Defiance! The Antichrists of history and their doomed war against the Church, by Fr. Joseph M. Esper, author of Spiritual Dangers of the 21st Century, takes a fascinating look at the many historical threats against Catholicism by those inspired by forces of evil, beginning in ancient Egyptian times, through the Roman era, right up to and through the twentieth century to our current time! CLICK HERE

 __________________________________________________

HIDDEN IN SCRIPTURE, MESSAGES FROM MARY: SURPRISING PUNISHMENTS THAT COME FROM VIOLATING SABBATH

We all know the requirement to attend Mass every weekend. Few realize, however, how seriously Heaven takes this.

That seriousness is witnessed in the Old Testament.

Look at Exodus 32, the Lord saying to Moses:

"You must also tell the Israelites: Take care to keep my Sabbaths, for that is to be the token between you and Me through the generations, to show that it is I, the Lord, Who make you holy. Therefore, you must keep the Sabbath as something sacred. Whoever desecrates it shall be put to death."

Tough stuff.

And granted, Christ came with a new covenant (one that in many ways was gentler).

There were not the harsh judgments we find in many parts of the Old.

But the Bible is the Bible and that the Sabbath is important seemed in ample evidence also when the Virgin Mary appeared in 1846 at LaSalette, France, and specifically warned that there was a chastisement coming because people were violating the law of weekly worship.

"I gave you six days to work, I kept the seventh for myself, and no one wishes to grant it to me," said Mary in September of 1846 to two visionaries.

"This is what weighs down the arm of my Son.

"If the harvest is spoiled, it is only because of the rest of you. I made you see this last year with the potatoes; you took little account of this. It was quite the opposite when you found bad potatoes; you swore oaths, and you included the Name of my Son. They will continue to go bad; at Christmas there will be none left. A great famine will come. Before the famine comes, children under the age of seven will begin to tremble and will die in the arms of those who hold them."

A bit like Exodus?

The Blessed Mother warned that the potatoes would rot and there would be a famine and she said they had been given a warning the previous years when they found some bad potatoes.

Now, they would all be bad, or far more.

And, incredibly: it was the onset of what became known in Ireland and this part of France as well as elsewhere as the Great Potato Famine.

Where a third of potatoes were "bad" the year before in Ireland (afflicted with blight), by the end of 1846 -- the year of the apparition -- three-quarters were thusly ruined.

And while few died in 1846, huge numbers were to succumb during the winter of 1847-1848, when more than a million died in Ireland alone, their bodies weakened and susceptible to diseases like cholera, which, true to Mary's words (which were approved by the Church) caused the young to tremble.

There is a pattern. We are warned. This comes through small "disasters." We heed the warning or are warned again -- this time with more serious events. And so forth.

What is the warning now? Should we note the droughts in Australia and North America? When we look at how weather events have been intensifying we see the same principle -- including with droughts that, as happened with blight, threaten widespread crop shortages. Says 2 Chronicles 36: "Until the land has retrieved its lost Sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled."

Right now, corn farmers in the Midwest are praying (as we should also) for rain.

Serious, indeed, especially when we look at our own time and the way the Sabbath is treated now.

Is it as bad as back in 1846, in rural France, or worse -- even far worse -- when it comes to disrespect for the Lord?