(LifeSiteNews) — Many believe that we are in the shadows of an approaching chastisement. If this is the case, then Catholics have the unique honor and opportunity to play a key role in rebuilding social institutions when it is over. The Church has provided us with general guidelines on how to go about, using the words of Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, the “reconstruction of the social order.” Only God knows what the future holds, but I offer some speculations based on a few principles of Catholic social teaching as expressed in Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.
This musing is also based on what the Blessed Virgin Mary revealed about heaven’s perspective on our time. The most pertinent apparitions were at Fatima, Akita, Quito and Cuapa. Like Akita and Cuapa, the papally acknowledged apparition at Tre Fontane was a reaffirmation of Fatima. The apparitions at Hrushiv (there were two, in 1914 and 1987) are also connected to the Fatima message, although the Church has not formally rendered a judgement on them. At Fatima, the Blessed Virgin asked for the consecration of Russia, the First Saturday devotions, daily Rosaries, conversion from sin, and the practice of penance. The consequences of not heeding her requests would be war, hunger, and persecution.
Chastisements
Salvation history is full of God’s corrective actions – the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Wandering in the Desert, the Assyrian Conquest of Israel, the Babylonian Exile, and the Destruction of the Second Temple. Scripture makes it very clear that chastisements are avoidable. The Ninevites were saved by accepting Jonah’s message of repentance, and Zoar was spared on account of Lot.
Chastisements are preceded by a warning and an invitation to repent. Sometimes the warning and invitation are done through the preaching of a prophet such as Jeremiah. It seems that Our Lady is filling that prophetic role in our times. Often, very unusual and attention-grabbing things happen before the event. Noah’s neighbors watched him build an ark on dry land and the inhabitants of Sodom were visited by strangers with the extraordinary ability to blind them. Prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD both Josephus and Tacitus report, among other portends, visions of armies in the sky. Mary’s apparitions are sometimes accompanied by strange occurrences like the dancing of the sun at Fatima, which was repeated at Tre Fontane.
Most of those about to be chastened ignore the warnings. This happened before the Flood and at Sodom. Others, often a minority, take the warnings to heart. The early Christians survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD because they heeded Jesus’ warning to flee when the Roman army approached (Luke 21:20-21), and found shelter in the town of Pella in the Jordanian foothills.
Fatima is not over
The promise of the Triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart is yet to be fulfilled. The errors of Russia, i.e. Marxism, have implanted themselves into our society through wokeism and critical race theory. The lifestyle described in the first chapter of Romans is now openly celebrated. Sins that cry out to heaven are normalized. The conversion of Russia has not occurred. In a vision, Jesus told Sister Lucia that the consecration of Russia would be late, meaning that the errors would spread throughout the world. Consequently, the chastisement and conversion will be global. It is true that Soviet communism collapsed. However, widespread genuine conversions overflow into just social structures. We have not yet seen evidence of a nationwide repentance or of changed social structures in Russia.
Since the Synod on the Amazon in 2019, events in the world have taken a bizarre twist. Things, to put it bluntly, became diabolically inverted. It seems to have started when Pope Francis blessed a statue of Pachamama, a false deity to whom the Incas sacrificed their children. This was followed immediately by the COVID outbreak. Bishops are obligated to ensure Christ’s sacramental presence in this world. Instead, they closed churches and denied life-giving sacraments to the faithful. Governments, bound by natural law to ensure domestic tranquility, intentionally foster social disorder. Our most highly educated citizens are perplexed by basic biological facts that are intuitively grasped by four-year-olds.
The authentic Great Reset
At Fatima, Our Lady declared that “in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph … and a period of peace will be granted to the world.” This period of peace will likely engender new social structures. Peace is connected to justice and cannot exist without it. Both solidarity and subsidiarity must be in place for a just society to exist. Solidarity calls for the removal of structures of sin and the exercise of the virtue of commitment to the common good. Subsidiarity calls for higher-level organizations to support, and not usurp, the functioning of lower-order organizations. Subsidiarity encourages individuals’ initiative, freedom, and responsibility. In other words, people must be given the space to practice virtuous living by doing good.
As mentioned above, the conversion of individual hearts spills over into the social realm. In short, the cure for social ills is a radical realignment of hearts and social structures to the divine and natural law. How is society going to be reoriented to divine law, natural law, subsidiarity, and solidarity? To have a just society, a significant portion of the people, including those in authority, must strive to be virtuous.
This shift to virtuous living entails suffering because it requires a major reassembling of the inner life. The human being is made in the image of God and our intellect and will are part of this indelible divine imprint. We lost our likeness to God through sin, and we no longer think, act, or love like God. Human perfection lies in reorienting ourselves to be more like God. Growing in virtue consists of using the intellect to know the good and aligning first the will and then the passions toward that good.
This journey of the virtuous life requires an awareness of self and of others. One cannot follow the Golden Rule or love one’s neighbor as oneself without self-reflection and empathy. The intellect, a well-formed conscience, and critical thinking skills are necessary to objectively examine one’s mental and emotional state and to respond appropriately by avoiding the bad and practicing the good. This requires humility, which is the ability to see reality as it is and understand the truth of oneself in light of reality.
It is no secret that the educational system, helicopter parenting, and the culture in general have coddled the last few generations. Shielded from the normal challenges of life and kept in the dark about the virtues, many born in the most recent decades had few opportunities to become aware of who they are, to learn what they are capable and not capable of doing, and to practice the virtues. Their minds are dulled, and their emotional lives are dependent on their electronic communication devices. They are stumped when asked why they believe certain things and have little understanding of social and political events and their consequences. Many lack meaningful friendships and have little productive engagement with the world. They expect the primary task of teachers and employers to be meeting their emotional needs.
Wokeism and critical theory vastly accelerate this deadening of the inner life. It is an attempt to reengineer human nature. They denounce logic as a tool of the patriarchy and teach that the passions should rule over the intellect and will. Cancel culture is nothing more than an adult temper tantrum. This inversion of the intellect-will-passions hierarchy denies the divine image that we bear. It poses a high barrier for a significant number of people to living a life of virtue and Christian charity. To those caught in wokeism’s web, realigning their core being with our true human nature is a long and difficult process. However, this realignment is the first step in the true reset of society that the Blessed Mother promised us.
What might a chastisement look like?
How might the conversion of the world occur? In many countries, the Church no longer fulfills its mission of preaching the Gospel for the salvation of souls. Seemingly unending scandals destroyed its moral credibility in the secular world. It unilaterally surrendered in the intellectual battle and Catholic education is complicit in the deadening of the mind to the preaching of the Good News. Concepts such as “sin,” “redemption,” and “virtue” are no longer part of the common language, making preaching difficult.
Martyrdom may become the primary means of providing witness and leading people to Christ. When words are no longer effective then the laying down of one’s life can be the most powerful witness. In addition, the persecution of believers is a natural consequence of the intellect-will-passions inversion, and not just because wokeism is opposed to rational thought. As we see with Eve in the Garden, demons use the passions as the entryway to tempt us. Two of the most powerful weapons against temptation are prayer and a disciplined intellect. Those ensnared in wokeism have little defense against the devil’s enticements, giving the enemy an instrument to oppose Our Lady’s work on earth through persecution.
For someone inculcated into our culture’s values from birth, realigning the intellect-will-passions is like resetting a deformed bone into its natural and proper place without anesthesia. Difficult times force one to live by one’s wit and provide a powerful incentive to rely on the intellect. This will be especially hard for the coddled generations. However, suffering will prompt some to seek God, and suffering well is a sure way to adult maturity.
Human flourishing occurs in the context of strong relationships. Social media is inimical to healthy human interactions. One can easily surmise that the “fire from the sky” that Our Lady of Akita spoke about may be an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack destroying all our electronic devices. The severing of communication with the outside world would force us into a type of Benedict option of isolated tight-knit communities. This is consistent with the message at Akita regarding extreme social isolation. Relationships will move from being mostly instrumental (and even exploitative) as they are today to being based on Christian charity as we are forced to work with others to survive.
Reason for joy
One may hope that a cataclysm will be avoided. However, the progression of social, economic, political, and geopolitical trends are unsustainable and point to a collapse. In her apparitions, Our Lady revealed that God’s providence is at work. Indeed, God’s intervention in our history is a reason for joy, as it is an unfolding of God’s kingdom on earth (Luke 21:28). His justice and mercy will use the chastisement to bring good to our world. God invites us to participate in His work at this specific time in human history, primarily through our prayer and penance.
The growing interest among Catholics in consecrating themselves and their families to Mary is providential. As St. Maximilian Kolbe pointed out, this consecration is important because souls entrusting themselves to Mary “will become in her hands forceful instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spread of God’s kingdom.” Let us accept this honor of participating in bringing about peace and justice with joy and humble gratitude. In the meantime, let’s heed Our Lady’s request to repent, do penance, pray the Rosary, and pray the First Saturday devotions.