When It Comes To Discerning The Future, Pray To Know The 'Truth Of The Moment'

Oh Blessed Mother, what is the truth about the future? What will happen? What is the truth of all the seers and visionaries and Bible messages?

It is something we often contemplate, and the answer, we feel we can hear, is that: the truth is the present.

What is occurring right now in our lives and in the world is the truth.

The future is something else. It is fluid. It changes with time -- and actions.

But right now we are in a serious moment. At Medjugorje, the Blessed Mother said that "the world has been drawn into a great whirlpool. It does not know what it is doing. It does not realize in what sin it is sinking. It needs your prayers so that I can pull it out of this danger."

Such is detected by a prophets, and we do believe in prophets. It is also a part of the intuition: that the truth is in the present and that the truth is that there is strangeness all around us. There is the Lying Spirit of the Desert.

Have you not noticed how unusual events have become, how bizarre our preoccupations have grown, and how strange everyone seems to be acting?

The great chapter to read is Sirach 39; as for intuition, keep this in mind: the great shift will come after an event from the east.

I have decided, God-willing, to conduct a series of retreats around the country, with the next one in San Francisco, and then St. Augustine, Florida, on "hidden things": how there is so much good and evil hidden around us, how we are influenced by what we can't see, and how, in the not-so-distant future, much will be illuminated, will be crystallized (in the world and in our souls).

It is a time a crystallization and a time when we see this strangeness.

Right now, in the present, there is a trend to taking a strange view of each other. It seems like there is a trend to imagine the worse about people.

The devil is out to disunite by splitting apart friendships.

Are you encountering animosities? Are you finding your thoughts turning negative? Do folks seem like they are out for themselves, and starting to relate differently?

We can imagine this and yet at times, it is not our imagination. There is a coldness. There is greed. It is part of the strangeness. We are being estranged. There are bizarre battles over the body of a former stripper. There are bizarre kidnappings. There are bizarre shows. To be bizarre in the current time is to be famous.

Look at what boils in our culture! There was the DaVinci Code. There is now this ridiculous claim that they have found the coffin of Jesus. There are mass killings called wars and serial murders as we have never seen. There is the manipulation of embryos.

This is the truth of the moment and something that must be addressed as the darkness grows darker. The truth of the moment is revealed in the mirror of the Holy Spirit. Where are we each right now? Where are we headed? Do we ask God to reveal hidden areas that need work, that need purification, especially during Lent? Are there matters that we have never confessed -- and that we may be freed from (freed and healed) if they were spoke aloud to a priest?

If there are past sins that still haunt us, perhaps they need to be cleared during a heartfelt participation in the sacrament of Reconciliation.

Head for the desert with Jesus. Fast with Him. "Renounce all passions and all inordinate desires," added the Madonna of Medjugorje to an alleged locutionist. "Avoid television, particularly evil programs, excessive sports, the unreasonable enjoyment of food and drink, alcohol, tobacco, and so forth.

"Abandon yourselves to God without any restrictions.

"Pray and fast! I desire to purify you and to save you.

Pray and do it with fervor.

"You must redouble your efforts. Day after day, increase your fervor. Include the whole world in your prayer. Pray, and you will understand."

It is a time of great darkness but it is a time of great grace. It is a time when we can encounter the truth of the moment (through illumination). When it is dark, any light is all the brighter, is all the sharper, is all the more revealing against a black background -- and so much can be revealed to us in the truth of the moment.

Pray and you will be shown things you do not now see.

Take advantage of this during these Forty Days in one of the darkest times since the Forty Days began 2,000 years ago.

Find out the truth of your moment.

For if it is dark out there, it is but setting the stage, all the more, for the brightness (and illumination) of the Lord.

2/23/07