This Chastisement – Part I: This Was Predicted – What Is God Up To?
Let’s Begin with – 75% Deny Real Presence
I hunger for souls. So, I can’t begin to describe how devastating it was (and is) for me to have read an August 5, 2019 Pew Research report that found that 75% of self-described Catholics DO NOT believe that, at Mass, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, that it is merely “symbolic.” How much longer can the bishops ignore this CRISIS?!
Bishop Robert Barron (who I knew in seminary) reacted very strongly (see below), upon hearing of this Pew Research report. I know some have taken issue with a couple of things Bishop Barron has said, but I remain as one who finds him very gifted as one of the great Catholic evangelists of our time.
Here he talks about this 75% who no longer believe in the Real Presence, and 80% among younger Catholics. Bishop Barron says this should be a “wake up call” for all of us …
“This should be a wake-up call to all of us in the Church—priests, bishops, religious, laypeople, catechists, parents, everyone—that we need to pick up our game when it comes to communicating even the most basic doctrines of the Church.” -Bishop Barron
Bishop Barron made this video the day after the Pew Research report appeared (Please watch, just 6 minutes in length):
I don’t disagree with Bishop Barron’s take on “poor catechesis.” However, I have always held that we cannot “force feed” catechesis. Souls must, first, have a “hunger” for catechesis. If the vast majority of Catholics have a nonchalant attitude toward the Source and Summit of our faith, where does their inspiration and motivation for learning come from?
Therefore, I believe the lack of supernatural faith to be the very root of the problem. Not only has this led to a loss of belief in the Real Presence, but this same lack of supernatural faith is fueling a pandemic of “sins of the flesh” across the globe. Has God allowed this chastisement as a way to “shake us up” (in particular, the bishops) so we do the necessary work to restore the supernatural faith and flatten the curve of the pandemic of sins of the flesh?
This Chastisement Was Predicted
In an article written on August 12, 2019, one week after the Pew Research report, Fr. Regis Scanlon wrote what can now be seen as a prophetic prediction of a coming chastisement: “Will the Pope and Bishops Save Us From a Coming Chastisement?”
In Fr. Scanlon’s article, he lays out a timeline:
October 13, 1884 – Pope Leo XIII heard what he believed to be the voice of Satan challenging God by saying that he can destroy the Church if he had 100 years and a greater power. This was when Pope Leo XIII wrote the Prayer to St. Michael. Satan’s “greater power” would not come from an increase in his power, but through our decreased “supernatural faith.”
October 13, 1917 (33 years later to the day, the span of Christ’s lifetime) – Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. Our Lady asks for the rosary and penance, against the errors of Russia and sins of the flesh. On October 13, 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution erupted, which sought to conquer the world through secular atheism.
In regard to Our Lady’s warning against sins of the flesh, Fr. Scanlon wrote:
“Our Lady Fatima said that Catholics must pray the daily Rosary and do penance so that people will stop offending God. Our Lady told little Jacinta that “the sins of the flesh” were the most frequent sins committed by people leading them to eternal punishment. If God was offended by these sins in 1917, how much more is He offended today? In 1917, it’s fair to say that “the sins of the flesh” were considered deviant behavior, but today the situation is far worse, because those sins, including pornography, masturbation, contraception, fornication, adultery and sodomy, are considered normal behavior. And, abortion, which is often done to cover up the “sins of the flesh,” was considered rare in 1917, but just from 1980 until today the global number of babies that have been aborted is 1.5 billion. The point here is that mankind has not only refused to repent of its “sins of the flesh,” it has even doubled down by expanding these sins in both kind and number exponentially.”
October 13, 1973 (The year Roe v. Wade gave a legal right to kill children) – Our Lady appeared in Akita, Japan to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa. Again, she asks us to pray the rosary, to do acts of penance, and to pray that the bishops stand against the sins of the flesh.
Fr. Scanlon believes (as do I) the 100 years of the unbinding of Satan began with the Miracle of the Sun. This would bring us to October 13, 2018. However, Fr. Scanlon points out that the “Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy” (2015-2016) Satan was, in essence, put on hold. This adds one more year. “That brings us to a new deadline,” Fr. Scanlon wrote, “for Satan’s 100 year of power — the approaching date of Oct. 13, 2019.” And so, as Fr. Scanlon prophetically wrote (recall, he wrote this on August 12, 2019):
“According to this interpretation, if the leaders of the Church and nations have not opposed these ‘sins of the flesh’ by Oct. 13, 2019, sometime after Oct 13, 2019, God will stop Satan with a chastisement which will bring mankind to its knees.”
I would add this to Fr. Scanlon’s timeline (as these occurred after his writing):
October 6, 2019, the Vigil of Our Lady of the Rosary – Sr. Agnes Sasagawa receives another message, which is the first since 1973. Our Lady’s “Jonah like” message to Sr. Sasagawa was to “put on ashes and pray a repentant rosary.”
October 6, 2019, Possible Date of Covid-19 Event – Reports surfaced that there was no cellphone activity in a high-security portion of the Wuhan Institute of Virology from Oct. 7 through Oct. 24, 2019, indicating that there may have been a “hazardous event” on or about October 6.
October 6, 2019, Beginning of Amazon Synod – The Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region met in Rome from 6 to 27 October 2019.
So, here we are. A global pandemic, when much of the world is terrified in lock-down. Not only is the world fearful of this pandemic, but the worldwide economy is threatened to collapse. Yes, this is a chastisement that, as Fr. Scanlon wrote, is bringing mankind to their knees. Hopefully, kneeling in prayer to the God so many have ignored for so long.
How can the bishops mitigate this chastisement? How can they heed the call to stand against the sins of the flesh? They cannot wave a magic wand that heals us all from sins of the flesh. But, they do have tools at their disposal. The bishops must “take stock,” and work, fervently, to restore supernatural faith.
I will address this in “This Chastisement – Part II: How the Bishops Must Respond”
UPDATE: Here is Part II – “This Chastisement – Part II: How the Bishops Must Respond”
