It is no time for fear. That emotion is not to be known among Christians. Fear does not have a place for those whose hearts hold Jesus. There is nothing to fear because He will protect His own no matter the circumstances and thus there is no reason to run for the hills; He will be watching over us whether it be in an economic crisis or during a natural disaster. Look at how many times He has spared New Orleans!

With prayer, everything is for the better. There is a bubble of protection. His people are becoming more and more like the Israelis of Exodus. Let us thank God for sparing so many in Louisiana and Mississippi. Prayer works!

But it is getting interesting out there, mightily interesting. Is it really happening before our eyes?

New Orleans has been spared utter obliteration but not disaster and as prophesied (yes, it was time for the Church to prophesy), the disasters are intensifying.

Nice it is to be comforting, but not falsely so and not like Pollyanna.

"I live in New Orleans and am looking at some of the local footage on their websites is much worse in New Orleans than the national news tells you," writes a viewer. "In Jefferson Parish they are not letting people back in until a week and they can only get some stuff and must leave. This storm will change southeast Louisiana forever."

Will electricity be out for six weeks? How extensive is the flooding?

The Bible does not sugarcoat it. What did the Mass reading have to say the morning after (Aug 30)?

"Concerning times and seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, 'Peace and security,' then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape (1 Thessalonians 5:1).

Mighty storms. Prophesied storms. They were coming with greater fury than ever and dealing huge blows to what men had built in the way of infrastructure. What did it take to wipe out the electrical system? The brush of a hurricane's whisker?

Lights and television and air conditioning and refrigeration and computers and stoves and pumps and water -- gone before the big winds even got there.

Across the United States, electricity was going off whether from Hurricane Katrina or rolling blackouts in California. If September 11 had been a warning in the way the destruction of two buildings could cripple an entire nation's infrastructure (paralyzing its systems of transport), now the issue was fuel and energy.

There were the pumps. In the news were stories about violence at gas stations as outraged customers confronted attendants. The storm has only made it worse. Gasoline approaching three dollars a gallon!

"Two weeks ago Husain 'Tony' Caddi, 54, of Montgomery, Alabama, died after being run over by a driver who police believe wasn't going to pay for $52 worth of fuel," reports a wire service. "Police are searching for the driver of the gold or tan Jeep-style SUV."

This is chillingly reminiscent of a prophecy from a former atheist named Dr. Howard Storm who claims he was shown the future of the United States by angels during a near-death experience. Storm says the angels told him God was upset with the greed in America -- and as a result would allow its infrastructure to crumble.

"I asked how [purification] would come about, and they said it would be simple, that our society is very dependent on a lot of very fragile things -- energy grid, transportation," said Dr. Storm several years ago. "In each geographical area of the United States people used to be relatively self-sufficient as far as agricultural products. Now, how long would any state survive without the transport of food and energy? 

"What would happen is these very complex and delicate grids of our economic system would begin to break down. We've created a society of such cruel and self-centered people that the very nature of civilization would begin to break down. The angels showed me that what would happen is that people would begin robbing the grocery stores, hording goods, and killing one another for gasoline and tires, and as a consequence everything would break down and would end up in chaos."

The last time I saw Howard (it's Reverend Storm now) was in New Orleans.

It also ties into what we have called the "1990 prophecy" -- an anonymous locution that correctly predicted a run of regional events, including 9/11.

"My greatest nemesis is science, even more so than the media," the Lord allegedly said, "the science that alters life, the science which creates a counterfeit heaven, the science that toils with the womb and genes, the science that has filled the air with the power of the enemy, the science which creates chemical witchcraft and fouls the earth, the science which seeks to create life but cannot in actuality even sustain it, the science which has denied God. This will fall, and all of its creations with it."

We are beginning to see that fall and should rejoice that the Lord will help us simplify things.

The word has been "prepare," and this means spiritually. The very name "Katrina" means pure and that is what is now in progress, that is what even the skeptics are beginning to notice, that is what even the standoffish elements of the Church -- those who really don't believe in prophecy -- must soon notice: that a purification is in progress.

The word from you the readers, who have been feeling a prophetic pulse: prepare. "It was in the middle of the night, I was restless and couldn't sleep when all of a sudden I heard these words, not in a voice but in my heart: Be vigilant and persevere," says one, Sharron Patraw of Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, who has had prophetic prompts.

Prophecy is conditional. And more than anything, angels encourage us. They are not here to put us into a negative mindset. When there is eternity to look forward to, there is in the end happiness for all who follow Jesus.

But with the storms, we have a glimpse of what can happen on a much wider scale. Remember that blackout two years ago?

That the very same week, in Ohio, where the outage was thought to have originated, a statue of the Virgin Mary was reported to be mysteriously glowing.

As the eyes and heart of the statue allegedly lit -- even in the night -- the rest of the state and much of the North were in darkness.

"But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief," says the rest of today's Mass reading. "For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober."

8/30/05

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