THE Blessed Mother has been appearing in the skies in various parts of the world as Covid-19 snuffs out lives here and there. This is an indication that what we are experiencing is not just a fight against a material and mysterious microorganism.
There is no doubt that a huge spiritual battle is also going on. Recall that only last March 25, the Blessed Mother told Medjugorje visionary Mirjana Pavlovic Lunetti: “Return to my Son; return to prayer and fasting.
Little children, permit for God to speak to your heart, because Satan is reigning and wants to destroy your lives and the earth on which you walk...”
Those who ask why the world now suffers from this historic plague, I always find myself with this answer: mankind’s sins have become so grave as to push God away and create more playground for the devil.
Fr. Regis Scanlon, writing last Sunday, noted that Our Lady of Fatima had warned that unless mankind opposes sin, especially the sins of impurity, God would punish the world (again, by way of mankind itself pushing God off and creating space for evil).
Scanlon recalled that the Blessed Mother, as Our Lady of America, had once warned America in her messages to Sr. Mary Ephrem Neuzil in her convents in the US.
He noted one message was especially pointed. On Oct. 7, 1957 Our Lady of America told Sr. Ephrem:
“My beloved daughter, what I am about to tell you concerns in a particular way my children in America. Unless they do penance by mortification and self-denial and thus reform their lives, God will visit them with punishments hitherto unknown to them.”
The Blessed Mother, however, added: “My child, there will be peace, as has been promised, but not until my children are purified and cleansed from defilement, and clothed thus with the white garment of grace, are made ready to receive this peace, so long promised and so long held back because of the sins of men.”
The Blessed Mother’s messages to Sr. Ephrem was permitted to be disseminated on Jan. 25, 1963 by Bishop Paul F. Leibold and Daniel Pilarczyk who would each later serve as Archbishop of Cincinnati in Ohio.
Covid-19 is probably the most prominent aberration that the world has been experiencing in the recent years, but it is certainly not the only one. Many other unusual phenomena, often attributed to climate change, On the spiritual side, some Marian followers have attributed the worsening “end time signs” to sin, particularly the sin of the flesh which, the Blessed Mother herself had said, is the sin for which most people go to hell.
The world has normalized sins of the flesh, even here in the Philippines. Local television news programs quite frequently declare how the country was made to sizzle by the latest photo of an actress baring thighs and breasts on the beach or on magazine covers, or how honor was brought to all Filipinos by a beauty queen those victory was attributed by her bare curves of flesh for the world to see and for young girls to dream about for emulation.
And there’s a Tagalog song that lumps in its lyrics God and the curse P...ina. Almost in the same way that ordinary street folk have formed the habit of invoking God and casually spewing the P word.
Filipino predilection for the prurient is being imported, via modern media, from abroad to be sure. Meaning it is probably worse in other developed countries, particularly the US whose F word curse has become fashionable and thus copycatted by many Pinoys.
Pornography worldwide is inexpensive via smartphones, ironically except in authoritarian communist and godless countries where internet is much regulated,
And so the Blessed Mother had told us years ago: “More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”
She also said “certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much.”
By the way, along with statements on impurity, the Blessed Mother also made an appeal: “Priests must be pure, very pure. They should not busy themselves with anything except what concerns the Church and souls. The disobedience of priests, to their superiors and to the Holy Father, is very displeasing to Our Lord.”
And then the declaration: “I can no longer restrain the hand of my Divine Son from striking the world with just punishments for its many crimes.”
Punishments, I suppose, by way of God permitting evil to play around in the space created by mankind. God, after all, is determined to respect freedom of the will given each person.
Now, needed are not only medicines and vaccines against Covid-19. Even more primal is the spiritual, the need for repentance and conversion, coupled with prayers, petitions to protect us from the virus.