As the visions continued through the night ...

What?

I had trouble sleeping last night - 'restless leg syndrome' - haha!  Is that still a condition?  I remember ads for medication for that problem.  Pharmaceutical companies seem to make up conditions to promote their new drugs.

Anyway, in the past, when I'd wake during the night I used to pray, sadly, these days I go online.  I'm ashamed.

During the night I checked out two guys who receive messages from heaven.  Charlie Johnston and Mark Mallett.  I finally took the time to read some of what they have to say and 'check credentials' as it were.  They seem solid.  No claims of secrets or anything like that.  Typical prophetic utterances may get repeated, but generally they seem very solid and practical.  From my understanding, both are deeply respectful of the magisterium, pope and bishops in union with them.

A friend sent an email about a talk given by Charlie Johnston, several priests were in attendance - including one or two well known priests.  That is why I decided to take another look.  The impression I got was that just being in the audience listening was some sort of imprimatur.  (Not that my friend thought it was, but because people can get that impression.)  Likewise, having spiritual directors is not always a guarantee that prophecy or private revelation is accurate.  I often write about that, especially when it comes to locutionists and their messages to the world on the economy and politics in the Middle East.

Signs of the times and traditional teaching.

These guys aren't like that.  Their message is really very practical - they are very similar.  Very ordinary.  They seem to be very humble - having been tried in and through spiritual purification.  What I read so far strikes me as true and solid.  Faith-filled advice.  Neither seem interested in developing a cult following or self-promotion.  That often happens with mystics.  The saints had their followers, Catherine of Siena comes to mind, nothing is wrong with that.

As the terror grows around us, the horrors of slaughter become more public, and lawlessness seems to prevail; while moral and doctrinal confusion shakes the faith of many, prophets and mystics seem to multiply.  Online chatter is all about the chastisement, the apostasy, the coming 'Storm', the Antichrist and the Apocalypse.  It seems to me we are experiencing 'stuff like that'.  It seems to me we have been warned.

Is God going to punish us?

No need to write a new book ...

It's in Scripture.  The Letters of Peter, Jude, and James, as well as Paul.  It's all there.

It's in the writing of the saints - especially St. John of the Cross.

We can know chastisements and corrections are coming on our own, as John of the Cross makes clear:

"And likewise supernatural events and happenings may be known, in
their causes, in matters concerning Divine Providence, which deals most
justly and surely as is required by their good or evil causes as
regards the sons of men. For one may know by natural means that such or
such a person, or such or such a city, or some other place, is in such
or such necessity, or has reached such or such a point, so that God,
according to His providence and justice, must deal with such a person
or thing in the way required by its cause, and in the way that is
fitting for it, whether by means of punishment or of reward, as the
cause merits. And then one can say: At such a time God will give you
this, or will do this, or that will come to pass, of a surety.'" - Ascent of Mt. Carmel

“….be at peace and write what they command you, not, however, what is given to you to understand of its significance.” 

Remember, persons claiming locutions can be deluded, even unconsciously articulating details they have read about or heard in the course of their lifetime. John of the Cross also points out that things foretold do not always happen as we expect.  In this respect, one might understand why Our Lady instructed Sr. Lucia of Fatima to withhold her private interpretation of the secrets shown to her, leaving the interpretation up to the Church, while faithfully recording what she was shown along with the specific requests of Our Lady.

Recently controversy has re-emerged over a new book on Sr. Lucia, suggesting continued cover-up regarding the secret - when in fact it appears to be a problem of translation of a simple phrase.  It is an ongoing distortion of the original message of Fatima.  The reasons for which, as one author summarized not too many years ago:

Do we really need a special revelation from our Lady to tell us that there is an internal crisis of faith and discipline in the Church? And to warn about terrible persecutions, already gathering momentum in many countries? Aren’t we capable of reading the signs of the times ourselves? It seems that the Fatimists’ sleuthing is really a desperate attempt to find in the secrets an authoritative reason to reject Vatican II and all the Popes since Pius XII. - Fatima and the secret ...

One dark night ...

I think the experiences of the soul in the dark night of the soul is similar to the state of the Church undergoing the purification of persecution and apostasy.  I may be wrong.  Yet it seems to me the purpose of private revelations and apparitions - prophecy - is to offer direction and counsel on how to conduct ourselves in time of trial.  I go back to former posts I've written and repeat sections from Carmelite spirituality and direction to help us understand that despite everything happening to us in times of terror and anxiety, we need to have hope - to keep our souls in peace and trust in the divine mercy.  

I'll repeat the following "On the Conduct of the Soul" in the dark night. Perhaps it will make sense.

To reveal God as Love to souls is the central and essential point of the mission of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. This message has as its foundation the most important and deep grace of her life, namely, a very profound experimental knowledge of God inasmuch as He is Love.

Divine Love does not want to limit His action to a few privileged souls, He longs to give Himself everywhere - to conquer the entire world.

Confidence is theological hope wholly impregnated with love; abandonment is confidence which no longer expresses itself solely through distinct acts but has created an attitude of soul: 'We can never have too much confidence in the Good God, He is so mighty, so merciful. As we hope in Him so shall we receive.'

One must (accept to) be poor, miserable, and must lay open one's poverty (littleness, helplessness) to the enlarging power of Divine Love, in order to attract and satisfy Him. Such is his Law.

The secret of St. Therese is no different from that of St. John of the Cross. The Theresian love of littleness and of poverty united to blind trust in divine mercy, is that not the same as the Joannine hope that is detached from everything and that God immediately fills?

For St. Therese, trust and poverty are not simply virtues, like so many others, that one must practice at certain times; they are basic virtues, deep-seated dispositions, governing all the movements and attitudes of the soul. They of themselves create and become a complete spirituality; they constitute, as the Saint proclaims, a way to go to the good God.

Because the way of spiritual childhood offers us a felicitous example, in concrete and living form, for the practice of the virtue of hope, its teaching is particularly precious for the period that we are now studying."- P. Marie-Eugene, O.C.D. - I Am A Daughter of the Church, Chapter IV The Conduct of the Soul

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord.

From what I've read, Charlie Johnston and Mark Mallett are pretty much on track with traditional teaching, theology and spirituality, which is why I think their spiritual insights are valuable.  They may discuss eschatological stuff - or things like the three days darkness - but one may take all that with a grain of sand.  I don't think their emphasis is on all that or that they want to do a chronology of events.  Though they speak of a global economic collapse, I don't think their concern is hording money or material gain.  Charlie Johnston seems especially humble about what God is doing.  I picked this statement to highlight that:

[God] intends that each of us fully see how pitiful our competence is, that our confidence in ourselves be crushed so that we may turn our hearts decisively to Him. - CJ

We need to be faithful to the Church and have confidence and great love.  We need to remain in the world as faithful witnesses - even though we are weak and sinful, vain and mean-spirited.  We need to repent and repent and repent and pray and be faithful to the duties of our state in life.  Getting up after every fall, trusting in the divine mercy.  St. Therese preferred to live by faith, saying she 'preferred not to see'.  That is the 'little way'.

The kingdom doesn't come by care-filled (anxious) watching and speculation.  The kingdom is within us ...

Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name ...
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven,
give us this day
our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.