REVELATION 13:4 " People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, 'Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?" I find it interesting that people worship the dragon (Satan) precisely because he gave his power to the Antichrist; by chance satan himself will appear in the form of an idol or spirit and people will see an unholy imitation of the Trinity - dragon; beast and false prophet - with your own eyes?
August to October 1820 [Anne Catherine Emmerich] "I see more martyrs, not now but in the future... I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church. Near them I saw a horrible beast coming up from the sea. All over the world, good and devout people, especially the clergy, were harassed, oppressed, and put into prison. I had the feeling that they would become martyrs one day. "When the Church had been for the most part destroyed (by the secret sect), and when only the sanctuary and altar were still standing, I saw the wreckers (of the secret sect) enter the Church with the Beast. There, they met a Woman of noble carriage who seemed to be with child because she walked slowly. At this sight, the enemies were terrorized, and the Beast could not take but another step forward. It projected its neck towards the Woman as if to devour her, but the Woman turned about and bowed down (towards the Altar), her head touching the ground. Thereupon, I saw the Beast taking to flight towards the sea again, and the enemies were fleeing in the greatest of confusion. “Then, I saw in the distance great legions approaching. In the foreground I saw a man on a white horse. Prisoners were set free and joined them. All the enemies were pursued. Then, I saw that the Church was being promptly rebuilt, and she was more magnificent than ever before." http://jeanneshouseafire.blogspot.com/2013/11/blessed-anne-catherine-emmerich.html?m=1
I am older now and must be careful that I am not simply being cranky. A vice of the years, to take a dim view of modern times and to look back on the past with rose tinted glasses. But although I tend to take little to do with people and keep myself very, very much to myself in these latter times I think there is a great parting of the ways between those who have kept the Faith and those who have not. Society itself is all about an individualistic selfishness. About taking care of yourself and your own family. Of doing well. A soul is a bit like a house in many ways. If the house is empty if the presence of the Good Lord it will not be empty too long. Demons will take up residence. Especially these days. This teaches me to be careful of people I meet, especially for the first time. When I was young I was very innocent, I think that came from being brought up in a good Catholic family. I had never truly met evil face to face. I assumed that everyone would be my friend and would be well meaning. Such is not the case now. I think the good Catholic would be very wise to have a certain caution and prudence in dealings with people that they have never met before. I have a very high regard however for Catholics who have indeed kept the Faith in these dark and troubled times when Mass Apostacy has become the norm. The Light and Warmth of the Presence of the Lord is so apparent in the homes of their souls and draws me like a little Moth by the Light of its Light. So we see the separation of the sheep from the goats. The sheep know their Master and He knows them. The goats who have sold their very souls to the Ruler of this Present Age grow more wicked with each passing day. Not only wicked but increasing mad as they loose total touch with nay semblance of reality. ..and so the soil of the world grows prepared for the Man of Sin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem) The Second Coming Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The following was true in pagan, pre-Christian times: And when he was come to the multitude, there came to him a man falling down on his knees before him, saying: Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic, and suffereth much: for he falleth often into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said: O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: Why could not we cast him out? Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief. For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you. But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting – Matthew 17: 14-21 But in this post-Christian age: When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation. – Matthew 12:43-45 Our times are post-Christian, and therefore many times as demonic as the pagan culture our ancestors defeated, with and through Christ and His Church and their personal sacrifice. Many have a quaint notion of what the “New Evangelization” entails, but it has become simply this: casting out the demons of this post-Christian age and its culture of death, and restoring and rebuilding the Church for the salvation of the many lost souls at this end of this era. This present battle won’t be won now except by prayer and fasting – coupled with real and freely accepted redemptive suffering. Our culture is obsessed with sex, pleasures, comfort, leisure and satiety. We know this will end soon, and severe difficulties are directly ahead, along with real suffering and crosses. It’s unavoidable now, it’s palpable, and we all feel it. Since we “know” these crosses lie directly ahead, due to our collective decadence and sin, we must tell God beforehand that we accept these coming crosses, and offer them up to the Father, for souls, the restoration of the Church, and the conversion or confounding of the men in Rome who are behind the “progressive” and heretical agenda that has turned our beloved Church from a place of refuge into a cause of sorrow.
I've often pondered that passage about the demon returning with 7 more to the soul that is as an unoccupied house, swept clean and put in order...and have been a bit perplexed by it. But your explanation makes such perfect sense. My husband and I talk about this a lot... The unsettling situation of living in a post-Christian world. How the original pagans were easier to convert because they were truly ignorant, simpler, inclined to believe in something greater than themselves...but the neo-pagans (including Christians in name only) are going to be so much harder to convince. They've already experienced a world based on Christian principles and are rejecting it. They know so much and are not inclined toward worship of a greater Being, because the greatest being has now become the Self. It's terribly sobering to think of the many martyrs who spilled their blood converting the original pagans...and realizing that we are facing something much more serious than they even did.
I think perhaps what deceives us the most is that we live in highly civilised societies where a certain degree of niceness is everywhere the norm. So we have a reality that wears a mask. The people who, for instance are happy with the mass slaughter of the unborn and support and encourage all kinds of sexual perversion and immorality look and act exactly like us. In fact they sit right beside us on the pews in Church and are in fact often our Clergy, perhaps even our Bishops and Cardinals. It is hard not to think we are living in some kind of unreal dream, or nightmare. It is only sometimes the mask slips and we see the sneering face of evil that lies beneath. It reminds me of a Vampire film I saw one time. Two humans join a great dance were everyone is beautiful and well dressed, so wonderful and normal. But they are the only humans there , the rest are Vampires. But suddenly the undead pull apart and stare hungrily at the only two living, dancing alone on the floor.
Thanks. It’s something I wrote while I was in what I thought was the height of sufferings, the greatest crosses I could carry - I had just had 4 major strokes, I lost my podiatry practice and thus my income and then my home. But only then did things really fall apart, and the real crosses started …
But no matter how nice and pleasant a person may look, anyone who supports the mass murder of the unborn is evil, pure and simple. Any Catholic who supports sexual perversion and immorality has more than one foot in hell already, any clergy who supports such things are pure evil themselves. It doesn't matter how nice and well spoken they may seem. Pure, pure evil. Vampires at the Dance. I don't understand this great modern urge to be nice about everything. Souls fall into hell in their millions because we are all so super, super nice
In your life, in the Church, and in the world. Crosses multiplied in the 6 years since you wrote the article. It’s for the best that we don’t know the future.
Fulton's remarks were later echoed by Pope St John Paul 2 and Pope Benedict much later and of course Pope St Pius x voiced his concerns over and over again. I sometimes wonder from time to time about a remark he made that, 'No one will ever understand how much I suffered'. You can see that suffering written so large on his face. The more notable in someone who always seemed so full of joy, laughter and humour. I suspect this suffering was because he knew , better than anyone the terrible events that were taking place in secret in the Church. He was very,very intelligent and well educated and at the very high level he operated in the Church few things would have been secret to him. Not only in dark goings on in the USA but as Head of Propaganda Fide in the wider Universal Church. The Archbishop could be called very ,very much a child of the Church and he loved her with the deepest Passion. In addition to this he had the deepest love for Mary, the Mother of God and was a true Mystic, there is evidence of him working miracles and supernatural/mystical goings on again and again in his life. This explains why I think he appears to have remained so immune to the false theologies , liturgies and currents that swept round him with hurricane force all round him and swept so many Bishops of to who knows where. Despite his brilliance his faith remained the steady flame I saw in my own parents and grandparents. So I suspect his true Calvary was to see the rise of the anti Church, the rise of the Spirit of the anti Christ and although in a high position so unable to speak out and protest about it. I strongly suspect he was silenced and silenced from the very highest levels in the Church who had labelled him a loose cannon. Thank God shortly before his death Pope St John Paul spoke out in his defense and gave him that wonderful warm, big hug. https://fulton-sheen.catholic.edu/cause/index.html 'On October 2, 1979, two months before Archbishop Sheen’s death, Pope John Paul II held an audience at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, where he called him to come forward. Embracing the clergyman, the Pope said, “You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are a loyal son of the Church.” Nine days later, the Pope sent a letter to Sheen congratulating him on the occasion of his 60th anniversary as a priest. He wrote, "God called you to proclaim in an extraordinary way his dynamic word. ... in these six decades of your priestly service, God has touched the lives of millions of the men and women of our time." On November 26, 1979, just two weeks before his death, Archbishop Sheen replied to the Pope's letter: "I bow in humble gratitude for the Pontifical approval of my ministry of the Word." Archbishop Sheen died on December 9, 1979.'
Love fulton sheen.there is a great app with all his lectures.i have it on my phone and listen to him when I'm working on my own.I have learnt so much from him
