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Troubling prophecies despite joy, unity in welcoming Pope Leo XIV

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His past gives us the impression that newly elected Pope Leo XIV is a living saint. But is he also the Pope prophesied by St. Malachy and the one cited in the Marian apparitions in Fatima and Garabandal? Pope Leo XIV could have chosen a life of luxury had he chosen to be a lawyer in the US, but he junked Harvard law school in favor of a missionary work as an Augustinian priest in the remotest areas of Peru. In Peru, he lived in areas where children died from treatable diseases, so that at times he had to transport the sick on a donkey over routes inaccessible to motor vehicles to bring them to the nearest hospital. At times, he walked eight hours to help isolated people who had to trek miles to get potable water. Where he stayed, there were no roads and no wifi. He had slept on dirt floors of people he served. He taught math to children under broken roofs, while helping families build simple homes. He truly loved the poorest and even learned not only to speak their dialect ...
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Jesus laments unbelieving priests; St. Michael warns anew on “shaking”

           Jesus laments unbelieving priests; St. Michael warns anew on “shaking” Our times have reached the peak of urgency and, again, there’s a repetition in the recent prophecies of the world “shaking,” among other dire events. Mankind is to suffer, but is also being told to keep faith and hope: there is eternal light at the end of the tunnel. This, even as Our Lord Jesus Christ expressed lament over the failure of  priests to give importance to the messages being issued these days by mystics. The lament was issued by Our Lord Jesus to Italian Archbishop Ottavio Michelini. Of course, there is no obligation for anyone to believe private revelations, but if good reason tells us that such messages are indeed being issued supernaturally and quite urgently, a prayerful Catholic must lend ear. Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms  prophecies on great trials for the Church, if not for entire mankind. By the way, ...
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Amid dire “end times” ahead, Our Lord Jesus issues Surrender Novena

Most people regard St. Padre Pio (1887-1968) as being among the holiest in his years on earth, yet, despite the high regard of him by his followers, the good padre had instead hailed other contemporaries as deserving of being called saint. One whom Padre Pio praised loftily was Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo (1882-1970), a Neapolitan priest who, like him,  also bore Our Lord Jesus Christ’s stigmata.  Once, Padre Pio told a group of pilgrims from Naples:  “Why do you come here, if you have Don Dolindo in Naples? Go to him, he's a saint!”  Padre Pio and Fr. Dolindo knew each other on a personal basis. Once, Padre Pio remarked to his friend: “the whole of paradise is in your soul.” Why do I cite Fr. Dolindo? For several reasons, mainly around the prospect of the entire world already at the doorway of biblically historic chastisements that have been filling up the messages of Catholic mystics. We are in the end times and some of the messages, certainly from Heaven, warn that situat...
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DEPARTED WATCH OWN FUNERALS

THERE used to be a booklet titled "An Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory" being sold in Catholic bookstores. Before it vanished altogether for reasons I don't know, I'd buy several copies to give away to family and friends. Yes, it's also all about actual experiences of a nun with another soul from Purgatory, not unlike those of Maria Simma (1915-2004), the current subject of this column's series. I gave away the booklets for the same reason I have been sharing the experiences of Simma: to build up faith in the afterlife, in my firm belief this also boosts faith in God. At another time, I will share excerpts from the "unpublished manuscript" which has the Church's "nihil obstat" and "imprimatur." Nihil obstat means "nothing stands in the way," that the manuscript can be forwarded to the bishop for review and decision. Once the bishop finds the work free from doctrinal error, he grants it an imprimatur which means ...
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HEAVEN, PURGATORY, HELL ARE ACTUAL PLACES

ABOUT twice in my life I have heard homilies which referred to Heaven and even hell as a "condition" or a "state of being," period. Each time, before the period, I had hoped more explanations were coming, but no. Heaven and hell (no mention of Purgatory at all) ended like a dangling sentences. I thought it made Heaven unattractive and hell, not that bad. It was also a foggy way to give an idea of the afterlife. If Heaven and hell were mere states of being, how do they differ from our being in the present state? This question was not resolved. There's just no way of fully explaining the afterlife from the point of view of what we're used to in the natural world. It is said that the best rational explanation of it was made by the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquins in his Summa Theologiae, but towards the end of his life, he stopped writing after he was shown a glimpse of the Other Side. It was in 1273 that Aquinas was celebrating Mass when he received the reve...
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A NECESSARY QUESTION FOR GHOSTS

IT'S not even Halloween, plus our country is reeling from a virulent Covid-19, furious over a terrorism law, scourged by swine flu in Luzon, and this section dwells on mystic Maria Simma and her ghosts? Some justification was cited here before, but it bears repeating if only to underscore its importance: it is in the most trying times that we have to keep faith in the afterlife, that no matter the swirl of daily burden, there is hope. Simma, who had lived a holy life in her tiny village of Sonntag, Austria, remains a testimony to everlasting life whose initial stage for some though has to be spent in Purgatory (as demanded by Divine Justice). That’s where most of Simma’s ghosts came from. The thought of Purgatory should also remind us that sins, even those already forgiven, still have to be paid for--but not necessarily in Purgatory. Sufferings on earth can be offered as mortification so that one can readily fly off to the perfection of Heaven after leaving the body, no more purga...
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GHOSTS OFTEN APPEAR AT FOOT OF BED

EACH morning, we wake up to an ego ready to assert itself thru the day, even if we are not aware of this. Even acts that we think are good can turn out to be nothing but selfishness, if we take selflessness to mean anything in which none is left for one to relish but as an offering to God as He would dispose of it. That's why one of my favorite saints has been St. Therese of the Little Flower. I keep two photos of her on the family altar: one as she knelt as a nun beside a cross, and another her close up, with her penetrating eyes and kindest smile. This, to fire me up against my ego. St. Therese's greatest gospel for me is that each has the opportunity to be saintly (if this desire is selfishness, so gladly be it) even in doing little things, in coping with the smallest irritations in life. Why, she had admitted being irked by the rattling of the rosary of another nun in her convent, but she held that feeling as mortification offered to God. On humility, St. Therese had this ...
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