“I was alive during World War II, and it wasn’t this bad even back then.”

This I overheard one man say to another last week as I was out and about my daily endeavors — back when things were nowhere near as bad as they are today as I write this post … under government mandated lockdown in New York and deprived of what has been the anchor of my daily life for the last 12 years — Mass and Holy Communion.

But I do not write this post to reiterate sentiments akin to the one above: almost every article generated every day in the mainstream media is doing precisely that:

“Apocalyptic.” “The Sky is Falling.” “This is not a recession: it’s an ice age.” “This is without precedent.” “Life will never be the same again.” “The world will never be the same again.”

These are the types of headlines one is constantly seeing even in the very mainstream media outlets that are regarded for their cool-headedness. And I will not dispute the validity of these headlines.

But there is one headline I recently saw, which I do indeed want to dispute:

“This is the thing that this generation will remember.”

No, it is not.

Surely, this is a thing that will be remembered, but not the thing; not by a long shot. Though indeed tragic and unprecedented, the present trial is — in terms of temporal disarray — a mere inconvenience compared to what is coming soon. (I give an important qualification on this point later in this post)

It is with absolutely no flippancy or glibness that I chose the title for this article: my wife will be delivering our fourth child any day now, and I know full well that the first birth pang, while it will be quite painful for her, will be only a preview of what is to come thereafter. 

But it is also with no sense of  “doom and gloom” or “fear mongering” that I chose the title for this article, either: despite all the pain of labor and delivery, it is itself nothing compared to the glory and the beauty of what follows: a new life emerging visibly into the world.

This, of course, is why Our Lord chose precisely this analogy in prophetically describing the days that, it seems, we have now officially embarked upon:

“All these things are merely the beginning of the birth pangs” – Matthew 24:8

Yes, unprecedented Chastisements are about to inundate the world. But so is a glorious Era of Peace beyond anything the world has ever seen — wherein God’s Kingdom will arrive more fully than ever before, and His Will shall be done on earth as it is done in Heaven. 

But I have been proclaiming this message for a long time; so why this post now? 

Because it is now long overdue for the scoffers to cease and desist their scoffing, and get on their knees and beg God’s forgiveness for opposing Heaven’s messages for so long, now that the truth of these messages is stunningly displayed for all the world to see. (And most of the “scoffers,” by the way, are not the worldly; the worldly generally know nothing of these prophecies — a sorry state of affairs I largely dedicate myself to trying to change. The scoffers, rather, are usually “orthodox Catholic” lay people who have appointed themselves the judges of private revelation or who flippantly denounce it merely because it is not a constituent of the Deposit of Faith or because it does not align with their own personal eschatological speculations)

• In recent years, trustworthy private revelation has been saying that, very soon, the Eucharist would be very difficult to find. The scoffers scoffed. Now it is a reality — more so than ever before in the entire history of the Church, as far as I can tell (Yes, there were Mass cancellations during the 1918 pandemic as well, and other pandemics, but it seems that those cancellations were nowhere near as universal as what we are now experiencing; in better days, our shepherds did not compete to see who could cancel public Masses more quickly in the face of danger). 
• In recent years, trustworthy private revelation has been saying that a new disease would inundate the world. The scoffers scoffed. Now it is a reality.
• In 2019, Fr. Michel Rodrigue announced that he was told that, come February 2020, he was not to travel outside the country any longer. The scoffers scoffed. This admonition could not have been more prophetic.
• In 2019, Fr. Michel begged Catholics to make sure they got to Confession before 2020. The scoffers scoffed. Now they can’t get to confession at all.
• In 2019, Fr. Michel said to have several months of food and supplies on hand. The scoffers scoffed. Now they must wish they listened.
• In recent years, trustworthy private revelation has been foretelling an imminent financial collapse (to be followed by economic collapse, then total societal collapse). The scoffers scoffed. Now the market has plunged more drastically than ever before in American history, already eclipsing the Great Depression itself. And the collapse seems to still only be in its initial stages.

[For now, I am going to spare you a long list of the details of and quotes from these fulfilled prophecies; I am contributing towards a website that will be public on the Feast of the Annunciation, www.CountDownToTheKingdom.com, that will have much of this]

This isn’t an “I told you so” blog post. I am the last one worthy of saying that, for God knows how many things I should be doing which I am not doing, and what I plead for is His Mercy on my soul, not the vindication of myself before others.

No, rather, this is an “I beg you to now begin listening before it truly is too late” post. 

For a mere ounce of common sense should cause even the most arrogant of scoffers to now pause and consider:

“Hmm. These prophecies have already proven true, so perhaps it is high time I consider what else is contained within them.”

Well, let me make a long story short. Here is what is contained in their consensus (much of these processes have begun already; but in the coming times, they will increase exponentially):

The warnings before THE Warning:

(in no particular order)

• God will bring man to his knees — or, rather, God will allow the natural consequences of modern man’s sinfulness and apostasy to be experienced throughout the world.
• There will be enormous earthquakes and volcanoes; including in places that rarely see them. There will be tsunamis.
• There will be “new phenomena” to stun mankind; phenomena that we likely do not even have names for at present, and perhaps only speculate about. (Including celestial/cosmic phenomena)
• There will be enormous storms; hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, hail, etc.: the likes of which the world cannot remember.
• There will be enormous fires.
• There will be war: probably a Third World War; possibly a nuclear war
• The financial meltdown will be followed by a total economic collapse, which in turn will be followed by a total societal collapse. Famine will precipitate the collapse. “First world” developed nations will begin to look more like Venezuela has for the last few years. 
• Communism will suddenly re-explode onto the world scene: probably through the machinations of China and Russia. 
• There will be increasing apostasy within the Church — only that which is directly Divinely Protected (e.g. the actual Papal Magisterium itself) will be safeguarded from the corruption of heresy and blasphemy.
• There will be a severe persecution of the faithful; what is already happening in many countries (the infallible and immutable Christian — and natural — Moral Law being declared “hate speech”) will explode in severity and scope. 

With each event that comes, it will become increasingly clear that their confluence is no mere coincidence, but is rather none other than the fulfillment of the prophecies and the initiation of the days spoken of in the Book of Revelation

In the midst of these warnings, THE Warning will come.

Miraculously, everyone throughout the entire world will be shown the state of their souls before God. Most will be horrified. But this, the greatest act of mercy in the history of the world, will give souls a chance to repent. (We do not know when, in the list of chastisements above, the Warning will come; but the prophecies seem to indicate that at least a couple more of these chastisements will occur before The Warning hits)

Several weeks of peace will follow it.

For the world will be dazzled by the experience. This is the chance for the faithful to evangelize like never before. But the “experts” — secularists in science, media, government, and even many in the Church hierarchy — will write it off as a purely material phenomenon not to be taken seriously (I speculate that they will chalk it up to a cosmic influx of some sort of gamma radiation that triggered a release of a certain hormone at the same time in all people), and those who have not genuinely repented and converted will soon forget it and go back to their old sinful ways; or, rather, they will become even worse in their rebellion against God.

Then, the Antichrist enters. 

…to gather up his own, institute the Mark of the Beast, and pretend to have claimed for himself the Throne of Peter. This indeed will be the Abomination of Desolation. It will be time to, as Our Lord says in the Gospel, “flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:16). 

Much of the faithful remnant will be miraculously lead to refuges.

…where they will be Divinely protected from the Antichrist and the even greater scourges that will  occur on earth during his 3 year reign.

Through the Three Days of Darkness at the end of his reign, the Antichrist will be defeated

and all those who sided with him will be destroyed. The world will be radically transformed through this unprecedented upheaval, and left ready to be made as God intended it to be.

Christ will come, in grace (not physically) to institute His Kingdom on earth

…even more fully than ever before, and the Divine Will shall reign. The glory of this Era of history can scarcely be described; although I have tried my best in pages 463-483 of The Crown of Sanctity and pages 3-9 of The Crown of History]

After an unknown amount of time of this Era of Peace, the definitive events of the End of Time will commence

(Gog and Magog, The Final Coming of Jesus in the Flesh, the Eternal Resurrection, the Last Judgment).

[Again, much more detail on the above will soon be available at www.CountdownToTheKingdom.com Also note that some refer to what I have called “the warnings” as “the minor chastisement/minor tribulation” and the time of the Antichrist/3 Days of Darkness as “the major chastisement/major tribulation; and the post-Warning peace as the “minor Era of peace” and the post-Antichrist peace as the “Major Era of Peace.” That is fine; although I prefer the terminology I’ve used above.

Others argue that the Antichrist can only come at the very end of the world, and any Era of Peace must precede him. Others predict several different Chastisements and several different yet-to-come temporal Eras of Peace. Still others argue that there will be absolutely no Era of Peace, and that the end of the world itself is imminent. All these mistaken positions are refuted in pages 356-396 of The Crown of Sanctity] 

Another note to the scoffers:

Now, lest any scoffers insist upon maintaining their scoffing, allow me to refute their attempted last bastion of defense: “well, these alleged prophets issue so many prophecies, like grape shot, they are bound to be right sometimes!”

No, they are not. Every “psychic” out there experienced in the craft of his fraud knows full well that the grape shot approach is one doomed to failure. There are far too many possibilities that the future may hold to even bother attempting this approach  — for it will always be revealed as fraudulent. Allow me to draw an analogy: the future is like an extremely strong password. If you have an extremely strong password and someone still breaks into your account, you can rest assured that this person somehow acquired your password, and did not merely “brute force” (i.e. “grape shot” approach) generate it with a hacking program. Similarly, it is a mathematical fact that the world’s most powerful supercomputer is utterly powerless against a simple 128 bit encryption key. Indeed, these scammers know that, instead, they must simply stick with asserting generalities that can seem to be fulfilled no matter what actually happens. But we are not dealing with generalities that can be molded to fit any scenario with these prophecies; we are dealing with specific messages regarding specific events to come in the future that are being perfectly fulfilled before our very eyes and should confound even the most incredulous skeptics and jaded cynics who haunt the pews of Catholic Churches today. 

Now, of all the private revelations given throughout history, the one that has the most fulfilled prophecies is the revelation of Jesus to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta. I described just a few of the fulfilled prophecies on pages 98-110 of The Crown of Sanctity and pages 28-34 of The Crown of History, but most of what Jesus told her regards what is yet to come; and most of that, in turn, regards the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth. But much of it also regards the Chastisements that must precede the Coming of the Kingdom. 

While I advise you to simply check out www.CountdownToTheKingdom.com in a few days for more private revelations on what is to come, I do want to include in this post just a few insights from Luisa’s revelations. So here are a few miscellaneous excerpts (these are just snippets; you can easily find the contexts and the dates by searching for the quotes you are interested in on the PDF of Luisa’s volumes — link on the right-hand sidebar.)

Jesus tells Luisa:

There is much more I could quote from Luisa’s revelations on the Chastisements, but instead I want to now turn to a much more important message:

I know; much of this may be quite frightening to hear. But we must not allow ourselves to become frightened. None of the Chastisements are arbitrary. They will all serve to prepare the ground for the Reign of the Divine Will; the Coming of the Kingdom. Jesus tells Luisa:

My daughter, everything you saw [Chastisements] will serve to purify and prepare the human family. The turmoils will serve to reorder, and the destructions to build more beautiful things. If a collapsing building is not torn down, a new and more beautiful one cannot be formed upon those very ruins. I will stir everything for the fulfillment of my Divine Will. … when We decree, all is done; in Us, it is enough to decree in order to accomplish what We want. This is why what seems difficult to you will all be made easy by Our Power. (April 30^th, 1928)

The Chastisements are far more difficult for Jesus than for anyone else; for in Chastising – or allowing Chastisements – He is Chastising His own Mystical Body. He can only tolerate this because He sees what is to come on earth after the Chastisements. Jesus tells Luisa:

And if there was not in Us the Certainty that Our Will would Reign in the creature, in order to form Our Life in her, Our Love would Burn Creation completely, and would reduce it to nothing; and if it supports and tolerates so much, it is because We see the times to come, Our Purpose Realized. (May 30, 1932)

In a word: the Chastisements are not primarily punitive; they are preparatory and, indeed, salvific.

Why are they salvific? Because most souls will indeed turn to God in times trial. God loves His children so much that He will try everything else before resorting to Chastisements – but, ultimately, even the worst temporal Chastisement is infinitely better than eternal damnation. Within a passage already quoted earlier, Jesus also tells Luisa:

“My daughter, courage, everything will serve for the Triumph of My Will. If I strike, it is because I want to heal.  My Love is so much, that when I cannot conquer by way of Love and of Graces, I seek to conquer by way of terror and fright.  The human weakness is so much that many times he does not care about My Graces, he is deaf to My Voice, he laughs at My Love.  But it is enough to touch his skin, to remove the things necessary to natural life, that it abases his haughtiness.  He feels so humiliated that he makes himself a rag, and I do what I want with him.  Especially if they do not have a perfidious and obstinate will, one chastisement is enough-to see himself at the brink of the grave-that he returns to Me into My arms.” (June 6, 1935)

God is love. Therefore, God’s Chastisements – whether willed directly by Him or only willed permissively – are also acts of love. A soul in God’s grace should have no fear of the Chastisements, for even at their most terrible, he approaches them like a person with dirt on his body approaches a shower. Jesus tells Luisa:

Courage, my daughter—courage is of souls resolute to do good. They are imperturbable under any storm; and while they hear the roaring of the thunders and lightnings to the point of trembling, and remain under the pouring rain that pours over them, they use the water to be washed and come out more beautiful; and heedless of the storm, they are more than ever resolute and courageous in not moving from the good they have started. Discouragement is of irresolute souls, which never arrive at accomplishing a good. Courage sets the way, courage puts to flight any storm, courage is the bread of the strong, courage is the warlike one that knows how to win any battle. (April 16, 1931)

What a beautiful teaching! Without ever succumbing to any form of flippancy regarding the looming Chastisements, we can nevertheless await them with a type of holy excitement; for we can use them, as Jesus here asks us to, in order to cleanse ourselves of what we know is filthy but which we have not yet found the strength to be rid of.

And remember, there is great protection from Chastisements through devotion to Our Lady. As I always quote, and will continue to quote:

[Luisa:] “But who knows who will see when this Kingdom of the Divine Fiat will come? O! how difficult it seems.” … [Jesus:] “My daughter, and yet It will come. You measure the human, the sad times that involve the present generations, and therefore it seems difficult to you. … what is impossible for human nature, is easy for Us…And then, there is the Queen of Heaven who, with Her Empire, continuously prays that the Kingdom of the Divine Will come on earth, and when have We ever denied Her anything? For Us, Her Prayers are impetuous winds such that We cannot resist Her… She will give Unheard-of Graces, Surprises never seen, Miracles that will shake Heaven and earth. We give Her the whole field free so that She will form for Us the Kingdom of Our Will on earth. She will be the Guide, the True Model, It will also be the Kingdom of the Celestial Sovereign. Therefore, you also pray together with Her, and at Its time you will obtain the intent. (July 14, 1935)

You must know that I always love my children, my beloved creatures, I would turn Myself inside out so as not to see them struck; so much so, that in the gloomy times that are coming, I have placed them all in the hands of my Celestial Mother—to Her have I entrusted them, that She may keep them for Me under Her safe mantle. I will give Her all those whom She will want; even death will have no power over those who will be in the custody of my Mother.” Now, while He was saying this, my dear Jesus showed me, with facts, how the Sovereign Queen descended from Heaven with an unspeakable majesty, and a tenderness fully maternal; and She went around in the midst of creatures, throughout all nations, and She marked Her dear children and those who were not to be touched by the scourges. Whomever my Celestial Mother touched, the scourges had no power to touch those creatures. Sweet Jesus gave to His Mother the right to bring to safety whomever She pleased. (June 6, 1935)

Your Heavenly Mother is going to be so close to you in all that is coming upon the world and upon your own life. Trust her. Love her. Consecrate yourself to her. Pray her Rosary every day. And know that you have absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

But there is simply no longer any avoiding it; no possibility of ignoring the fact that…

Coronavirus and everything that is going along with it — the suspension of the public sacrifice of the Mass, the financial and economic collapse — is one of two things. Either it is…

My sense is that this present trial is not the initial event, but is indeed rather “the warning before the warnings before THE warning.” I know of no prophecy indicating this; it is merely my fallible sense of things. It seems likely that society will, after some months of this trial, return more or less to its normal operation — briefly. This will be our last chance. Get to confession. Center your life on the Eucharist (preferably by receiving every single day, if at all possible). Have several months of food and supplies on hand.

Because all of long-prophesied events listed above are at the very doorstep:

• Above all, the veritable prophetic consensus insists upon this; as you will soon see at www.CountdownToTheKingdom.com
• Coronavirus itself, unprecedented and game changing as it is, is a clear fulfillment of many prophecies already.
• As followers of Medjugorje know, the Time of the Secrets begins (i.e. The Chastisements, Miracles, Era of Peace) when the Apparitions end. Well, we just took a major step in that direction last week when Mirjana announced that the Blessed Virgin told her that her monthly apparitions are now over. And here we are, on the cusp of the 40th anniversary of the Apparitions there beginning… a major milestone that many have speculated will mark their cessation (as I mentioned in this post from 2018)
• The entire world rests upon the Holy Mass, and its historically unprecedented nearly universal suppression cannot possibly not have eschatological and immediate repercussions
• We will likely never climb our way out of the financial and economic collapse that has now begun. The House of Cards that is modern society has now been revealed; how utterly precarious the present order is. The Man Behind the Curtain has been seen, and his revelation cannot merely be forgotten once things “calm down.” The world’s reserve currency is likely about to super-inflate into oblivion, and the West’s exploding debts are about to destroy the economic order.
• The time of weakness now being endured by the West will likely embolden its enemies to pounce with Communism reemerging through China and Russia

A Note on the Absence of the Mass

I do wish to clarify something I said above. I am not claiming that this Coronavirus Pandemic actually is a mere “inconvenience;” my point is only that, compared to what is coming soon, that’s what it will look like. But, of course, each death is a tragedy and I pray every day for those affected. 

But, as I said, there is at least one aspect of this Pandemic that certainly is universally tragic beyond words: the cessation of the public sacrifice of the Mass. If that is not eschatological, then nothing is. And so many prophets today have been told it is coming soon.

But I want to end this post, not making any more societal-level observations, but rather offering a few words to individual souls suffering from the absence of the Mass.

As I wrote in page 255 of the Crown of Sanctity:

I could probably count on my fingers alone the number of times I missed daily Mass, during the entire 12 years that preceded last week. It has, that entire time, been the anchor and the foundation of my life. I say this only so that no one dares to accuse me of any sort of Quietism or Laxity as I admonish all to not lose their peace over circumstances that they cannot control. For, quite the contrary, I do not think you are likely to find a more zealous advocate for daily Mass than myself — but, notwithstanding the glory of the Eucharist and the glory of the Mass, the fact remains that nothing can thwart God’s Will; and God’s Will is your sanctification. Not sometimes. Not most of the time. Not almost all of the time. But all of the time. 

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification” – 1 Thessalonians 4:3

Nothing can stand in the way of your sanctification if only you say, and believe, and act in accordance with, the greatest prayer: “Thy Will be Done.”  

Use this painful time without the Eucharist to grow ever deeper into that which is the source of the Eucharist itself: the Will of God. 

Pray the Our Father at noon (Rome Time, which is 7am Eastern US Time), as the Holy Father requested, on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25th).

Receive the new and historically unprecedented Plenary Indulgence every day — simply by reciting the Divine Mercy Chaplet for an end to Coronavirus and with the will to get to Confession and Communion as soon as you can (if, like me, you cannot make it to either due to government mandated quarantines).

• Above all, remain a good Catholic. As soon as you can, confess your sins, and remain always in a state of grace. As much as possible, live life centered on the Sacraments. Keep doing everything you are doing as a Catholic striving after sanctity (and stay away from any follower of Luisa who pretends, in stark contrast to what Jesus actually said to Luisa, that Luisa’s revelations allow one to “move on” from these things).
• Pray the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day.
• Wear one or more of the following: a blessed Crucifix, the Brown Scapular, the Miraculous Medal, the St. Benedict Medal.
• Read Scripture and other spiritual reading every day (especially Luisa’s writings), and meditate each day
• Proclaim the Divine Mercy and encourage all to trust in the mercy of Jesus.
• Fast, and otherwise offer sacrifices, for the salvation and sanctification of souls, the deliverance of the holy souls in Purgatory, the mitigation of the Chastisements, and the hastening of the Coming of the Kingdom.
• Consecrate yourself, your family, and your home to the Holy Family
• Ask God every day for the Gift of Living in the Divine Will: “Jesus, I Trust in You. Thy Will be done. I give you my will; please give me Yours in return.” Consecrations to the Divine Will and “Prevenient and Present Acts” in the Divine Will can also easily be found online.
• Pray the Hours of the Passion. Jesus promises the Salvation of a Soul for each word of it read, in His Will, and protection for an entire city from Chastisements if even one soul in it continuously unites to His passion through these Hours.
• Do all your acts in the Divine Will – asking Jesus to do in you whatever you are doing at the moment – to mitigate the Chastisements and prepare the ground for the universal reign of the Divine Will.
• Proclaim the Kingdom – the Divine Will. Promulgate the truths you have here learned!
• Grow in virtue every day
• Do not neglect a prudent degree of sober minded physical preparedness (several months’ worth of food/supplies)

Fear nothing.

God is completely in control.

(And He’s about to make that overwhelmingly clear for all the world to see.)