​On Tuesday 5 Sep 2023 a very unusual event happened. It was Week 2 in Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, and the scripture reading was 1 Thess 5:4-5. In the lectionary for Mass that day it was Week 22 of Year 1 and the first reading was 1 Thess 5:1-6,9-11.

Given that this event can only happen once every 2 years at maximum, and that it can only happen if there isn’t a major feast day on the day between late August and mid-September that this particular Tuesday of Week 22 Year 1 could fall upon – it could easily have been 4 years or much longer since the last time both readings matched. There are at least 4 major feast days between late August and mid-September.

On Saturday 2 Sep 2023 a seminarian friend was discussing 1 Thess 5:4-5 because he was seeking ideas for preaching on those verses.

I think you could call that a Divine Set-up for looking more closely at 1 Thess 5:1-11. After looking at the cross references provided by a study bible, and reviewing the transliterated Greek via the BibleHub website, deeper understanding of this passage of Scripture occurred.

At the end I had a new question, ‘How do we build each other up in faith, hope, and agape love?’

Bear with me and I will show you how I reached that new question. It will be a long journey. It starts with reading the text of 1 Thess 5:1-11 in full, then looking at the cross references, and then looking at those places where our English translation doesn’t capture the original Greek well enough.

According to the Jerusalem Bible translation, 1 Thess 5:1-11 goes like this:

1. You will not be expecting us to write anything to you, brothers, about ‘times and seasons’,
2. since you know very well that the Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night.
3. It is when people are saying, ‘How quiet and peaceful it is’ that the worst suddenly happens, as suddenly as labour pains come on a pregnant woman; and there will be no way for anybody to evade it.
4. But it is not as if you live in the dark, my brothers, for that Day to overtake you like a thief.
5. No, you are all sons of light and sons of the day: we do not belong to the night or to the darkness,
6. so we should not go on sleeping, as everyone else does, but stay wide awake and sober.
7. Night is the time for sleepers to sleep and drunkards to be drunk,
8. but we belong to the day and we should be sober; let us put on faith and love for a breastplate, and the hope of salvation for a helmet.
9. God never meant us to experience the Retribution, but to win salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
10. who died for us so that, alive or dead, we should still live united to Him.
11. So give encouragement to each other, and keep strengthening one another, as you do already.

Remember that St Paul was a learned Pharisee, he knew the Old Testament very well, and he also had access to the source material that would in time be recognised by us as the four Gospels. This means that St Paul used terms deliberately to allude to various scripture references, and that we cannot truly understand St Paul’s meaning unless we understand the cross references.

Times and seasons
Daniel 2:21 May the name of God be blessed for ever and ever, since wisdom and power are His alone. His, to control the procession of times and seasons, to make and unmake kings, to confer wisdom on the wise, and knowledge to those with wit to discern,

Acts 1:7-8 Jesus replied, ‘It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father has decided by His own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be My witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.

Matthew 24:36 But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father only.

The literal Greek for 1 Thess 5:1 ‘times and seasons’ is:

Times (chronōn) A space of time or interval; by extension, an individual opportunity; by implication, delay.

Seasons, (kairōn) Fitting season, season, opportunity, occasion, time. Of uncertain affinity; an occasion, i.e. Set or proper time.
As an example, consider Galatians 4:4 When the appointed time came (or the fullness of time) came, God sent His Son, born of a woman. ‘Time’ here is Chronou, and the sense is that a period of Chonou had to elapse before a Kairos time, the incarnation of Jesus, could begin.

Like a thief
Matthew 24:44 Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

2 Peter 3:10 The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and fall apart, the earth and all it contains will be burnt up.

Revelation 3:3 and yet do you remember how eager you were when you first heard the message? Hold on to that. Repent. If you do not wake up, I shall come to you like a thief, without telling you at what hour to expect Me.

Labour pains
Jeremiah 6:14-15 They dress My people’s wound without concern: ‘Peace! Peace!’ they say, but there is no peace. They should be ashamed of their abominable deeds. But not they! They feel no shame, they have forgotten how to blush. And so as others fall, they too shall fall; and they shall be thrown down when I come to deal with them – says the Lord God.

Jeremiah 4:31-5:1 Yes, I hear screams like those of a woman in labour, anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first child; they are the screams of the daughter of Zion, gasping, hands outstretched, ‘Ah, I despair! I am fainting away with murderers surrounding me.’ ‘Rove to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look, now, and learn, search her squares; if you can find a man, one man who does what is right and seeks the truth, then I will pardon her, says the Lord God.’

(Ed. Jeremiah was a prophet sent to invite the people of Israel to repent, and to warn them that if they did not repent, then God’s judgement would come. It resulted in the deportations to Babylon for 70 years.)

Matthew 24:8-14 All this is only the beginning of the birthpangs. Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put to death; and you will be hated by all the nations on account of My name. And then many will fall away; men will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise; and they will deceive many, and with the increase of lawlessness, love in most men will grow cold; but the man who stands firm to the end will be saved. This Good News of the Kingdom will be proclaimed to the whole world as a witness to all the nations. And then the end will come.

No way to evade it
Luke 21:34-36 Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life, and that day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap. For it will come down on every living man on the face of the earth. Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.

Light and darkness
Ephesians 5:6-9 Do not let anyone deceive you with empty arguments: it is for loose living that God’s anger comes down on those who rebel against Him. Make sure that you are not included with them. You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; be like children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness and right living and truth.

Stay awake
Matthew 24:42-43 So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house.

Romans 13:11-14 Besides, you know ‘the time’ has come: you must wake up now: our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.

(Ed. The word used for ‘time’ here is kairos, an appointed time by God.)

…..and sober
1 Peter 1:13-14 Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do not behave in the way that you liked to before you learnt the truth; make a habit of obedience.

1 Peter 4:7 Everything will soon come to an end, so, to pray better, keep a calm and sober mind.

1 Peter 5:8-9 Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat. Stand up to him, strong in faith and in the knowledge that your brothers all over the world are suffering the same things.

Put on armour
Ephesians 6:11 Put God’s armour on so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics.

Isaiah 59:15-18 Sincerity is missing and he who avoids evil is robbed. The Lord God has seen this, and is indignant that there is no justice to be seen. He saw that there was no one and wondered there was no one to intervene. So He made His own arm His mainstay, His own integrity His support. He put integrity on like a breastplate, and on His head the helmet of salvation. He put vengeance on like a cloak. To each He will pay His due, wrath to His enemies, reprisals on His foes.

Faith, hope and love
1 Thessalonians 1:3 We constantly remember before God our Father how you have shown your faith in action, worked for love and persevered through hope, in our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:13 In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.

Retribution
1 Thessalonians 1:10 You are now waiting for Jesus, His Son, whom He raised from the dead, to come from heaven to save us from the retribution (or wrath) which is coming.

Strengthen each other
1 Thessalonians 4:14-15 Be at peace among yourselves. And this is what we ask you to do, brothers: warn the idlers, give courage to those who are apprehensive, care for the weak and be patient with everyone.

Ephesians 2:20-21 You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus Himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on Him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord.

If you now go back and re-read 1 Thess 5:1-11, your understanding of it should have changed significantly.

It is time now to look more carefully at the Greek transliteration.
What we have as ‘How calm and peaceful it is’, uses peace with a connotation of prosperity and security with connotations of safety, reliability, firmness – what we might call stability.

What we have as ‘live in the dark’ uses not in darkness with connotations of both physical and moral darkness, as well as obscurity, and may refer to being under the sway of the rulers of darkness mentioned in Ephesians 6:12.

What we have as ‘the worst suddenly happens’ uses destruction with connotations of ruin, doom, death and punishment.

What we have as ‘Retribution’ uses wrath with connotations of punishment and violent justifiable passion and abhorrence.

What we have as ‘alive or dead’ uses awake with connotations of being watchful and alert and uses asleep with connotations of sleeping or falling asleep.

To give encouragement to each other uses the same verb that we get paraclete from.

What we have as ‘strengthen each other’ uses build one another up with connotations of a house-builder and constructing and confirming.

What does this mean for us today?
Maybe when reading Matthew 24:8-14 and Romans 13:11-14 you had a Josiah moment.

When King Josiah had the rediscovered book of the law read to him, he was deeply perturbed, because he saw throughout his kingdom God’s law being flouted to an alarming degree and he knew that because God’s words are true, that retribution was coming. Even though King Josiah did his best to turn his kingdom back to God, the impact of several unworthy kings before him was not possible to wipe out. However, God in His kindness promised Josiah that he would not see the retribution in his lifetime, and so it was, and the warfare that led to the Babylonian exile started shortly after his death.

These times of wrath and retribution have happened throughout bible history and Christian history. Consider the destruction of Tyre in bible history; and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD considered to be God’s response to rejecting salvation through Jesus; and the wipeout of the Mayan civilisation with its human sacrifices. Truly bad leaders like Ahaz and Jeroboam had their entire families wiped out by God’s decree.

We need to take this truth seriously. God’s wrath is real. Look how far the world around us has moved away from living according to God’s ten commandments - and realise that when the time of mercy ends that the time of justice and wrath will begin. After God’s dramatic reset, the cycle will begin again: a wholesale return to God under holy leaders and when sins pile up enough over time and hopefully after a very long time, justice and wrath again. Chastisements of such a nature are needed whenever we stray too far from God’s path, and they are proof that He loves us like a father.

St Paul in 1 Thess 5:1-11 tells us what to do to prepare and to survive times of retribution.
Firstly we must live Godly lives and have absolutely no compromise with darkness.
Secondly we need to grow in faith, in hope and in the agape quality of love.
Then we need to encourage each other to do likewise.
Finally we need, with the help of the Holy Spirit’s charisms, in unity, to build up the earthly part of the temple of God in alignment with Jesus Christ our foundation stone.

So how do we build ourselves and each other up in faith, hope, and agape love? That’s the pressing question that we need to be answering.
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​A printer-friendly version is below, 6 x A4 pages

Something out of the ordinary has been happening in the Hughes chapel at Asbury College in the town of Wilmore in Kentucky USA. Surprisingly it has happened several times in the 20th century at this College. This something God Himself started. As at 1pm Sydney time on 20 Feb 2023 an extraordinary prayer meeting has been going non-stop night and day since some time on Wednesday 8 Feb 2023 Kentucky time.

What happened? At a regular Wednesday College Chapel service a 25 minute talk was given based on Romans 12:9-21. The talk was about our inability to love the way God is calling us to love unless we have experienced His love first. During the talk, the speaker promised that he would stay in the chapel for anyone who needed prayers. The chapel emptied quickly, with a handful of people staying back.

Then God initiated something. He has done this before. Blessed Imelda Lambertini was aged 11 in 1333, and her longing for Jesus was immense. When the Ascension Thursday service ended, everyone else went back to their duties except Imelda, because her longing kept her there. God then worked the miracle she had been longing for, but He wanted everyone else to share in it, since they had all been touched by Imelda’s longing. God caused a fragrance to occur which one by one drew everyone back to the chapel, and the miracle was then completed.

I haven’t heard of any fragrance that brought people back, but the speaker did ask God to give them an itch that they just had to do something about. Filling a chapel back up is a miracle in itself. This beginning had God’s fingerprints on it, and only God’s fingerprints.

Since then reports have emerged of a weighty yet blissful presence of God. What else is being reported is the continuous prayer meeting and the long lines of people waiting their turn to get into the chapel. Thankfully some people have been using their phones to record segments of this extraordinary prayer meeting.

What is extraordinary about it? It is low tech, microphones, a guitar and piano and a strange kind of portable drum, some vocals, no sight screens, no special lighting. Preaching is absent, prophecy is absent, evangelists and teachers are absent. Agendas are absent. The preaching podium is empty. Teams of musicians rotate in shifts of around 2 hours, and they are supporting what is happening, not leading it. God’s spotlight is on the body of Christ.

Naturally the concept of not being needed is unsettling to all those who usually lead.

But what we are seeing is a taste of heaven.

What happens in heaven? God’s love flows out to His people, and their response of love flows back. Most of it happens in music and praise. When God is King and present, you don’t need a preacher, teacher, evangelist or prophet. All these people are needed to help people to God, but when God shows up, everything and everyone defers to Him. In heaven, once in a while, there are testimonies. That’s happening once in a while at Asbury too.

All of the footage from Asbury shows the body of Christ praising and worshipping God in unity. Yes there are people coming and going, and there are always going to be people who haven’t yet entered into the flow of what’s going on. Coming and going is quite normal at lengthy events. Whenever necessary people break off into prayer teams for the needy, or for those needing deliverance. There is no need for an altar call, people go up of their own accord to the base of the platform to pray their hearts out to God, and there is a steady stream of people doing that.
What we are seeing is a trickle of ‘may Your Will be done on earth as in heaven’. Two millennia of Christians have been praying to see that happen.

We are seeing God put a spotlight on ordinary believers; college students, parents, families with very young children, families with school age children, as well as those with greying hair who have longed and prayed to see such days as this. God is putting a spotlight onto ordinary believers who would never in a month of Sundays be considered leaders. This is so wonderful to see. What is happening is fulfilling many prophecies.

Growth is also happening. At least two other College chapels have had the livestream patched through to them to deal with the hungry for God. There was an announcement of some building ‘across the road’ filled with parents travailing in prayer for their children. Within the past 24 hours all those waiting outside the Hughes chapel on the lawn are singing and praying non-stop too. In other university chapels there are reports of ongoing prayer meetings happening.
​
Receive this message-in-action: God cares for ordinary people; God loves ordinary people; God is honouring ordinary people; God loves all of the members of the body of Christ – not just the big names. He is putting a spotlight of love on the body of Christ.
…………………………………………………………………………For the talk that preceded this wonder of God. 37 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGvvGbgUmMU
 
Some video tape from several hours at Asbury condensed into one hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7m3SU0rqTY&t=2961s
 
Edited transcript of the last few minutes of the talk.

Earlier this week I watched the [S]election Code movie online. It took about an hour to watch. I highly recommend that you take the time to view it for yourself – and to consider sharing it with others:

https://selectioncode.com/

If you saw 2000 Mules, this one will have around 10 times the impact upon you.
If you didn’t, 2000 Mules was about how geo-tracking and CCTV proved that election fraud was taking place at voting drop boxes in the USA. It too is worth viewing:

https://2000mules.com/

Why? You might ask. Because unless we begin to comprehend just how deep the swamp goes, we won’t be able to comprehend the depths from which God is saving us, and we won’t appreciate fully the unlikely warriors He has been raising up for this purpose.

​On the one hand it is truly sobering; on the other hand there is hope. Hope, that by many people of goodwill co-operating with God’s help, that these evils will be eradicated, and never permitted to happen ever again.

Thankfully I live in a place where paper ballots are obligatory, and all ballots are tabulated by hand, under multiple scrutineers, and re-counted whenever necessary.

But this movie rings alarm bells for any place where there are electronic voting systems and electronic vote counting systems.

It should also ring alarm bells for any electoral official who has a social media account.
​
May God in His great mercy cause the eradication of all corruptible electoral systems from the face of the earth, never to return. Amen.

Yes, this isn’t a Sunday Gospel. It is actually the first part of Friday’s Gospel (29th Week Ordinary Time Year I), and I was given it to reflect and ponder upon – an unusual penance indeed.

But God’s ways are brilliant.

Luke 12:54-59 is where Jesus is among the crowds and He says to them that they can predict rain if clouds loom in the west, and they can predict hot weather if the wind is from the south. We can all understand this bit.

But then Jesus goes on to say, ‘How is it you do not know how to interpret these times?’

I’m sure this has had you stumped too.

What do we know?
That Jesus was referring to Himself, His miracles, His teaching as being a sign.
That Jesus considered that literally everybody should have been able to decode this sign and what it predicts.

Was Jesus right? Actually, Yes.

It has to be simple, it has to have been an observable repeatable pattern, and it has to be rather obvious – and it is fruitful for predicting the outcome of future signs.

(It might help to reveal that over the past many weeks we’ve been reading 1st Samuel, 2nd Samuel, 1st Kings and we are almost through 2nd Kings.)

Is there a pattern? Yes, there is, and it isn’t confined to these parts of scripture either.

Look at why God raised up leaders, and why God raised up prophets.

God raised up Joseph. God’s purpose was to preserve the lives of Abraham’s family.
God raised up Moses. God’s purpose was to rescue His people from slavery in Egypt.
God raised up Joshua. God’s purpose was to defeat the peoples who inhabited the promised land.

These are the primary purposes for which they were raised up, other purposes came to light after the big bad’s of famine, slavery and occupiers of the promised land were dealt with.

God raised up Gideon. God’s purpose was to save Israel from the Midianites.
God raised up Deborah. God’s purpose was to save Israel from Sisera and his army.
God raised up Jephthah the Gileadite. God’s purpose was to save Israel from the Ammonites.
God raised up Samson. God’s purpose was to save Israel from the Philistines.

Are you beginning to see the pattern?

God raises up the boy Daniel to save Susannah and bring judgement to the two corrupt elders.
God raises up the boy Samuel to bring judgement to the two corrupt priestly sons of Eli.
God raises up the boy David to save Israel from the Philistines.
God had raised up Saul to do this too, but Saul only partially fulfilled the mission given to him.

Let’s look at some other prophets.

God raised up Ahijah to bring judgement on Jeroboam.
God raised up Elijah to bring judgement to Ahaz.
God raised up Elisha to bring judgement to Jezebel.
God raises up Nathan to bring judgement to David, and call David to repentance.

God raises up Esther and Mordecai to bring judgement on Haman.
God raises up the prophet Daniel to bring judgement on Belshazzar.

Jesus is quite right.

When John the Baptist arose everyone should have been asking ‘What is God about to deal with?’

When Jesus, so much greater than all the others arose, everyone should have been asking ‘What super heavy duty stuff is God about to deal with?’

The answer, of course, is sin and death and the evil one.
The greatest enemies of all creation.

God’s modus operandi did not stop with Jesus.

Whenever we see a great prophet or an especially anointed leader arise, we know that God is about to deal with something big.

In modern times you could say that God raised up St John Paul II to bring down the iron curtain.
You could also say that God raised up St Teresa of Calcutta to deal with poverty.

You could also say that He raised up St Francis of Assisi to ‘Go rebuild My Church’, and Constantine and his mother Helena to end the early cycles of persecution.

Sometimes he uses unlikely suspects to bring about relief to His people, and Jehu son of Nimshi known for driving his chariot like a mad-man was one of these; Cyrus king of Persia is another.

What does this mean for us?

It means that if we see God raising up a great prophet or an especially anointed leader, that God is about to do something big. It also means we should put whatever support we can muster behind these chosen instruments of God.

And in our own day, Donald John Trump seems to be the one God has raised up to deal with the evils of the deep state.

Now you know what to look for.
Now you know what to do when you see these anointed ones emerge.
​
And when you do, go help them,
and also pray assiduously that they fulfill the whole mission God has given them.

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from the end of Chapter 7 of St Mark. Earlier in this Chapter Jesus has had a confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees (last week’s Gospel), and has then travelled to Tyre and Sidon, healing the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, and seems to be taking the long way through the Decapolis region back to Galilee. So this miracle of Jesus, healing the deaf and mute man, may have taken place outside the territory of Israel- where gentile culture held sway. Living according to the Law of Moses in this culture would have been very challenging.

Three years ago I opted for thinking the ‘they’ bringing the deaf and mute man to Jesus had friendly intentions. That’s still possible, and the verbs (parakalousin) and (epithe) back up that interpretation; reminding us of paraclete (Holy Spirit) and epiclesis (hand gesture for calling down the power of the Holy Spirit).
http://www.societyofsaints.net/blog/gospel-reflection-mark-731-37

But what if ‘they’ had hostile intentions?
What if ‘they’ being not defined deliberately permits both interpretations, friendly and hostile?

We know from earlier in the Chapter that Jesus wanted this journey into foreign territory to be incognito. But He was still getting recognised.

We could surmise that Jesus is on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, and that He has already attracted enough attention for a crowd to start forming around Him.

If you were hostile to Jesus, what would be a good way to discredit Him?
Bring Him an impossible case; and do it publicly, expecting to gloat when He fails.

The deaf man who can’t talk properly does not have any right to transact his own affairs. He is at the mercy of others, and sometimes those people will be kindly and sometimes they will take as much advantage as they can get away with.

He was unable to act of his own volition, according to the Law, so he couldn’t bring himself to Jesus. But he has been led/brought/conducted, possibly against his own will, to Jesus.

The crowd is naturally agog to see what’s going to happen.
Jesus doesn’t do the expected thing. He doesn’t say, ‘be opened’, with a grand gesture and hey presto, big miracle.
He goes off to a private place.

Why?

It may have been to recover an atmosphere of prayer, away from heckling and gawking.
It may have been to reduce the onslaught to the senses when the man regained them.
It may have been to reduce scrutiny/mockery of the unusual actions Jesus did, fingers in the man’s ears, and spittle on his tongue.
It may have been a counter measure against effectively becoming a performing porpoise;
It may have been to give the deaf man personal time with Jesus,
It may have been trying to preserve the incognito
or a full or partial combination of these reasons.

The healing happens at the pace Jesus has chosen.

It is a complete healing, of both hearing and speaking.

And Jesus wants it kept quiet?
Why?

And He insists on it, even though the witnesses to the miracle disobey.
Why?

Jesus must have had very good reasons, because He rarely insists on anything.
So it must have been extremely important.

Yet the witnesses, His followers, and the crowd are unable to restrain themselves.

Do we trust Jesus enough to do what He says, even if it doesn’t make any sense to us?
It is an important question, because obedience aligns ourselves with God’s plans
and disobedience delays, obstructs God’s plans and prevents the full good He intended.

So many of us are in lockdown (again), feeling helpless and useless by turns,
living in a secular society that is hostile to the Gospel.

The underlying intention of the lockdown has been to separate us from God, to crush our faith, to reduce our trust in God to nothing, to bring to naught our communities of faith, to make those with faith even more of a laughing stock than they were before.

The malice is the same, the intention is the same.

That’s what would have happened if the deaf and mute man had remained unhealed.

But God is so much bigger than anything malicious aimed at Him or His people.

Lockdown is meant to crush and destroy us.

But God has been working in secret, just as He did with the deaf and mute man.

The feeble faith we went into lockdown with is being transformed by His grace, that little faith, disabled and threatened in so many ways, is being fully restored, resurrected by Jesus, in the hiddenness of lockdown.

What was meant for evil is being transformed by God into a complete restoration of our faith in Him; into a complete resurrection of His Church as He had always intended her to be.

The powers that be expect us to emerge from lockdown even more enfeebled than when we went in. Jesus had a surprise for them back then, and He has a surprise for them today too.

We are coming out fully restored, completely restored by grace.
Unrecognisable compared to how we went in.
A force to be reckoned with, empowered by God,
fully attuned to His voice, completely clear in transmitting His Good News.

His full process is almost complete in us.
We will be emerging soon.
Trust in Him.
He knows what He is about.
​
The change will be so remarkable, so complete,
that it will be described as a New Pentecost
as a world-wide Resurrection.

As you may, or may not, be aware, the right to free speech is under serious attack.

The most glaring example of this is President Trump’s accounts on social media and email server being shut down. If the right to free speech is taken away from the duly elected leader of the USA, then no one’s free speech is safe.

It used to be said, ‘I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’.

Now it is, ‘If I don’t like what you say, I will take it (and you) down’.

There seem to be two ways things can go from here, but they both end up with the same result:

Scenario A, there is some kind of social media blackout between now and inauguration day, and possibly for longer.
Scenario B, proof emerges of social media complicity in false election results, an existing executive order comes into play, and the social media owners and their sites all get taken down (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, SnapChat, WhatsApp etc).
The same result is that the days of social media as we now know them are numbered.

So be prepared.

If there are voices on social media that you trust, then find out if they have a blog or website, and if so, sign up for email notification of new blogs and bookmark those websites.

If not, and you have alternative means to contact them, urgently encourage them to get a website and associated blog set up.

Are there alternatives? Yes there are.

Many have migrated to Parler, but because significant verification protocols are in place (in addition to an email address, a phone number must be provided, and to be a verified user images of driver's licence are required) it makes it easier for the enemies of free speech to find you via hacking, and easier for public calls to shut it down to be made.

Others have migrated to Gab, where being anonymous is still possible.

Both are receiving deluges of new members.

I have seen a list of alternatives to YouTube, I can’t recall what they were, but they do exist.

Be prepared

Think about what plans need to be in place to keep in contact with family and friends when social media becomes unavailable; and start putting them together.

Think about whether you still want to be an active part of social media organisations that have shut down free speech.

If your spidey-sense has been twitching, then you have been asking questions like...
How come the security at the Capitol was so poor?
Were they really outraged patriots who stormed the building or Antifa/BLM wearing MAGA gear?
How come Trump’s speech at the 6 Jan rally got glossed over so quickly?

If so, you may find these websites worth a browse
https://mariomurilloministries.wordpress.com/
https://themarshallreport.wordpress.com/
https://www.neonrevolt.com/

Why is this important?
Because the truth has to be important to anyone who follows Jesus who said, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life', and 'The Truth will set you free'.
And how can you come to the truth unless you have access to multiple viewpoints on the same topic/event? As soon as an alternate narrative is suppressed, freedom departs and persecution begins.

Who would ever have thought that we would see all levels of American government resolutely refuse to investigate allegations of election fraud? Seekers of truth don't do that, they investigate until an unequivocal 'yes there was' or 'no there wasn't' is determined to public satisfaction.

Peace isn't possible unless it is based in Truth. 
Any attempt to build peace based on untruths will crumble. 

​May God graciously help all of us to come to full knowledge of the truth, no matter how disturbing or painful that might be. Amen.

Have you felt a hunger for the truth recently?
If so, you are not alone.

Currently the nightly news on TV contains a lot of poorly disguised advertisements, ‘stories’ designed to increase fear, a lashing of political spin and something about sport. Whatever it is, it can no longer be called news.

The newspapers aren’t much better. My ‘go-to’ sections are the death notices and the comic page (if it exists). I then turn to the section on world news to gauge whether or not there is any balanced reporting, conclude that it isn’t there, and put the newspaper down. That’s if I have picked it up at all.

I am finding that my scrolling time on Twitter is shorter than ever, and that the levels of overt censorship are disturbing. When I dig down into the comments, it seems that the trolls have been more active than ever, and that comments that dissent from the opinions of the trolls are harder to find.

Some sub-reddits on Reddit are even worse.

On the good news side, there are valiant people writing blogs and sharing links to breaking news. May God bless them, encourage them, and help them to keep on going.

On the downside, trying to determine what is fact and what is nutcase conspiracy theory is exhausting.

There’s a massive battle going on to determine whether our future will be under the great global reset (totalitarian socialism) or under God’s divine reset. Yet so many are still asleep to the reality of the battle and the far-reaching consequences of the outcome.

Therefore my hunger for truth is growing, and my tolerance for banality is decreasing.

Where can truth be found? In the Psalms, and in the accounts in the Bible that display God’s unchanging character.

In every age there is a time of reckoning, where God goes through the accounts of communities and nations, and where judgement comes upon nations that have flouted His laws and reward and advancement comes upon nations that have kept respect for His laws and decrees.

When God decrees against a nation, it is a forever decree. Pick up your bible, read through Ezekiel 29, especially verse 15, and ponder it seriously. ‘Egypt will be the weakest of kingdoms and no longer dominate other nations; I shall reduce her, and she will not rule any more over the nations.’ This is still true today. Does this not induce awe?

2 Peter 3:9 reminds us, ‘The Lord is not being slow to carry out His promises, as anybody else might be called slow; but He is being patient with you all, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to change his ways’.

In recent times we have seen nation after nation introduce laws completely at odds with God’s eternal laws (eg abortion, euthanasia, laws against God’s plan for marriage and family, laws against God’s plan for biological gender, laws that permit experimentation and alteration to DNA etc), we have seen corruption in the judicial and political systems, and in the means of communication.

God is still God. There are times when the leniency of mercy ends, and the day of reckoning and the day of judgement begins. God is not to be mocked. Even if the punishment is delayed, it still arrives; and the longer it is delayed, the more severe the balancing of God’s scales of justice will be.

That time of reckoning is soon.

The heinous injustice of firstly the electoral fraud and corruption in the U.S.A presidential election, and secondly the refusal to acknowledge the electoral fraud and corruption, and the refusal to co-operate in changing the unjust outcome, is tipping the scales towards the day of reckoning. Since if the Lord of all justice permits this gross injustice to stand, it calls into question the very nature and character of God. Will the Lord of all justice not see justice done on earth, and done speedily?

But the ultimate outcome rests with us.

If we do nothing, then the reckoning will happen through the persecution of the good; increased darkness, blatant evil and horror will be our punishment.
If we take God more seriously than ever before, and plead for mercy together with true repentance, then He will purge the world of the sources of corruption, if we have sufficient resolve to co-operate with Him in ridding the world of it.

It takes something like this for a nation to get sufficient resolve to do the necessary painful work of change. For example, the electoral methods in the U.S.A. have been different between counties and between states, with no political will to standardize them and remove the openings for corruption, because from time to time each side benefits from the possibilities for such corruption.

During these difficult weeks following 3 Nov 2020, the flaws have been glaringly obvious. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, maybe even a once-in-several-centuries opportunity to clean the system up once and for all. Woe to the U.S.A. and to the rest of the world, if this opportunity isn’t taken with resolve and gusto.

So how hungry are you for truth?

Are you willing to do what it takes to stand up for truth?
How much are you praying about it?
How much are you adding in a bit of self-denial to those prayers?
Have you been independently investigating the available evidence, and weighing up what both sides have been saying, and seeking God’s gift of discernment?
Have you been liking and sharing sources of truth?
Have you been telling those in positions of authority that you expect them to stand up for truth, no matter what?

Jesus Christ is the same today, as He was yesterday, and as He will be forever.
He is the one who transforms Saul the persecutor into Paul the intrepid apostle.
He is the one who does not tolerate the fraud of Ananias and Sapphira; and punished them with immediate death.
He is the one who makes the cripple at the Beautiful Gate whole.
He is the one who warns the seven churches that none of them are measuring up to His will for them, and that there will be dire and major consequences if they don’t respond positively to His warnings.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

May God grant that you learn this the easier way, than the hard way.
​
Hunger for truth! 

... then you need to find sources of news other than the traditional sources of news media.

Here are some you might like to investigate:

richards-watch.org/
Is a very good compendium of both news media and input from tested prophetic sources

themarshallreport.wordpress.com/
Is another blog worth reading with good reports on the USA electoral chaos

www.thegatewaypundit.com/
This is a very clunky website, with a lot of annoying pop-ups, but it is normally first with any breaking investigative news. It does sometimes drift into conspiracy theories, but you should be able to spot the few and filter them out.

But God has also been speaking to His prophets, and there are some who have been earning increasing respect from me.

www.facebook.com/veroinka.west.3
Outstanding among them is Veronica West, although it is a pity that it gets broadcast over Facebook, and often gets censored.

wandaalger.me/
​Is next on that list.

mariomurilloministries.wordpress.com/ 
Has also been giving valuable reflections upon the electoral situation

So next, if you read any of them, you will want to pray.
Unified prayer is more powerful than personal prayer, so these two intercessors are worth following on a regular basis:

www.givehim15.com/
With Dutch Sheets setting out daily reasons for prayer, and starter prayers, is very good

www.youtube.com/channel/UCdeznInNtlfNVLqkN48B_fw
Is the YouTube link for Lou Engle's channel. He is praying through this time of electoral chaos with an eye firmly fixed on overturning Roe v Wade. His calls to prayer are usually short, 7-10 mins, and help keep the fire going.

You might legitimately ask me, 'where are the Catholic voices?', to which I must answer, I don't know, but wish I did.

I do know that it is getting a lot nastier on social media.
Prayer is all important, but we do also need to do our bit to help the alternative news sources get heard, and to let a chink of light in, that God can do a lot with. So, please, stay online, pray, and like and share anything useful that comes across your screens.

The issues at hand in America are much, much, much bigger than anyone realises, involving a gigantic clash between the forces of good and evil for the soul of America (and therefore for the soul of the world). If America doesn't take this opportunity to cleanse its electoral system of all fraud and corruption, then democracy itself is at stake, and with it any hope of being able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet.

This isn't to discount the massive internal clean ups needed through out the world at diocesan level and Catholic education facilities, which likewise need assiduous prayer, but perhaps the American domino of grace needs to fall first before the others can receive the infilling of grace.

O God, arise 
Let Your enemies be scattered
Let those who hate You flee before You
As smoke is driven, so drive them away
As wax melts before the fire.
                                    Psalm 67(68):1-2a

All American Saints and Angels, please intercede that God's complete will is fulfilled at this time in American History. Amen.

The sky is not falling…

It is Holy Saturday for real today, even though we have been living in Holy Saturday mode for over 3 weeks. The proclamation of the Resurrection is about to begin, so today is the day to record the positives from this time.

The origin of this extremely contagious and debilitating virus doesn’t matter, but the grace of the pause, of the taste of divine rest, of a time of fallowness does.

Sadly a lot of people aren’t getting the message to slow down, as evidenced by the erratic driving of some people seen when we have ventured out for groceries. What on earth could they possibly be in a hurry to get to?

In reality we are only catching up on all the Sunday-Sabbath rests we have ignored for countless years, and by God’s grace are beginning to get a taste for again. The Christmas Day quiet of suburban streets is lovely to experience.

Nature seems to be getting a bit of a rest too, with smog and pollution levels decreasing.

While it may seem quiet on the surface, there is a lot going on behind closed doors and in the depths of hearts.

The great majority of our usual distractions, football codes, theatre, restaurants, sport, libraries, local pubs, gyms, and even our church activities have closed down. People are having a chance to distance themselves from things that they were previously addicted to. Additionally they are finding that some of those things, like trips to the ice cream parlour or binge watching TV series, just aren’t satisfying them anymore.

In this time of pause, away from the normal bustle and busyness of life, there is evidence that people are reconsidering the whole God question. Those church communities that had existing online outreach, or quickly got their acts together, are reporting massive increases in viewer numbers for online church services. Granted some of these viewer numbers are not from the local area, and some are there because their own congregations don’t have anything online to offer, but many are seekers.

Reports are beginning to come in from those whose lives have been touched through these online ministries, and they include atheists and those with faiths other than Christian.

There is also evidence that the quality of family life is improving. This includes spouses reconnecting with each other. It includes the hearts of parents reconnecting with their children, and vice versa. Around the dinner table at meal times conversation is increasing. People are trying out new recipes, getting the jigsaw puzzles and board games out, and getting small to medium do-it-yourself home improvements done.

Many people have been on steep technology learning curves in order to stay in touch with each other and to be able to work from home. Rethinking is going on about how to run businesses better and clever people have begun re-purposing businesses to include home delivery, online ordering and adjusting product lines. For others rethinking their working lives is a necessity because the jobs they had before are unlikely to return.

The way we learn is changing too. With the aid of materials prepared by teachers and others, lots of parents have been thrown in the deep end of home schooling. The early responses were of gratitude to teachers, ‘I’ll never complain about you again’. But the longer this pause goes on, the more those responses are going to change. Parents will know exactly where their children are struggling and will be asking more perceptive questions of teachers. There will be parents who discover that their children are learning better and faster at home than they did at school. There will be children who discover that learning at their own pace, without the competitive peer pressure, suits them.

We won’t be going back to the normal we knew.

What might the new normal look like?

I think we are going to see a lot of No’s. Of people standing up and saying No, I am not going back to that, and having far less patience for the mediocre they used to put up with.

All of us have sampled online Masses and other church services from places other than our home parish. We’ve heard much better preaching than we have in years, and better choirs and liturgical observance. Far more of us are no longer going to be backward in coming forward and saying, ‘Father, you just have to do better. We need better preaching than this!’

There is likely to be anger, too. Anger at the non-communication from parishes that stopped printing parish bulletins, stopped putting parish bulletins online, and didn’t have existing email and Facebook networks. Our older members, who don’t have technology, will be feeling the most abandoned.

There will be others, I daresay mostly women, who will say ‘No, family really is my priority, I don’t want to go back to a toxic working environment’ and who will pioneer ways to set up cottage industries from home.

There will be families who will say, ‘No, I’m not sending my children back to school, this home-schooling thing is really working for us’. Definitely families will re-evaluate just how many extra-curricular after school activities their children will be involved in, and choose less of them.

There will be people in high pressure jobs who will say, ‘No, I can’t live like that anymore, it is detrimental to both me and my family’.

Hopefully communities, regions and states will take a good long look at where they found themselves to not be self-sufficient, and to take steps to rectify that, especially in manufacturing and production of medical supplies.

Are we ready for the new normal?

Do you remember that interesting prophecy about the three waves?
https://www.openheaven.com/2018/07/10/three-waves-of-a-coming-baby-boom-and-strategies-for-preparation-by-christy-johnston/
Firstly of prodigals, then of babies, and then of more babies.

When the social distancing restrictions are lifted, our churches will be overflowing, due to the number of returning prodigals and seekers. Are we ready to welcome them? Do we have resources in place now to assist an extra 200 to 2000 people who seek baptism and discipleship?

Do it now.

Remember the parable of the 10 bridesmaids, the ones who came with extra oil went with the bridegroom, the rest missed out.

With the lack of other things to do, and more time to improve and restore relationships, you can bet that we will see a physical baby boom from December 2020 onwards. Order your baptismal registers and certificates, baptismal candles etc now. Leave it till Oct/Nov and you won’t be able to get any. Train up extra baptismal preparation teams now, via Skype or other online interfaces if necessary.

Order extra marriage registers and certificates and paperwork too. Cohabiting couples will decide to marry. Marriages made outside the church will seek convalidation.

There will be more couples seeking to straighten out their tangled lives with God, so increase your orders of annulment paperwork too.

Then as the reconciliations with God take place, and healings begin, watch for that second baby boom of miracle babies to previously infertile couples to happen. Yes, you really do need to start ordering baptism related supplies now, and double what you first thought of.

This is the divine reset, back to God’s plan for Himself first, and family second.

The sky isn’t falling, it is about to turn the right way up for the first time in a very long while.
​
Rejoice.  

​There are a lot of 'high expectation' prophetic words flowing around online in Protestant and non-denominational circles at the moment. Gauging what is happening in prophetic word from Catholic circles is very difficult, because it doesn't get shared online unless there has been some heavy duty discernment. However the more I read, and ponder and pray, a possible interpretation emerges that has implications for both sets of circles.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, and maybe something even more wonderful is afoot behind the scenes.

Some of the recurring themes are increase, acceleration, breakthrough, harvest, letting go of the old and taking hold of the new, surrender and humility as the path to these treasures, an army prepared for battle, the opening of doors and deep wells, an invitation to more, an invitation to intimacy and lingering with God, hunger for God, sudden divine appointments and sudden divine alignments, new mantles of gifting and of authority, huge release of resources, growth coming from unexpected directions.

What if you looked at all of these themes through the lens of the journey home to the Catholic church?

Under this lens the need for acceleration makes sense. Why? The process of the journey home to the Catholic Church is normally slow and gradual stretching over 5, 10, and in many cases 20 years or more. With special grace that process can be accelerated.

The same can be said for the initial process of conversion to Jesus, it is usually slow and gradual too. Sudden conversions like what St Paul experienced are infrequent. But since the messages are for those who are already Christian, maybe God does want to accelerate the process of the journey home to the Catholic Church.
​
Part of that process is the stirring of the heart to want more of God, and to be dissatisfied with anything less. I'm going to quote from Nate Johnson here, because he describes it well:
I want to be honest...I haven't been satisfied for a long while now, and I could pretty much say I have been like this my whole life. Always peering around the corner, curiously wanting to see what was to come and living in the tension of what is now and what is to come. But there is a LONGING for more that myself and many others are experiencing right now which has been very different.
One morning in early December, I was so overcome with the presence of God that out of me came this cry of: "I want more Jesus, I want more!" I was not saying that He was not enough or that I was ungrateful, but it was something He was doing in me to reveal the untapped vastness of His person – His glory – that I was not yet experiencing or seeing others experience.
It was a dissatisfaction that ran so deep that it seemed like all other appetites evaporated or waned instantly in light of the hunger that was erupting from my spirit. God began to show me that in this season He is rolling back the curtain and the veil, so we can see what is available. He is calling the Church out of stagnancy and "church as usual" to develop the appetite we were designed to have...for the unlimited riches of His glory!

Does this feel to you like a hunger that could only be satiated with the Eucharist?

It does to me.

Another part of that process is the discovery of ancient sources of renewal that are available to all, but few people know how to find or to value them. For example, the places hallowed by the prayers and lives of the Saints, the writings of the Early Church Fathers, the writings of the Doctors of the Church, the Sacraments, sacramentals (medals, holy water, icons, scapulars etc), the hymns of St Romanos the melodist and St Ephrem. Could this be what the Holy Spirit is referring to in these words from Michele Stickells?

I saw an angel stirring the waters, then I hear, The angel is stirring up the waters of ancient wells, that have become dry and redundant. I see it's time that God wants to restore the wells that hold the ancient anointing, to bring forth the end time anointing that will bring revival. I also see mantles lying in the dust, waiting to be picked up; they also carry past and ancient anointings. The Holy Spirit is moving across the nations looking to see who will see what He is doing, and be ready to receive from past ancient anointings that have remained dormant and hidden for an appointed time, for it takes an ANCIENT ANOINTING TO RELEASE THE END TIME ANOINTING !!!

At the same time there are various calls to lay down our own agendas and ideas and those things that have worked in the past, and to pick up God's plans. Nate Johnston explains it like this:
I had a vision of a hot air balloon that is being fired up to take-off, but it was being held down by sandbag weights all around it. I heard the Lord say, "You have to lose your sandbags to ascend." Then I began to see many obstacles in the spirit that many of us experience when God is inviting us to ascend. To my surprise, they were not just fears, worries, and concerns, but they were more like concepts. They were things like holding onto old patterns and ways of thinking – not wanting to shift from the way God was moving to the new way He was flowing and taking us. These sandbags were also the mindsets of wanting to stay behind the wheel and control the direction of our lives, the process, and orchestrate the outcomes. Not yielding to the Holy Spirit stops the fruit from growing. It's an interesting thought that you can look like you are full of fire and ready to go, but without letting go of the old and surrendering to the shift, you stay grounded. LET GO, and watch Him build and increase you beyond your own means.

And Lana Vawser explains it like this:

I had a powerful encounter with the Lord recently and in this encounter I saw Jesus and He was inviting the Pioneers into the most beautiful room in the library of heaven. The interesting thing about this room in the library of heaven was the door was VERY SMALL. The door was tiny, so to “enter into this room” and to move into the invitation the Lord was releasing, there was a significant call to “lay down, and go low”. There was a deeper place of surrender, humility and yieldedness to the Lord that had to take place, it is not a place of “striving” to “be humble” but a recognition that He is Lord, and we are not. He is the One who we hand the reigns over to, to lead, to guide, to speak. We hand the reigns of timing over to Him. We hand the reigns of “the way” over to Him. We hand the reigns of how things are “built” over to Him, it was a place of such deeper surrender to Jesus and trusting Him in His way and timing. The beautiful thing is I could feel so strongly in the invitation to continue to ‘lie down’ and ‘go low’, is the plans, purposes and manifestation of what He is building is bigger than what is even being dreamt about by the Pioneers.

What could be harder or more difficult than to lay down any anti-Catholic sentiments and to yield any long held teachings that are not truly biblical? And yet what is more necessary for true growth and the finding of untold treasures of grace?

So if you are a Christian and odd things seem to be happening in your life that are pointing you towards the Catholic Church, receive them as invitations from God to the more that He has for you and start to investigate what the Catholic Church actually teaches. If you are looking for a starting point, remember that burning question that you shelved because you couldn't get a satisfactory answer? Take it out, look at that question again, and find out from reputable Catholic sources what answers the Catholic Church has to that question.

So if you are Catholic start talking and thinking about what your parish would need, and what would need to change if the number of people wanting to do the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (R.C.I.A.) multiplied by ten. What would you need to do if it multiplied by a hundred? Start working on increasing the budgets, recruiting and training additional R.C.I.A. team members, and gathering the resources that the spiritually hungry are going to need when they arrive.

Mary, Mother of the New Pentecost, Star of the New Evangelisation, pray for us.