THERE isn't a shortage of people who dislike fearful prophecies, including those from believable Catholic mystics. No, a parent would hear no bad news for their children. The coronavirus pandemic is enough and all that has to be heard is a return to a maskless world that used to be. Indeed, some people have frankly told me they avoid reading this column because of the dreaded bodings I share.
If such dire prophecies serve no good purpose, blame the Blessed Virgin Mary. Or even Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, because especially in these apocalyptic days, they are the primary sources of bad news. They both are calling for true conversion, or else...
But because Jesus is God Himself and the Blessed Virgin Mary is His mother, we can’t privilege ourselves with arguing. They can not but make sense. They can not but be listened to. It’s foolish to think we know better.
I have always posited this premise: Anything is worth suffering in this world for the sake of an everlasting future in Heaven, not in hell. Especially in these times when, the recent prophecies tell us, the battle between good and evil is of such magnitude as to lead to a significant harvest of souls into eternity, with the coronavirus pandemic as mere starters.
Indeed, the Blessed Mother, in her Church-approved apparitions in Fatima in 1917, caused three children aged 7, 10 and 12 to shriek in terror as she showed her hell.
No less terrifying was what the Blessed Mother showed to some adolescents in her Church-approved apparitions in Kibeho, Rwanda in the 1980s. What the visionaries- Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango- saw were prophecies that would occur if the people of Rwanda did not banish hate among themselves. We now know that not enough conversion happened and so the 1994 genocide happened in that African country.
What were the girls allowed to see by the Blessed Mother? Let us recount visionary Alphonsine as written by author Immaculee Braganza in her book Our Lady of Kibeho. Braganza said that as the visionary saw in a vision a certain future which she did not know was to happen in her own country, “Alphonsine let out a gut-wrenching scream that cut through the startled crowd like a razor.”
Alphonsine was recorded saying as follows as she was having the vision of a horrifying genocide: “I see a river of blood! What does that mean? No, please! Why did you show me so much blood? Show me a clear stream of water, not this river of blood! Stop, stop, please stop! Why, Mother? Why are you showing me this? The trees are exploding into flames, the country is burning! Please, Mother, you’re scaring me. . . . Oh no! No! Why are those people killing each other? Why do they chop each other? I’m not a strong enough person to watch people killing each other.”
Braganza said that Alphonsine later related that her vision included “a growing pile of severed human heads, which were still gushing blood” and that “the grotesque sight worsened still as Our Lady expanded Alphonsine’s vision until she beheld a panoramic view of a vast valley piled high with the remains of a million rotting, headless corpses, and not a single soul was left alive to bury the dead.”
The minutest details of what Alphonsine saw came into being in 1994 and then more people believed in the apparitions in Kibeho.
Yes, there is no doubt the dire prophecies are intended to even shock us to conversion. Repeat: nothing will ever be as important as our fate in eternity. Any terrifying cost is a trifle compared to a future that will never ever end.
Even St. Faustina Kowalska had terrifying visions of hell if only to warn us the place exists and she, in her earthly lifetime, was taken there to testify to us.
Her words: “I, Sister Faustina Kowalska, by the order of God, have visited the Abysses of Hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence...the devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God, What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: That most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell."
St. Faustina said that in hell, “one's condition will never change,” and that there, there is “fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it.”
“There are special Tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings related to the manner in which it has sinned,” she said in her diary.
She also noted “caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me.”
And then addressing herself to mankind, St. Faustina said: “Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin. I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like...how terribly souls suffer there! Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God's mercy upon them. O My Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, amidst the greatest sufferings, than offend you by the least sin." (End of quote.)
And so flow the dire prophecies from the Catholic mystics of our time, warning us of tribulations greater than in the time of Noah, sufferings that could push people to despair as never before. ...a near-future that should compel even the most profligate sinner to convert.
I admit having some worries over the prophecies. But then, I am somewhat comforted by the counsels that come with some of the prophecies- that we humans will never cease to exist and the future to look forward to can be Heaven where we reunite anew with good departed loved ones in a never-ending situation whose bliss no human adjective is ever suitable. But we have to choose. Here and now.