America Strong or America humbled?

We live in a time when the arrogance of men is being broken.  How often do we hear some ignoramus on television proclaiming that we are "America Strong" or "Boston Strong."

Chastisements are being unleashed on a sin-sick world which has become filled with satanic pride.

Locusts are destroying crops throughout the Middle East and Africa, a plague which will also affect the Western nations including the United States.  See here.

And while men have been boasting about how "strong" they are, an invisible enemy, a microscopic virus, is now overwhelming them.  See here.

The people of Nineveh repented of their sins and their city was spared from disaster. The spirit of penance which saved them from chastisement was expressed through the sackcloth and ashes. We are told in Sacred Scripture that, "The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you. So Jonah set out for Nineveh, in accord with the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an awesomely great city; it took three days to walk through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and when he had gone only a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh: 'By decree of the king and his nobles, no man or beast, no cattle or sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast alike must be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; they all must turn from their evil way and from the violence of their hands. Who knows? God may again repent and turn from his blazing wrath, so that we will not perish.' When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out." (Jonah 3: 1-10).


Where is the fast in our "strong" culture? Where is the penance? Saint Paul tells us that all men have the basic moral law before them, the Ten Commandments written in their hearts. All men are capable of knowing good from evil:

"For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse.." (Romans 1: 19-20).

But excuses are all we find today.  Not to mention a celebration of sin - even that sin which is most detestable - sodomy. As Father Albert J. Hebert, S.M. put it, "All great pagan judicial systems admitted the fact of wrong-doing and their legal systems prescribed punishment for it. It is only in our day that there is such a widespread denial of the existence of sin and moral laws. This makes God appear as the Creator of evil, and God hates this blasphemy, pride, and hypocrisy on the part of His creature man...Today, persons great and lowly commit sin, deny it and even blasphemously call it virtue. For example, active homosexuals and lesbians call their perverse practices 'love' and demand the legal status of normal married man and wife."

You don't believe the Lord would send locusts or an epidemic (or at least allow them in His permitting Will?).  Then you are ignorant of His Word.

The choice is yours.  We can bend our knee before the Lord in a spirit of repentance or He will bend our knees through Chastisement which are an act of His mercy.

UN Shock Report: Swine flue could kill millions; pandemic could result in anarchy

"I have wanted you here, to tell you that you must now all enter right away into the safe refuge of my Immaculate Heart. Just as Noah, in the name of the Lord, called into the ark those who were to be saved from the flood, so now must you, my littlest child, in the name of your heavenly Mother, call into the refuge of my Immaculate Heart those who must be protected, defended and saved from the great trial which has now come for the Church and for all humanity...My Church will be shaken by the violent wind of apostasy and unbelief, as he who sets himself against Christ will enter into its interior, thus bringing to fulfillment the horrible abomination which has been prophesied to you in Holy Scripture. Humanity will know the bloody hour of its chastisement: it will be stricken with the scourge of epidemics, of hunger and of fire; much blood will be spilt upon your roads; war will spread everywhere, bringing down upon the world incommensurable devastation...You, my poor children, must all bear the weight of great sufferings and of unspeakable sorrows, so that the great miracle of divine justice and mercy may be manifest to all...From this place, where I appeared as the Woman Clothed with the sun, to be your light in these dark years of the great tribulation, I bless you all in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Our Lady to Fr. Stephano Gobbi, Fatima, Portugal, March 15, 1993).

And yet we still refuse to listen to Our Lady...

In a previous post, I quoted from Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests:


"My Church will be shaken by the violent wind of apostasy and unbelief, as he who sets himself against Christ will enter into its interior, thus bringing to fulfillment the horrible abomination which has been prophesied to you in Holy Scripture. Humanity will know the bloody hour of its chastisement: it will be stricken with the scourge of epidemics, of hunger and of fire; much blood will be spilt upon your roads; war will spread everywhere, bringing down upon the world incommensurable devastation...You, my poor children, must all bear the weight of great sufferings and of unspeakable sorrows, so that the great miracle of divine justice and mercy may be manifest to all..."

Some left comments at this Blog accusing me of being "doom and gloom" and an alarmist. But now an Obama panel is saying that the Swine flu (H1N1) may kill 90,000 and hospitalize 1.8 million. And suddenly the talking hairdos and "experts" have gone mute. Pride always goes before a fall.

Related reading here.

"..stricken with the scourge of epidemics..."

"I have wanted you here, to tell you that you must now all enter right away into the safe refuge of my Immaculate Heart. Just as Noah, in the name of the Lord, called into the ark those who were to be saved from the flood, so now must you, my littlest child, in the name of your heavenly Mother, call into the refuge of my Immaculate Heart those who must be protected, defended and saved from the great trial which has now come for the Church and for all humanity...My Church will be shaken by the violent wind of apostasy and unbelief, as he who sets himself against Christ will enter into its interior, thus bringing to fulfillment the horrible abomination which has been prophesied to you in Holy Scripture. Humanity will know the bloody hour of its chastisement: it will be stricken with the scourge of epidemics, of hunger and of fire; much blood will be spilt upon your roads; war will spread everywhere, bringing down upon the world incommensurable devastation...You, my poor children, must all bear the weight of great sufferings and of unspeakable sorrows, so that the great miracle of divine justice and mercy may be manifest to all...From this place, where I appeared as the Woman Clothed with the sun, to be your light in these dark years of the great tribulation, I bless you all in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Our Lady to Fr. Stephano Gobbi, Fatima, Portugal, March 15, 1993).

Our Lord Jesus told Saint Faustina: "My daughter, write that the greater the misery of a soul, the greater its right to My mercy; urge all souls to trust in the unfathomable abyss of My mercy, because I want to save them all. On the cross, the fountain of My mercy was opened wide by the lance for all souls - no one have I excluded!" (Divine Mercy in My Soul, Notebook III, 1182).