continued . . .]

The Warning: Lourdes

Lourdes: 1858

In 1854, Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Four years later, Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen-year-old girl whose family was the poorest in Lourdes, France, declared she had seen a Lady in the village dump, where she and two other girls had been gathering firewood. The vision had issued from the heart of a massive rock formation next to the river Gave, in a place called "Massabielle," which literally means "old rock." After several visits, the Lady asked Bernadette to return fifteen times, which she faithfully did, whereupon she and the whole world received a message and a gift. The message was simple and direct: "Repentance! Repentance! Repentance!"
The gift was a beautiful clear spring, coming forth from the base of the rock at a point where Bernadette had obediently dug with her bare hands in the mud, for the Lady had directed that she drink at The Spring. The waters soon displayed miraculous healing properties, and pilgrims began their journeys to Lourdes to bathe in the water and drink at The Spring. Ever since The Spring appeared, countless millions have found living waters at this spot where the Blessed Virgin spoke to a little girl of no account. When Bernadette at last asked the beautiful Lady who she was, the vision confessed, with awesome simplicity, "I am the Immaculate Conception!" Free from sin from the beginning, she showed what the Lord wants for us at the end. Her battle is ours, a fight against sin. If we would only repent of our sins, the calamities that threaten the human race would never
occur. There would be healing and peace that issues from the heart of God, like water from The Rock. Like Mary, we dwell within the "old rock" of the Church, the Rock of Christ. The waters flowing from it in the mystery of Baptism would cleanse us and refresh us with grace.

The miracles at Lourdes continue until today to confront us with the message of Mary and the constant availability of God's healing and forgiveness. The Spring is a reminder that the springs of "living water" are waiting for the people of the world, that they may come and "drink freely, without pay." The weight of sin upon us will be lifted, its stain washed away. The message grows more emphatic with Lourdes. Sin is the core of the problem. The world must change. The Darkness is gathering.

[To be continued . . .]