Queens, New York – At times, when feeling playful in my research, I have gone on deep dives back decades, even over a century, looking at newspapers for general trends. It was on one of these forays that I discovered that if a president wanted to build a successful term, he would do well to follow the New York Times editorial page and do the opposite of whatever it recommends. It really is amazing. When, historically, bold action has been called for, the Times has almost always counseled restraint. When restraint was called for, the Times has ever been wildly hysteric. I followed that thread all the way back to 1850. Given its consistent bad judgment going back almost two centuries, it is astounding to me it decided to abandon what it once did well – straight news – to be all opinion and all advocacy all the time. At least it hasn’t lost consistency in its judgment.
I once got a bee in my bonnet to see what various literary critics had to say about classic books at the time they were released. Again, I was astounded. It led to a larger survey of literary critics through the ages. I concluded that literary critics, historically, have largely been frustrated, wannabe authors lacking wit, discernment, and wisdom. Routinely, they have trashed classic masterpieces shortly after publication as trite, pandering, and vulgar while waxing eloquent about pretentious period pieces that were out of print within a decade. Weird stuff. It does kind of confirm the old canard that those who can, do; while those who can’t, teach (or comment). Yeah, yeah, I know…it could be a dig at me – who has spent a huge chunk of my life as a commentator.
More pointedly, Kamala Harris had best start doing the opposite of what her instincts tell her to or prepare for life as a commentator. Ah well, Hillary Clinton could use the company. And better for the rest of us to have two kvetches hectoring us than either of them governing us.
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I am terribly naïve sometimes. I was foolishly optimistic as ultrasound technology entered its early stages. I fully believed it would reveal the fullness of the humanity of the unborn child – and then we would step back from the abyss of abortion, which was originally justified under the mantle that the fetus was an insensate “blob of tissue” – nothing more than that. By the early 80s, ultrasound was, indeed, proving incontrovertibly the humanity of the unborn child. Even Planned Parenthood (PP) took notice. Imagine my horror when, in 1983, instead of stepping back from the abyss, PP sent a memo out to its affiliates noting that the “blob of tissue” argument was no longer viable, so they would have to move to a “right to choose” argument. It was almost identical to Stephen Douglas’ argument in favor of “popular sovereignty” in the 1850s – that it should be left to each state to choose whether it would allow slavery. “Let the people decide!” – all while completely avoiding the question of the humanity of the enslaved at that time and the humanity of the unborn in our time. It was shocking to me.
For a very long time, at least into the 2010s, I prayed frequently that the Lord show everybody what I was seeing. If He did, surely we would step back from the abyss of terror we were storming towards. Now, in real time, we are actually experiencing a lot of it, if not yet the worst of it. And what do the acolytes of dysfunction do? They double down. I always knew the road to hell was paved with good intentions. I never dreamed it would be lined with crowds cheering on their own destruction – but that is where we are. Clearly, the Lord knows the potential depravity in the human heart far better than I can even dream of. Thankfully, I KNOW that everything He does is designed to draw the greatest number of people back to the safe harbor of His bosom.
God loves the ordinary – and so do I. I believe and publicly claim to have had myriad mystical experiences. For all the spectacle inherent in a genuinely mystical experience, it is in the ordinary where the most important work is accomplished.
God has forsworn Himself from interfering in our free will. How, then, to accomplish real reform and renewal? I know many are worked up over such prophesied miracles as the Warning and the Illumination of Conscience (among others) these days. Though he sometimes works in very stark, undeniable ways, those are extremely rare. Almost always God prefers to give us an out – a naturalist, materialistic explanation of His works, however contrived. In the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, if Trump had turned his head even a tenth of a second later, we would have a film as horrifying as the Zapruder Film. That’s a pretty stark intervention. The only thing that could have made it starker was for the Hand of God to visibly come out of the sky and turn Trump’s head. Yet still, God left room for people to scoff that it was a lucky coincidence – even with no margin for the slightest error in time or space.
One would think we would learn from the reality that most authenticated prophecies were accomplished in subtle ways we did not expect to be more subdued in our exuberant expectations of a big fireworks show. But we are a hard-hearted people that struggles to learn the most basic things. There is a vital reason why God so loves to work through the ordinary – and give scoffers an escape hatch. When you convert through intimidation and spectacle, you get a lower quality of recruit. You get people you can’t count on if another opportunity comes along for them to pretend they are their own God. When you act through the ordinary, the people who join you do so out of love; love for God and for neighbor. They may occasionally stumble out of temptation or fear, but you can pretty much count on them otherwise.
The truth is that signs and wonders are largely for unbelievers and doubters. Oh, God sometimes sends them to confirm a decree…and He often does them in little, intimate ways to encourage and hearten believers. But for the most part, they are for unbelievers – the many doubting Thomases among us. If you do what you do out of love for God and neighbor, you don’t need signs or wonders to sustain you. If you perpetually doubt – or fear that it is all just fantasy – you are more apt to cling to signs and wonders to hold the darkness at bay.
Now we are in the midst of great things unfolding. Most who are focused on the Warning, the Three Days of Darkness, or the Illumination of Conscience are just positing their idiosyncratic versions of how the fireworks show they imagine will unfold – to intimidate all into submission. I say that all are happening, right now, before our very eyes while none but a few wise men and shepherd boys notice.
I’ve gotten several dozen letters these last few years from people who were confronted with hard facts that registered with them – that completely destroyed their previous world view. Every single one describes going into an existential crisis. For three days they could not get their footing, caught between what they once believed and now know is not true and what truth can possibly be. Then, they set out building their worldview anew, bereft of false premises. Not one person in these independent accounts said they struggled for two days…or for four days. Every single one told me their mind was darkened, unable to process anything – for three days.
About 15 years ago we entered into a neo-pagan, post-Christian age. Our streets are no longer safe, the economy is tanking, despair is rampant as suicide soars, and we are flirting with global nuclear war – just for starters. We are reaping the consequences of our infidelity. We have been warned.
The Illumination of Conscience will show us the state of our own souls. Over the last decade the rot at the heart of both the hierarchy of the Churches and of our secular culture has been revealed. For several years now we have been choosing who and what we will serve. The lies are no longer hidden – yet many are choosing what they know to be lies, whether for influence, out of sheer vanity or whatever. We are still free to choose the lies, but when we stand before God, we cannot say we did not know what we were choosing. Our conscience stands revealed. God is separating the sheep from the goats.
In the end, we may get one or more of the fireworks shows we so eagerly anticipate. If so, it will only be so much confetti sprinkled over a cake that is already fully baked and frosted.
A lot of people get very upset when I say the fireworks show they so eagerly anticipate and insist is the ONLY way God could possibly fulfill an authentic prophecy they like is unlikely to happen the way they think. I don’t care. At this point, I don’t care whether we do or do not get a few fireworks shows of the type those of impoverished imaginations can perceive is the only way possible to fulfill prophecy – even though such events are extremely rare from the God who wants to give scoffers a way out. What I do care about is that people get so fixated on the spectacle of their impoverished imagination that they fail to see what is happening in real time all around them. It is pathetic to watch people eagerly searching for what has already been fulfilled or is being fulfilled before their very eyes. Far too many Christians have become Naaman (2 Kings 5:8-14). But Naaman ultimately repented of his insistence upon a spectacle – and was healed. Now, I worry less about convincing people that there will probably be no spectacle. I hope that when no spectacle comes, people will remember my words, let the scales fall from their eyes, see what is happening all around them in real time, and turn to the Lord with their whole hearts.
I know what a delight it is when God reveals Himself intimately in a way He usually doesn’t – and how it can bolster you for the journey, even for someone who otherwise has substantial mystical experiences. While attending a Noon Daily Mass at Our Lady of Peace Shrine in the Silicon Valley, I was utterly charmed by the vivid image of Our Lady of Tepeyac painted at the back of the Sanctuary, revealed when it was opened for distribution of the Eucharist. I later asked the Priest who hosted me whose idea it was to paint that. He looked at me baffled and eventually took me down to show me there was no such image. But for me, during Mass, it was there as bold as life. I cherish that little caress.
If is nice to have signs and wonders from time to time, but if you need them to prop up your faith, then that faith will be too fragile to endure the journey across this valley of death we must now traverse. Faith is an act of the will. The only thing strong enough to sustain it through great and extended trial is love – for God and for neighbor. The time will come (and right soon, I might add) when no sign will be given except to those who need no sign to sustain them in their resolve to take the next right step in God’s service. When I say, “Gird your loins,” I mean to gird them with the resolve that only such love can sustain. It is the only thing you must have for your journey. Get this and all else shall be added as you need it. Omit it and be forever mired in the shoals of doubt and disbelief.
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I was shocked when Kamala Harris told people who said, “Jesus is Lord,” at her event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, that they must be at the wrong rally and had them kicked out. Could it be any clearer what is now at stake?
Up through 2004, whenever I voted in a presidential election, whatever I thought about the candidates, I was just voting for a candidate. Though we did not know it at the time, in 2008 those who voted for Barack Obama were voting to replace the Judeo-Christian ethos of the last 1,600 years of Western Civilization with a fundamental transformation into a neo-pagan ethos. Now we know – and we are voting whether to sustain this neo-pagan ethos or begin to return to a Judeo-Christian ethos.
Do not be deceived. A vote to return to the Judeo-Christian ethos that sustained and nurtured us for so very long is not the end of the journey, but merely the beginning. Gird your loins and set your jaw like flint.
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I will speak at 7 p.m. in Goffstown, New Hampshire, on Saturday, October 26. Doors will open at five and we will have a potluck dinner at six after saying the Rosary together. Call Doug at 603-858-4966 for the address and to secure a spot. Hope to see you there. (It is fall in New England – and it is starting to look like it.)
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
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