The Seven, a prophetic novel by Michael H Brown  A coming sign? Events by a sinister personage? Disaster? In his first work of fiction, Brown pens the driving, suspenseful, and deeply spiritual story of a mysterious government property that harbors secrets relevant not only to a young cop who tries to investigate strange goings-on, but also to an equally mysterious and incredibly powerful old priest who joins forces with him to solve the mystery -- and try to prevent an end-times-like disaster!   CLICK HERE


 
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FROM PELICANS TO HOLY RIVERS, ONSLAUGHT OF POLLUTION THREATENS HUGE CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS

Does it strike anyone as interesting that what we are doing to God's Creation is most directly harming places linked with Christ?

Due to excessive uncontrolled use of water, the Sea of Galilee is drying up. It has bounced back a bit of late, but during the past few years it has often reached a crisis point -- with some concerned about its very future existence.

This is of course where Jesus recruited His first apostles. It is a place of His miracles. It is where He multiplied the loaves. Now, overfishing and overuse has depleted the water. At one point the biblical body of water was 16.2 feet below its lower "red line," which marks the point at which it is ecologically inadvisable to draw water.

Meanwhile, the River Jordan -- where Jesus was baptized (and where the Ark of the Covenant was once brought) -- has been turned into a cesspool: so sullied by sewage and agricultural chemicals that conservationists urge against its use. ("A popular baptism site on the river Jordan is facing closure after Israel's ministry of health warned that it was dangerously polluted," was a recent headline.)

In Louisiana -- long one of the most devout states -- the symbol of the oil disaster has been the oily pelican -- a bird that early Christians took as a symbol of the Lord (legend is that at time of famine, a pelican mother struck its own breast with her beak and fed her young with the blood to prevent their starvation, while losing her own life. This tradition and others is found in the Physiologus, an early Christian work which appeared in the second century in Alexandria, Egypt.) The pelican is also the state's official bird. In the hymn "Adoro te devote," St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: "Like what tender tales tell of the Pelican, Bathe me, Jesus Lord, in what Thy Bosom ran, Blood that but one drop of has the pow’r to win, All the world forgiveness of its world of sin."

What are we being told when our holiest resources have been severely sullied? Even Hindus are lamenting that their "holy" river, the Ganges, is too polluted to bathe in, as the faithful there do each year in a massive ritual. (This is hardly to equate Hinduism but to point out an irony.)

Moreover, many don't realize how the very names of waterways have been changed. Lake George in New York (thank God relatively clean) was once the "Lake of the Blessed Sacrament." The Chesapeake (everyone knows the huge pollution issues here, and decimation of crabs) was once "The Bay of St. Mary." And the Mississippi (which runs into the Gulf, and which has endured its own share of severe abuse) was once known as "The River of the Immaculate Conception."

[Michael Brown retreat, Milwaukee: spiritual warfare, afterlife]

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