Hey, I am Catholic, although I have only been taking my faith seriously for about a year now. I have a couple questions.

What is the Catholic teaching over the end times?

also

What does the Catholic Church believe is being said through the book of Revelations? How is it interpreted?

Thank you for all your sure to be wonderful responses.

Tim Kirschenheiter

-- Tim K. (tk4386@juno.com), February 16, 2005

Answers

bump

-- Tim K. (tk4386@juno.com), February 16, 2005.

The single most important truth we see in the Holy Bible is, No one can know the time of Christ's second advent. If somebody says he has figured out when by the scriptures, or by prophesies or apparitions of Mary,

--In any way. He simply is wrong. Or, he lies. Jesus Christ said, No man knows the hour. That's quite final. He also says to watch and pray; for at a moment no one expects; NO ONE; the Son of Man will return. Could be today or sometime in the distant future. God the Father Almighty knows; only He.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), February 16, 2005.

Tim,

Try this link for an article from the online Catholic Encyclopedia on the Book of Revelation --> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01594b.htm

Hope this helps.

David

-- non-Catholic Christian (no@spam.com), February 16, 2005.

Bad link, try this one --> Book of Revelation

David

-- non-Catholic Christian (no@spam.com), February 16, 2005.

Obviously, I'm HTML-impaired :-( If you just cut and paste this into your browser address window, you'll get there --> www.newadvent.org/cathen/01594b.htm

David

-- non-Catholic Christian (no@spam.com), February 16, 2005.

We know that the world will some day end.

We know that certain signs will accompany the beginning of the end.

One of those signs is that the Jews will convert. (cf. St Paul).

Another sign is that the Gospel will be preached to all peoples.

But beyond these events nothing else is sure. Yes there will be wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters and signs in the skies...but Our Lord warned us to not consider this to be the end. His final coming will be unmistakeable like lightning that flashes across the sky - not hidden in the desert somewhere.

He warned us of charlatans coming in his name. One sign of them would be that where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather... i.e. vultures are scavengers, wicked people - they surround dead bodies or those fakers.

There are a couple other prophecies mentioned throughout the Old and New Testament about the end times...one is that it will be hard on pregnant women and that the situation of those living in cities will be dire, especially Jerusalem.

Four times in scripture the Holy Spirit inspired prophets and Our Lord to say "they will call to the mountains 'cover us' and the hills 'fall on us'" i.e. people will save their lives only by hiding in caves or tunnels.

And truth be told...looking at history of the last 2000 years, nations that were overrun from barbarian hordes or civil strife had survivors only in deep glades of forests or mountain fastnesses... major cities haven't been very effective defenses against nation- ending calamities.

Most Monasteries survived by being built in fairly inaccessible places, high on mountain tops or on steep clifts... the meek who inherit the earth aren't typically found in fortresses or palaces...

So what to do?

Well, first and foremost we have to live our lives in holiness because no matter when the world ends, our lives are running towards their own ends in death. Holiness is the only ultimate defense we have against death so it ought to be our first thing to pursue.

Secondly, we have to be involved in our local neighborhood and town because strength does lie in numbers- and most of the problems affecting our nation spring from local issues. Besides in a nation- wide calamity, having neighbors who you know and trust will be a huge support.

Finally, for those worried about an "end of the world as we know it" (EOTWAWKI) event, there are reasonable precautions one can take such as seeking economic independence (paying down as much debt as you can), seeking to learn new skills and trades in case your career field dries up, learning basic medicine and gardening, visiting ready.gov website for the basic emergency survival info.

If you take these precautions - of prudence - you could survive most anything or at least have a figthing chance...

For example: Let's suppose the economy tanks... if you're paying a huge mortage on the home and cars, you could lose everything. The sooner you pay off those mortgages, the less chance you have of losing them by default.

Having more than one arrow in your quiver as far as job skils go will also help "ression or depression" proof you. Learn how to cook or repair things... people always need to eat and repair things no matter how bad things get economically...

Let's say there is a natural or man-made disaster that disrupts the food supply, electricity, or water...

Having a box of rice, beans, and canned goods - enough staple foods to feed your family for a week or two, would allow you to survive almost any local disaster long enough to get help from the outside world, or flee.

Family and friends... Africa and Asian cultures have experienced war, famine, plague and poverty for centuries... they survived thanks to an extensive network of family connections and friends.

Ditto for the faith and simple human survival... without friends and family it's very hard for anyone to thrive humanly much less survive a disaster.

So build up your relationships with God and your family and friends...

Finally a note on hope. Christians technically don't fear the end of the world because we know that going to heaven with Jesus isn't something to dread but the world, the culture we live in loves life in this world and so an end to it all IS regarded as "game over, you lose".

It doesn't have to be that way. Change could be a blessing in disguise. suffering can bring out hidden virtues in people - and the mindset that is prepared for disaster - moral or natural - is a mindset which is fundamentally altruistic: preparing to help others in time of need, rather than wasting time and treasure on useless passtimes.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 16, 2005.

We can't even call some biblical propecies of coming events a sign of the Last Day. For instance, Joe cites:

Four times in scripture the Holy Spirit inspired prophets and Our Lord to say "they will call to the mountains 'cover us' and the hills 'fall on us'" i.e. people will save their lives only by hiding in caves or tunnels.'' --and how pregnant women will suffer so much.--??? --These have been fulfilled already. They happened during the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and his legions.

The Jews are going to convert as one nation. Other signs are also expected. However, even these events COULD be very remote harbingers of the Last Day. That might not arrive until a century later. It's altogether a mystery. Not even the book of Revelations is a true key. Too many ways of interpreting some of its events are possible. The main thing Revelations teaches is the eventual triumph of Christ over all evil. The events themselves ought to be seen for simple examples of God's glory and his Justice. And as a vindication of His saints and the glory of heaven. ---- - For predictions??? HOW? Forget it!

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), February 16, 2005.

Eugene is correct.. If one lives his life behaving as if Christ could return at any second, then one would be on the right track.

-- Lesley (martchas@hotmail.com), February 16, 2005.

Thanks for all the responses. They have been very knowledgeable and helpful.

Tim

-- Tim K. (tk4386@juno.com), February 16, 2005.

In my opinion, the true treasures of Revelations are the messages to each of the Churches which provide a foretaste of the kind of judgement the Lord will exercise AND the insight into Heaven and it's worship. I love reading the words of angelic worship and the images of the throne. Awe-inspiring to say the least.

I've never really tried to use it as a roadmap of the end of time. For one thing, a good bit of it was likely fulfilled already with the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem, and it just gets too confusing to fit imagery with real events apart.

David

-- non-Catholic Christian (no@spam.com), February 16, 2005.

I agree with you in every aspect of your belief, David; but one.

There were seven ''churches'' addressed in Revelations. But all are the One Church. Jesus mentioned the angel of such and such a church; but we are to understand this was a bishop of one outpost; one diocese (today they're diocesan). The bishop ruled over his See, a ''church''. In that part of scripture, seven separate ones. They weren't autonomous churches, though. It could have been said of them, instead of Seven Churches of Asia Minor, Seven Churches of the Catholic faith; the One Church.

Christ only founded One Church. These were branch churches, each one a ''lampstand'' of the Catholic Church.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), February 16, 2005.

Look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 668-682, starting here.

-- Mark (aujus_1066@yahoo.com), February 16, 2005.

Didn't mean to imply otherwise, Eugene. The Apostle John likely was addressing parishes that he had direct authority over, but that's some speculation.

David

-- non-Catholic Christian (no@spam.com), February 16, 2005.

Read the prophecies from the main apparition sites and also other messengers like Christina Gallagher whom Our Dear Lord has chossen. The signs are all around us!!!! that is where you get teachings on the end times, which is not really the end time but the great purification leading to the era of peace. Another site is www.wordsfromjesus.com peace (*)

-- Cyrus (countrybreeze777@hotmail.com), February 28, 2005.

With all due respect, nothing purportedly received through an apparition should ever be taken as Catholic teaching. If the Church has formally approved the apparition, then its reported message may be taken as "consistent with Catholic teaching", which means it does not conflict with that which is already Catholic teaching. But no new Catholic teaching can ever result from a message reportedly received through such an event, approved or disapproved.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), February 28, 2005.

Every century has seen local Catholic communities tried and found wanting...like the churches in Revelation. There hasn't been a single century where some Catholic nation or city or diocese didn't experience a truly horrific "end of the world as we know it" assault either from foreign barbarians or a sudden upstart regime from within.

Rome was sacked, raped, pilliaged and burned in 1527 by an army of Germans, the pope escaped to the Castle St'Angel in Rome, losing half his Swiss guard entourage who literally had to fight their way the half-mile from the Vatican to the castle.

It took Rome a generation or more to recover...

The Mexican government in 1917 passed the most brutal anti-Catholic constitution in world history (surpassing even the Soviets) and began an across the board persecution of the Church, which eventually led to open civil war called the Christero revolution. The government won, and the Church had to go underground from the 1930s till only recently in the 1990s.

So it would seem that individual Catholics ought to take precautions against such possibilities and these include foresight, planning, involvement in local affairs and politics as well as solidarity with other Catholics abroad...

If some catastrophic event were to blow the USA back into the stone age, I'd be responsible for supporting my family somehow - and it may require me to emmigrate abroad... I have friends abroad in various countries, friends which up to now have looked to me for support in various ways... but such a web of friendships and family would allow Catholics to find havens of refuge from the storm...

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 28, 2005.

With all due respect, praying the Rosary is it not Catholic teaching? and where did this idea of praying the Rosary come from?

"Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" she calls and calls and calls, very very few are listening,basically it is only the dumb the poor and very little simple people who are accepting and listening to Her pleas.

All over the world she is trying to get people to listen to Her, She calls Her priests, bishops, cardinals and religious to come and listen and to recieve instruction .... very very few have listened!!!! Our Lord is furious because of the lack of faith. People from the Catholic Faith turn their heads away from Her and Our Lords calls just the same as other Churches from different denominations and organizations do.

Our Lords time of Mercy is now coming to a close, you have failed to listen so now God The Father Almighty will soon shake you out of your comfort zone.

If you would have listened you would be able to hear and see, the signs are all around us!!!!!! you can't see because your minds are closed to their messages.

If you are really true to God and Holy Mary you will try to pray the Rosary very slowly from now on as She has requested countless times around the globe ....pray from the heart then she will open your minds to see.

Honestly if you put forth an effort to pray the Rosary very slowly from the heart (1 hour)in time you will be amazed at what is really at stake.

It is very very serious GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY is furious with his people for turning their heads and ears away from the messages from Jesus and Mary...you make fun of his messengers which come from your own Catholic Church you call them false your own brothers and sisters!!!, when infact there are a whole slew of false prophets from different organizations that walk freely leading people astray and no-one says a peep.

The EVIL around us is unbelivable ...wake up!!!!!!!!!!!and listen to what your Mother has to say. (*)

-- Cyrus (countrybreeze777@hotmail.com), February 28, 2005.

“praying the Rosary is it not Catholic teaching?”

Our Popes and bishops encourage us to pray the Rosary, but praying the Rosary is something you DO, not something you BELIEVE. It is not “Catholic teaching” in the sense of doctrine. It would be perfectly possible (though I don’t recommend it) for a person to be an exemplary Catholic and go to Heaven without ever having prayed the Rosary.

“ and where did this idea of praying the Rosary come from?”

The prayers of the Rosary (Hail Mary, Our Father and Glory Be) come from the Church’s own scripture and tradition. Monks of the East first put the prayers together and prayed them as the Rosary in the first few centuries of the Church’s history. Our Lady has encouraged us to pray the Rosary, in several apparitions which have been accepted as genuine by the Church (BECAUSE the message of the apparition is consistent with what the Church has always taught). But the apparitions did not INVENT the prayers of the Rosary.

“All over the world she is trying to get people to listen to Her, She calls Her priests, bishops, cardinals and religious to come and listen and to recieve instruction .... very very few have listened!!!!” This is na disgraceful slander against the vast majority of our bishops, cardinals, priests and Religious, whose holiness is obvious. And a small h for "her" please, we reserve capital letter pronouns for God alone.

“Our Lord is furious because of the lack of faith….It is very very serious GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY is furious with his people for turning their heads and ears away from the messages from Jesus and Mary” Really? As you have a direct line to Him, perhaps you could ask Him if He is furious at your lack of charity.

“you make fun of his messengers which come from your own Catholic Church you call them false your own brothers and sisters!!!”

I certainly haven’t seen anyone here “make fun” of His (capital H please) messengers. Catholics are perfectly free to disbelieve any claim of an alleged apparition which has not been approved as genuine by the Church. Indeed they are quite free to disbelieve even apparitions which HAVE beeen accepted as genuine by the Church. These apparitions are not part of the Catholic faith, although many of them are obviously a help to the faith of many people. Learn what your Catholic Faith is really all about, Cyrus, before you condemn others.

“Our Lords time of Mercy is now coming to a close” This statement is in fact contrary to the Catholic Faith, which holds that NOBODY knows when the end times will come.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), February 28, 2005.

The times have come,

Message from Josyp Terelya, Oct 21,2002

Mary Said: Our Son,

The times have come which St. John had foretold - the time of times? The time has arrived to unveil the truth before the eyes of the faithful - the Truth which is the beginning of the great travails and tribulations, which inexorably seek to kill the soul of men (Mt. 24,9: birth pangs; of Rev 12.2)

The devil has seated himself on his throne, his alter. And he has now become the opponent of all good initiative. The antichrist has assumed total control over all human activity, possessing, as he does the might and power of his father, satan.

The evil spirits are leading the apostates into lawlessness and incredlity. The antichrist Is working actively through these evil spirits on the minds of man, conscious and subconscious. As a result man is led to commit yet greater crimes that distance him from Truth. The spirit of the antichrist has long since been operating through the mystery of lawlessness. He is becoming ever stronger in these hapless days.

The terrain is being prepared for the future 'benefactor' of mankind. Until now, the greatest obstacle in the final realization of the ideas of the antichrist is the Church of Christ, which alone is completely in unison with Divine revelation, and truly unveils the dark plans of satan.

In our times there are many dark forces and luiferian organizations that are working to undermine the Christian faith.

Christians must remember and know, that the choirs of the saints and martyrs of the Church are looking down upon you from the depths of history, questioning: why are you not defending your faith.

My children, as never before the servants of satan, the masons, are becoming active in their subversive efforts against the Church, the family and the nations of the world.

The father of the masons - the antichrist - stands over them. A liar and a thief from age to age. Having infiltrated the Church, the servants of the devil and the lawless one, have begun to eliminate actively from Christian prayers the invocations of the Archangel St Michael, who is the patron of the Catholic Church.

His name is being removed from Masses and liturgical texts. Modern priests and bishops especially are destroying the statues of the Archangel, Saint Michael. They justify this as if this, take away from Christ, which is an outright lie.

Things are being done in the Church which are opposed to God: penitential practices are eliminated in Lent. Self-denial and penance are scoffed at. Instead, they preach the happy life and love of fame.

The Catholic masons are spreading the idea that Jesus Christ has already won heaven for us by His death on the cross, and that our human efforts are not required. They use modern priests to falsify the Holy Mass, so that nothing of holiness remain. The antichrist through these evil spirits is trying to raise doubts about the truth of the Eucharist. This is why the Pope blessed you to organize Eucharistic Congresses throughout the entire world. On September 17 this year you had the special grace with your wife to kneel before the Holy Father to receive his Papal blessing.

The enemies of the living God and of His Church are spreading the idea, that the blessed Eucharist is only, a symbol, and that Jesus is not present under the appearances of bread and wine during the Sacred Liturgy.

This is why they forbade the celebration of the Holy Mass In Latin. The antichrist has ordered his evil spirits, the masons, to undermine the authority of priests, comparing them to ordinary people. Women in churches walk around everywhere with heads uncovered.

Modern priests are clamoring to have women serve during Holy Mass on the grounds of constitution about the equality of the sexes, and are even to be admitted to the priesthood, through which they offend my Son. They are demanding full freedom to act for women as ministerial priests.

The antichrist is clamoring to forbid kneeling during the reception of Holy Communion, as though the spirit of democracy requires this.

They tell children that God loves them just as they are and this is why children have full freedom to do as they wish.

The apostate women religious teach the children not to fold their hands devoutly during prayer, for God loves them as they are.

Many churches forbid organ music, and they have substituted modern music for this. Modern priests are doing everything they can to destroy a personal relationship of Jesus with those praying.

At the same time the satanists in the world are rapidly trying to destroy the economy and business. These are the panic signs of the antichrist. He knows that he cannot prevail over the Church. And defeat is coming upon him as never before. Great changes will shortly take place in the East, both the Near East and the North East.Russia will reveal its true face. Remember that you cannot enter into the same river twice. If you want to know a man today, don't judge him by his past events and old deeds. Because man is what he is really and truly only what he is at the present moment of contact with him. He changes very quickly and this is why you must reacquaint yourself with any-one at the moment of your present encounter.

To win time, the antichrist is spreading half truths about his position, to induce people to think that not everything is lost. I have already told you that you must look at their deeds if you want to know the servants of the devil.

There are many church organizations under the control of satan and they are not, in fact, defending the Church. (((Groups of somnolent Catholics are seeking to paralyze the spreading of truth about the antichrist. This is why the masons will ignore and persecute those visionaries that denounce satan and the works of the devil.))) Those will become renowned who present primitive visionary accounts about the activity of the antichrist, and will nowhere speak of the threat to mankind because of the large number of degenrates, that are struggling to top for power over people. This is why you will be the only ones to recognize the truth.

Peace and happiness be with you. Amen

Blessed are those who listen to Our Heavenly Mother and not so smart are the ones who dont (*)

-- Cyrus (countrybreeze777@hotmail.com), March 01, 2005.

I seem to remember asking what the CATHOLIC teaching was. Thanks to all those who responded accrdingly. Thanks, but no thanks to all those who used my question as an oppotunity to throw forward ridiculous, sectarian, heretical beliefs.

Tim Kirschenheiter

-- Tim K. (tk4386@juno.com), March 01, 2005.

Cyrus, I don’t know who produced that claptrap "Message" you quoted, but it certainly wasn’t Our Lady, because it directly contradicts the teaching of the Church. Take a reality check man.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), March 01, 2005.

Dear Tim,

One has only to look around and see the way the world is heading. We are certainly in the End Times. Every command of the Ten Commanments is broken. The younger generation is so confused as the satan has attacked the root of the Family Unit as divorce and living in sin is taken as normal way of life. Materialsm is having a gala time because marketing to make people buy things is very successful. Media is having the time of its life. Sacrifice and denying to self is unheard of and the present generation even if told about it thinks that the person is a lunatic.

The children are made aware of child abuse and therefore the parents have to spare the rod and spoil the child and not vice versa. When the children are requested to do something the answer back comes in full force. I know in the past many parents have been very regimental regarding religion and made many mistakes mostly through ignorence. But see what knowledge has done now. It has eaten our spiritual values. Pride and Vanity is reigning like the King and Queen. Our beloved Lord and our Blessed Mother has been pushed to the back.

Many families has no time to get together and pray the rosaries. Some haven't even heard of the Promises of Our Lady for those who devoutly pray the rosary. Many do not know what plenary and partial indulgencies are the sure means of gaining heaven. Purgatory is unheard of by some. So we are repeatedly asked to pray for the conversion of sinners for the Lord to act.The victory is our Lord's. His Mercy unimaginable. So we will carry on until the End. Tim, I hope I haven't gone out of line. I just felt inspired to write. God bless.

-- Ramanie Weerasinghe (lilanw@yahoo.com), March 01, 2005.

“One has only to look around and see the way the world is heading. We are certainly in the End Times. Every command of the Ten Commanments is broken.” That’s been happening continuously since the time of Moses, Ramanie. It doesn’t mean we are in the end times.

“Many do not know what plenary and partial indulgencies are the sure means of gaining heaven.” Indulgences are NOT a means of gaining Heaven. They are ways of making reparation on earth, instead of the punishment(caused by their sins), received after death by those who have ALREADY been saved and are ALREADY destined to spend eternity in Heaven.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), March 02, 2005.

Thank You Steve for correcting me. God bless,

-- Ramanie Weerasinghe (lilanw@yahoo.com), March 02, 2005.

Dear Steve, Have a read of this.

==================================================

WHEN IT COMES TO RUMBLINGS IN THE EARTH, SCIENTISTS AND ALLEGED SEERS MAY AGREE

There is the illness of the Pope, the death of Fatima seer Lucia dos Santos, the death of a lesser-known seer named Esperanza, the weather. Oh, the weather: it gyrates around us as there is a virtual uproar from nature, the freak storms, the blasts of rain in places where it hardly rains, the record floods in places like Guyana and even major melting in the Arctic and a breakup of an iceberg the size of Long Island down in the Antarctic (to name but a few natural events in recent weeks, all in the wake of an incredible tsunami).

Are we to continue attributing it all to the mere cycles of nature, or are we better served to take prophetic stock (as biblical prophets did) of disruptions in nature?

We give air to prophecy at this news site, and we note that it all comes months after the August passing of the lesser-known but still world-known Venezuelan seer Esperanza -- who suffered an illness strikingly, even startlingly, similar to the Pope's (right down to the necessity of a tracheotomy) and had said that 2004 would see the beginning of heightened events.

Of course, the last part of 2004 saw an incredible, unprecedented (for Florida) run of hurricanes that started a week after her passing.

Do the deaths of seers bear significance? Is there biblical precedence? Are their lives themselves signs?

Those are questions for you to mull over. Meantime, however, the rumblings and stirs from nature continue. There was the quake in Iran -- barely noticed by the press in such a busy year -- that has now cost more than 600 lives; that's more than four times as many as died in all the hurricanes combined. It has been followed by smaller quakes around the world (in places that don't usually experience quakes). Could it be true, as one publication wonders, that something deep down is disturbed?

"Geologists in India and the rest of the world are receiving signals of a very disturbed mantel and core of the earth," reported India Daily. "According to some computer models, the outer core and the mantel are getting extremely heated. This can cause extreme tension on the earth’s crust and the tectonic plates."

Is a very profound shift in the earth in progress? Such is interesting because more than a decade ago, Esperanza -- who was associated with the Church-approved site of Betania in Venezuela -- warned that the "earth's core is not in balance."

For those of a prophetic bent, there was also the "1990 prophecy" that had said regional events of the kind we are seeing in nature would occur regionally and be accompanied by a "strange loud rumbling."

Is it a true prophecy? Have we heard, and felt, the precursors? The rumblings have been reported from Indonesia to South Carolina and even Maryland (at the same time that Missouri felt itself shaking with a bit of a tremor weeks before). In Vancouver, Canada, there is a lot of shaking going on. "We heard a loud boom and then the whole building shook," noted Timothy Merritt, principal of an elementary school in Pasadena, Maryland. Esperanza had foreseen a "rumbling" in New Jersey.

And then there are the manifestations. There are the icons in Italy that have allegedly shed blood -- blood analyzed as strikingly unique (more on this soon) -- and the symbols of a Cross reported on drapes at a monastery. Other images in various places are likewise reported, and there seem to be signs in the heavens. "Tonight my 16- year-old son's friend reported to him that he saw a Cross on or over the moon," reports viewer Peggy Salvatore.

We receive many such accounts; we can't write them all off; they come on a constant basis.

There are light formations and pulses from the sun at the same time that scientists report strange and potent solar activity.

Signs of the times? It's getting difficult to be skeptical, and yet we always try to weigh such events with the normal course of nature - - if there is any such thing as a "normal" course, and if there is any such thing in the realm of God as a "coincidence."

"There is going to be a major disruption in a region of the world that will affect everyone," asserted another reputed prophecy on December 22, 2004 from a source we have discerned in the past as reliable. Was it referring to the tsunami that occurred days later, or something bigger in the future?

We have to be especially cautious with prophecy. It is rising all around us. For many years -- since the early 1990s -- seers in Europe and particularly Ireland have been warning about tidal waves (affecting northern Europe), and such warnings, in the wake of the Asian tsunami, have intensified. There are seers who specifically see cracks or splintering as a result of the tsunami-spawning quake that will cause further huge events in Africa or Australia or both and will also affect northern Europe and who have seen an earthquake in an unexpected part of America that will cause offshoot quakes.

"Total destruction will befall anyone in this part of the sea when these events occur," asserts one visionary who we are still trying to discern.

Scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory do report direct indications that one of the earth's "great crustal plates" is cracking in two. "In a report published in the most recent issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (vol. 133), the scientists say they have confirmed that the Indo-Australian Plate -- long identified as a single plate on which both India and Australia lie -- appears to have broken apart just south of the equator beneath the Indian Ocean," says a press release. "The break has been underway for the past several million years, and now the two continents are moving independently of one another in slightly different directions."

Images formed by sound waves show scores of systematically aligned cracks, or faults, in the oceanic lithosphere at the Indo-Australian plate -- which is now really two plates, created as the once-whole plate buckled and cracked and promises more in the future and yes in that part of the world.

Rumblings indeed! Just today, a new magnitude-7.2 was felt in Indonesia. How seriously can we take such specific prophecies? One must be cautious because New Agers predict similar changes; it is a matter of personal discernment. There can be occultism behind accurate predictions. Mimicking the famed "secret" of LaSalette, France, there are those who see the weather -- the seasons -- in further turmoil. In Europe and around the world, mudslides, rising sea levels, and storms including tornadoes, they say (and with this we concur), will be reaching new proportions.

In the U.S., an alleged seer who has been promoted by Father Robert J. Fox, a priest known to Catholic television and also as an expert on Fatima, has quoted Jesus as allegedly telling her that "I am here to wake mankind. The time has come and I must warn mankind. All must pray and repent and take these messages seriously. Blessed will be those who listen and prepare themselves. Woe to those who do not want to believe, for I have given many messages through many souls.

"The whole world will be at war if man continues to reject the truth. If mankind continues to destroy life, the earth will open up and swallow each abortion site. This world will be shaken and a great part of humanity will be destroyed. If mankind wants to be saved, they must amend their ways, pray and do penance. Do not abandon My words, make reparation and obtain mercy for sinners. This world needs prayer, so listen to My Mother -- pray unceasingly, pray from your hearts."

These are good pieces of advice -- although when it comes to whether they are actually the words of Jesus, we must remember the word "allegedly." It is a time for caution! Such locutions can be a true inspiration and they can also be an overflow (especially in such quickened times) of the subconscious. We must also ask if the seer is obedient to the local bishop.

But let us give prophecy air: the road is going to become more difficult, that seer was told; it is important to seek protection; it is important to receive a daily blessing.

There is no better blessing, we might add, than Mass -- daily if possible, certainly on Sunday.

"If you hold back your foot on the sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the sabbath a delight, and the Lord's holy day honorable; If you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice – Then you shall delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken," says Isaiah 58:9-14.

We get basically the same from yet another locutionist who allegedly hears in rhyme. One sample: "The ones who are faithful need not be discouraged, for they in the worst of times through grace will be nourished. No matter, dear children, how the world will be shaken, the children who love God will not be forsaken."

[resources: Sent To Earth book, The Bridge To Heaven, and Sent To Earth video] God bless,

-- Ramanie Weerasinghe (lilanw@yahoo.com), March 02, 2005.

Jesus said that neither the angels nor the Son knew when the end would come, only the Father.

But I am glad you seem to be figuring it out.

Tim

-- Tim K. (tk4386@juno.com), March 02, 2005.

“there is a lot of shaking going on.” Maybe it’s Elvis coming back. Seriously though, there was an earthquake in China about 70 years ago that killed more people than have been killed in ALL earthquakes since. Earthquakes are not getting worse, it’s just that as there are more people, living in taller buildings, and in bigger cities, we are more affected by them. And prophesy is a vital part of the Church’s mission. But prophesying does not mean “claiming to predict the future by supposedly reading signs”. It means proclaiming the great truths. Including the truth that the end of the world WILL come and God WILL judge us. When and how the end comes about is not for anyone on Earth to know, and it is pointless and useless to try to find out.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), March 03, 2005.