Monday, November 30, 2015

Is truth about Islam being whitewashed in Australia?









HAS political correctness in Australia whitewashed us from speaking the truth about the ugly realities of Islamic teaching?
It's a question that is being debated right now after numerous MPs, including one who has served in Afghanistan, have called for an 'honest debate' on the links between Islamic teaching and terrorism.
Andrew Hastie is a former SAS commander who did three tours of duty.
"Modern Islam needs to cohere with the Australian way of life, our values and institutions. In so far as it doesn't, it needs reform,'' Mr Hastie told Melbourne's Herald Sun.
Victorian MP Michael Sukkar described a lack of a reformation within Islam - similar to the one undergone in Christianity - as contributing to "medieval teachings and practices''.
There are those who argue that Islam is a peaceful religion.
There are those who don't buy that, especially after reading the Koran.
Victoria's Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg is one of them.
"I would say there is a problem within Islam,'' he said yesterday.
Mr Hastie argues the debate about what is driving Islamist extremism is "clouded by political correctness''.
"We don't have a problem with Muslim Australians but we do have a problem with a small part of the community which subscribes to radical extremism,'' he says.
Many Christians do have a problem with Islam.
They do believe at the heart of its teachings are complete intolerance to those from other religions and they see Islamic State as an outpouring of the 'purest' form of Islam.
They worry that allowing mosques in their communities are just the beginning of worst things to come, as seen in Europe.
Of course, there are many Muslims who would argue that Isis has completely distorted their religion, just in the same way as those who believe the Old Testament 'an eye for eye' approach represents a modern Christian viewpoint.
Mr Hastie says he has watched more than 60 Islamic State videos of atrocities such as executions, and believed he had a "pretty good sense of what makes them tick''.
There are those that believe, quite rightly, that if Muslims are committed to a peaceful religion, as most of them would argue, that they should weed out those who deviate from that path.
As a nation, we must also accept that any branches of religion, whether Christian or Muslim, that encourage, sponsor or fund violence, should not enjoy the same protection offered to more acceptable expressions of faith.
But we should never encourage a culture in our country which espouses hatred towards people because of their beliefs. As an editor with a Christian faith, I am often appalled by the comments made by Christians towards Muslim people.
We can't brand all Muslims as being the same as those who perpetuate violence under the black banner of Islamic State just as we others can't brand all Catholic pedophiles because of the disgusting behaviour of a minority of priests.


Mark Furler is Australian Regional Media's group digital editor. The views expressed are his own.


....


Taken from: http://www.centraltelegraph.com.au/profile/mfurler/

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Pope Francis Calls Christmas 'A Charade': 'The Whole World Is at War'



"There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes, all decked out, while the world continues to wage war," pontiff says

By

In a recent sermon, Pope Francis called Christmas "a charade" in light of the terror attacks sweeping the globe Vatican Pool/Getty Images News                            

"We are close to Christmas. There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes, all decked out, while the world continues to wage war," the Pope said during Mass at the Casa Santa Maria. "The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war."
In addition to the Paris terror attacks, the world has also been confronted by the Russian plane that was downed by terrorism and a pair of suicide bombings in Beirut, Lebanon. "What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now? What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims, and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers," Pope Francis added. "We should ask for the grace to weep for this world, which does not recognize the path to peace."
The Pope then asked churchgoers to pray for the "innocent victims" of these attacks. "A war can be justified, so to speak, with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war, piecemeal though that war may be – a little here, a little there – there is no justification," he said.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/pope-francis-calls-christmas-a-charade-the-whole-world-is-at-war-20151122#ixzz3sGS8Kg4k


Friday, November 20, 2015

Medjugorje and the Mad Mouthings of the ‘Madonna of the Antichrist’




http://catholicexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Our-Lady-of-Medjugorje-Fuentes1.jpg-21.jpg

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although Medjugorje claims to be a continuation of Fatima and the “last appearance of Jesus or Mary on earth,” there is strangely no exhortation to the devotion of the Five First Saturdays, which Our Lady of Fatima asked for in reparation for the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

According to:


 

Millions of pilgrims flock to Medjugorje every year, but the popular shrine has seen a decline in visitors after Pope Francis said a decision on the apparitions is imminent, the New York Times has reported.

The Pope told reporters on the papal plane returning from Sarajevo that the Vatican was “close to coming to a decision” on the investigation into the claims at Medjugorje.

“For the moment all that is being done is to give guidelines to the bishops,” he said, “but along the lines that will be taken [by the Church].”

The number of Italians – the bulk of pilgrims that visit the Bosnian town – has halved since his announcement, according to the American newspaper. ….

 

If this be the case, then perhaps some erstwhile aficionados of the messages have got wind of Pope Francis’s own apparent sentiments, that the Virgin Mary “is not a postmistress, who sends messages every day”. For surely this statement of the pope’s does not appear to hold out much hope at all for Medjugorje to be approved by the Church as an authentic apparition.

Continuing his homily, at St. Martha’s House (November 2013) Pope Francis explained (http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/santa-marta-29726/):

 

…. In the Gospel, the Pope underlined, “we find ourselves before another spirit, contrary to the wisdom of God: the spirit of curiosity. And when we want to be the masters of the projects of God, of the future, of things, to know everything, to have everything in hand... the Pharisees asked Jesus, 'When will the Kingdom of God come?'”

 

“Curious! They wanted to know the date, the day... The spirit of curiosity distances us from the Spirit of wisdom because all that interests us is the details, the news, the little stories of the day. Oh, how will this come about? It is the how: it is the spirit of the how! And the spirit of curiosity is not a good spirit. It is the spirit of dispersion, of distancing oneself from God, the spirit of talking too much. And Jesus also tells us something interesting: this spirit of curiosity, which is worldly, leads us to confusion.”

 

“Curiosity, the Pope continued, impels us to want to feel that the Lord is here or rather there, or leads us to say: "But I know a visionary, who receives letters from Our Lady, messages from Our Lady.” And the Pope commented: "But, look, Our Lady is the Mother of everyone! And she loves all of us. She is not a postmistress, who sends messages every day. Such responses to these situations, he affirmed, "distance us from the Gospel, from the Holy Spirit, from peace and wisdom, from the glory of God, from the beauty of God." "Jesus says that the Kingdom of God does not come in a way that attracts attention: it comes by wisdom. The Kingdom of God is among you,' said Jesus, and it is this action of the Holy Spirit, which gives us wisdom and peace.”

 

“The Kingdom of God does not come in (a state of) confusion, just as God did not speak to the prophet Elijah in the wind, in the storm (but) he spoke in the soft breeze, the breeze of wisdom. Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus would say that she always had to stop herself before the spirit of curiosity," he said. "When she spoke with another sister and this sister was telling a story about the family, about people, sometimes the subject would change, and she would want to know the end of the story. But she felt that this was not the spirit of God, because it was a spirit of dispersion, of curiosity. The Kingdom of God is among us: do not seek strange things, do not seek novelties with this worldly curiosity. Let us allow the Spirit to lead us forward in that wisdom, which is like a soft breeze," he said. "This is the Spirit of the Kingdom of God, of which Jesus speaks. So be it.”

 

[End of address]

 

Howard Kainz, in his perceptive article “Can You Trust Medjugorje?” (2012), has also offered some pertinent comments (http://catholicexchange.com/can-you-trust-medjugorje):

 

.... Compared to approved apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, for example, at Lourdes and at Fatima, the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje contain numerous anomalous aspects:

 

In the initial appearances, the Gospa [Croatian word for "Madonna"] appears out of a cloud of light which gradually takes on the image of a young woman in her late teens.  She has blue eyes and is wearing a gray dress. She looks like she is holding “something like a baby” in her arms, but none of the features of the baby can be seen. Her hands are shaking. She laughs. The visionaries are able to touch and kiss her, but her vestments are “steel to the touch.” When a lady doctor asked if she could touch her also, the Gospa agreed, but complained about “unbelieving Judases.” 

….

Fr. René Laurentin, a supporter of Medjugorje, in his Chronological Corpus of the Messages, changed this obvious blooper to “doubting Thomases.”

 

In the first few years following the apparitions, around thirty different apparition places were chosen, with the Gospa appearing often as if “on cue.” Some of the messages, even in our open-minded era, would be categorized as not just heterodox, but heretical. We hear that all religions are equal (“Before God all the faiths are identical. God governs them like a king in his kingdom.”) All sufferings are equal in hell; and Mirjana quotes the Gospa as telling her that people begin feeling comfortable in hell. 

 

http://cdn.medjugorjestatic.com/images/stories/visionaries/marijana.jpg Mirjana

 

As regards the afterlife, those who go to heaven after death “are present with the soul and the body.” When the Madonna is asked about the title, “Mediatrix of all graces,” she replies, “I do not dispose of all graces.”

Although Medjugorje claims to be a continuation of Fatima and the “last appearance of Jesus or Mary on earth,” there is strangely no exhortation to the devotion of the Five First Saturdays, which Our Lady of Fatima asked for in reparation for the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

[End of quotes]

 

I, however, have taken very seriously that heavenly request for the Communion of Reparation devotion we Catholics know as the Five First Saturdays, having written this book on it:

 

The Five First Saturdays of Our Lady of Fatima


 


 

In it I continually lay stress upon the factor of obedience, which characterises all genuine seers (e.g. Sister Lucia of Fatima) and holy people, but which is quite notably lacking amongst false prophets and false apparitionists.

Kainz tells how Medjugorje is rife with disobedience to legitimate Church authority:

 

Unlike the approved apparitions, the visionaries at Medjugorje have been consistently disobedient to local bishops.

 

  • December 19, 1981, Vicka in her Notebook writes that their bishop, Pavao Zanic, was “the more guilty party” in conflict with the Franciscans, and the Gospa defended the Franciscans who were disobeying the bishop’s order to share their parish with secular clergy.
  • June  21, 1983, in a letter the visionary Ivan said that the Gospa demanded the  Bishop’s “immediate conversion” and that he should stop emphasizing the “negative side”– otherwise she and her Son would punish him.
  • February 3, 1985 the Gospa told three visionaries that Fr. Barbaric, whose removal was requested by the bishop, should stay.

 

According to the German theologian, Manfred Hauke, the Gospa urged disobedience thirteen times to Bishop Zanic, who had originally been inclined favorably to the apparitions.

[End of quote]

 

But Bishop Pavao Žanić would later become a most hostile critic of the supposed apparitions. Here I quote just the concluding section of a statement that he made in 1987, the full account of which can be read at EWTN: https://www.ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/ZANICMED.HTM The “great sign” of the inauthenticity of the ‘apparitions’ for Bishop Žanić was the failure for the promised Great Sign of Medjugorje ever to materialise:

 

….

I turn to you, Immaculate Virgin and Mother, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, Mother of this congregation which is looking for you, prays to you and loves you. I am turning to you, as your servant and Bishop of Mostar, and before the entire world I proclaim my deep and unshakable faith in all the privileges that God has endowed you with, by which you are the first and the most distinguished creature. I also affirm my deep and unshakable faith in your intercession with almighty God for all the needs of your children in this valley of tears. I assert my deep and unshakable faith in your love toward us sinners, and that love you confirmed with your apparitions and assistance. I myself have led pilgrimages to Lourdes. Exactly through the virtue of that faith, I your servant, Bishop of Mostar, before the great multitudes which called on you, find and accept your great sign which became sure and clear after these six years. I am not in need of a special sign, but it is necessary to those who believed in the untruth. That sign to me is that for six years you steadfastly remained silent to all rumors about the sign: it will be, they said, on the hillside of apparitions, visible and permanent; it is going to be realized soon; it will be before long, in a while; be patient for a while, so they were saying in 1981... Then again: it will be realized on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, for Christmas, for the New Year. etc.

 

Thank you, Madonna, because with your long silence of six years you have demonstrated that you have not spoken here, nor appeared, nor given any message or secret nor promised a special sign. Blessed Virgin, Mother of Christ and of us, intercede for peace in this restless region of the Church, in the diocese of Mostar, intercede especially for this place, for this parish, where innumerable times your blessed name was mentioned in words which were not yours. Make them stop fabricating messages in your name. Accept, Blessed Virgin, satisfaction through the sincere prayers of the devout souls who have no part in fanaticism and disobedience to the Church. Let us all reach the real truth. Dear Madonna, humble and obedient servant of God let the faithful of Medjugorje follow with their firm steps the shepherd of the local Church so that all of us might together glorify and praise you in truth and love. Amen!

 

Pavao Zanic, Bishop

Mostar, July 24, 1987

 

Make them stop fabricating messages in your name”.

As Pope Francis said: Our Lady is the Mother of everyone! And she loves all of us. She is not a postmistress, who sends messages every day”.

Devotées of Medjugorje will clutch at any and every sign. Like Rosary beads supposedly changing colour. {The wristband of my $7.00 ‘gold’ watch from Target has recently developed a green tinge about it. I do not regard this as being any kind of miracle}. Anyway, Kainz goes on to tell of false miracles and false prophecies (attesting to false prophets) at Medjugorje:

 

Pilgrims to Medjugorje occasionally report signs, such as the appearance of a gold tint on the chains of their rosaries, and the phenomenon of a “dance of the sun,” in which the sun, seen by the naked eye without causing harm, proceeds up and down in a yo-yo manner, emitting various colors. The latter is obviously construed as a reenactment of the famous “miracle of the sun” at Fatima, on October 13, 1917.

 

Mackey’s comment: For an account of a real Miracle of the Sun, see my:

 

The Great Solar Miracle: Fatima October 13, 1917


 


 

Kainz continues:

 

“Healing” miracles have been reported, but none have been tested by experts and verified.

On June 29, 1981, the Gospa announced that a four-year-old boy would be healed, but this never happened. A sign from heaven predicted by the visionaries for August 17, 1981, never materialized. Ivan, in a signed statement, on May 9, 1982, said that a sign would appear in six months – a “huge shrine in Medjugorje” in memory of the Gospa’s apparitions.  But this also never materialized. In 1983 the visionaries said a “visible sign” would be left at Medjugorje in perpetuity. But this has not happened.

In September, 1981, the prophecy that “Germany and the U.S. will be destroyed … the Pope will be exiled to Turkey,” never took place. 

Nor did peace for Yugoslavia predicted by the Gospa during the 80s. Yugoslavia broke up during the Bosnian war, 1992-95, leading to the violent separation of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from Serbia.

[End of quote]

 

The irony of all of this is that the title under which the “Gospa”, the Lady, or Madonna - whatever it may be - has chosen to operate is that of “Queen of Peace”.

 

Cloven Print of Lucifer

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is it conceivable that starting in 1981, the devil, looking over his victories and concerned that his time might be coming to an end, might look to subvert the Church with something like a pretend-Madonna?”

 

Howard Kainz.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

To whatever extent he was involved at the beginning, the Devil would certainly want to cash in on an enterprise as deceptively effective as is the phenomenon of Medjugorje. The point would be to engender a spirit of disobedience¸which poisons any sacrificial works (I Samuel 15:22): ‘Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams’.

False apparitions also create false timetables and outcomes. For, whilst the Gospa brought the following good news to the ‘seers’ about a Third World War:

 

July 12, 1982

 

Concerning a third world war: "The third world war will not take place."

   

Pope Francis, who has been speaking of our current situation as “piecemeal Third World War” - of which the recent ISIS attacks upon Paris were a manifestation - has now just lamented (http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-the-lord-weeps-for-the-sins-of-a-worl):

 

“What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now?”

 

(Vatican Radio) “The whole world is at war,” and the rejection of the “path of peace” means that God Himself, that Jesus Himself, weeps. This was the message of Pope Francis to the faithful following the readings of the day at Mass on Thursday morning in the Casa Santa Marta.

“Jesus wept.” These were the words with which the Holy Father’s remarks following the readings of the day began on Thursday in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence in the Vatican, echoing the words of St. Luke the Evangelist, from whose Gospel the Gospel reading was taken.

 

A world festively bedecked

 

Jesus approaches Jerusalem, and seeing the city on a hill from a distance, weeps, and says, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes.” Pope Francis repeated the words of Our Lord to the Holy City, and then added: “Today Jesus weeps as well: because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities. We are close to Christmas: there will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war. The world has not understood the way of peace.”

 

Pope Francis is entirely correct, I believe, in likening our current situation to the diabolical catastrophe of which Jesus Christ warned in his Olivet discourse, because our times are running a kind of eerie parallel with the (largely already accomplished) events of the Apocalypse:  

Book of Revelation Theme: The Bride and the Reject



 

Kainz’s description of the manic psychobabbling medium of Medjugorje as “a pretend-Madonna” accords nicely with a description of it that I have used at various times:

 

“The Madonna of the Antichrist”

 

And I fully agree with what he has to say here about it:

 

In 1884, Pope Leo XIII had a vision in which he listened to a dialogue taking place between God and Satan. Satan boasted that he could destroy the Church, if only God would remove some of the restraints on his power and give him a hundred years. God answered, “So be it,” causing the Pope, fearful for the coming trials of the Church, to compose the prayer for protection to St. Michael, recited at the end of Mass until 1964.

 

http://www.bishopstrickland.com/ckfinder/userfiles/images/PrayerToStMichael.jpg

 

Is it conceivable that starting in 1981, the devil, looking over his victories and concerned that his time might be coming to an end, might look to subvert the Church with something like a pretend-Madonna? Jesus warned us (Mt. 24:24, Mk. 13:22) that in the final days prophets would arise with signs and wonders, and would be able to deceive even the elect.

For the Spirit of Evil, with no interest in goodness or holiness, it would have to be “out of character” to appear as the holy Woman whom he hates, and whose foot (Genesis 3:15) will finally crush his head. On the other hand, what a tremendous victory it would be to get the devotion of the faithful, drawing them in subtle ways to the devil’s own “religious reeducation” project.

 

Mistakes might be made, of course.  For example, in 1982, one of Mirjana’s expected visions of the Gospa turned out to be the devil, until it changed into the Madonna, apologizing and telling her that this was just a trial. And on August 2, 1981, the Gospa allowed the people present to come and touch her, but turned black; Marija explained that this was because sinners were touching her, and they should go to confession.

 

Medjugorje is frequently touted as a continuation of Fatima. At Fatima, Our Lady promised that eventually, through the power of the rosary and fulfillment of her request of Mass attendance on five first Saturdays, her Immaculate Heart would eventually triumph and world peace would ensue. This might coincide with the end of the time given to the devil. From the devil’s viewpoint, might not a distraction be in order? Some traditional piety, with prayer and fasting, and a touch of “New Age” spirituality? If Medjugorje were approved officially by the Church, the devil’s feared triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart might be staved off indefinitely.

 

Jesus told us to judge trees by their “fruits.” In Medjugorje, numerous conversions have been reported, Catholics returning to the sacraments after many years, etc. But the main fruit, and the fruit closest to the heart of the devil, has been disobedience. Original sin came into the world not through lust or greed or murder, but through disobedience; and the redemption took place through the obedience of Jesus (Romans 5:19) and the fiat of his mother. In Medjugorje, we are confronted with the counterintuitive phenomenon of the Madonna encouraging disobedience to the successors of the Apostles, and disobedience of some Franciscans to Vatican directives.

 

Other “fruits” include the massacres and mutilations that took place from 1991 to 1992 when, because of the war, three groups involved in the pilgrimage trade, losing business, turned on each other, resulting in an estimated 80-140 deaths and 600 expulsions; and the revocation of faculties or laicization of Frs. Zovko and Vlasic, guides of the visionaries accused of sexual infractions. Nine Franciscans were also expelled from the order and a divinis. According to historian Michael Sells, religious nationalists in Medjugorje “cleansed” non-Catholics, destroying an Orthodox monastery and murdering priests and monks. Bishop Perić was kidnapped on April 2, 1994, in retaliation for his criticisms of unauthorized activities in Medjugorje, and released only when the Mayor of Mostar intervened with UN troops.

 

And so what are we to conclude? Bishop Perić’s statement in 1997 still seems to be the most relevant:

 

On the basis of the serious study of the case by 30 [academics], on my episcopal experience of five years in the Diocese, on the scandalous disobedience that surrounds the phenomenon, on the lies that are at times put into the mouth of the “Madonna,” on the unusual repetition of “messages” for over 16 years, on the strange way that the “spiritual directors”of the so-called “visionaries” accompany them throughout the world making propaganda of them, on the practice that the “Madonna” appears at the “fiat” (let her come!) of the “visionaries,” my conviction and position is not only non constat de supernaturalitate (“no evidence of the supernatural”) but also the other formula constat de non supernaturalitate (“evidence of the non-supernatural character”) of the apparitions or revelations of Medjugorje.

 

 

Howard Kainz is professor emeritus at Marquette University.




Part Two: ‘Annihilation of Nations’


 

City World War Z Games Wallpaper Picture 371 Wallpaper



  
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


“What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now?”


 


Does Pope Francis’s latest question, discussed in Part One, find its answer in the apparitions of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 


Putting together some of the thoughts of Pope Francis from Part One of this set:


https://www.academia.edu/18657854/Medjugorje_and_the_Mad_Mouthings_of_the_Madonna_of_the_Antichrist we find that people can allow themselves to be led by the confusing spirit of curiosity, the petty news of the day, contrary to the enlightening wisdom of God.


Amongst the pious, this spirit is exemplified by false manifestations of the Virgin Mary, acting like ‘a postmistress arriving with daily messages’, and for years on end.


Generally speaking the modern world, looking in all the wrong places, and following a faulty timetable, has allowed itself to be deceived, prompting Pope Francis to parallel the weeping of Jesus Christ over Jerusalem to His weeping now over a ‘whole world at war’.


For neither the world then, nor now, had recognized the time of its visitation, had understood what makes for peace: 


 


“Today Jesus weeps as well: because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities. We are close to Christmas: there will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war. The world has not understood the way of peace.”


 


The Role of ISIS and other


Instruments of Decadence


 


God can and does use hostile and un-Godly powers that have their own agenda to advance his own sublime purposes. Thus Isaiah 10 describes the pagan Assyrian power under Sennacherib (c. 700 BC) as a purging instrument being wielded by the Lord against his own apostate people:


“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,


in whose hand is the club of my wrath!


I send him against a godless nation,


I dispatch him against a people who anger me,


to seize loot and snatch plunder,


and to trample them down like mud in the streets.


 


Of course Sennacherib - no more than the caliph of ISIS - is aware of this fact, which does not accord at all with his own agenda of out and out conquest and destruction:


 


But this is not what he intends,


this is not what he has in mind;


his purpose is to destroy,


to put an end to many nations.


 


‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.


    ‘Has not Calno fared like Carchemish?


Is not Hamath like Arpad,


and Samaria like Damascus?


 


[For ISIS, we could put it something like this:


Is not Raqqa like Mosul,


and Ramadi like Palmyra?]


 


10 As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols,


kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria—


11 shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images


as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’”


 


Now Isaiah goes on to tell what Yahweh actually has in mind, at the appropriate time:


 


12 When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. 13 For he says:


 


“‘By the strength of my hand I have done this,
    and by my wisdom, because I have understanding.
I removed the boundaries of nations,
    I plundered their treasures;
    like a mighty one I subdued[
a] their kings.
14 As one reaches into a nest,
    so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations;
as people gather abandoned eggs,
    so I gathered all the countries;
not one flapped a wing,
    or opened its mouth to chirp.’”


 


In the mind of the Great King of Assyria, this is all his own doing, by his own power, assisted by his pagan gods. Little did he realise that he was, all along, merely an “ax”, or a “saw”, or a “rod”, or a “club”, in the mighty hands of God. And so God poses the questions:  


 


15 Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it,
    or the saw boast against the one who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up,
    or a club brandish the one who is not wood!



Sennacherib and his Assyrians, having served their purpose, will now reap the bitter harvest that their blasphemies have deserved (as will ISIS ultimately):


 


16 Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
    will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors;
under his pomp a fire will be kindled
    like a blazing flame.
17 The Light of Israel will become a fire,
    their Holy One a flame;
in a single day it will burn and consume
    his thorns and his briers.
18 The splendor of his forests and fertile fields
    it will completely destroy,
    as when a sick person wastes away.
19 And the remaining trees of his forests will be so few
    that a child could write them down.


 


ISIS apparently has far greater ambitions than Sennacherib the Assyrian could ever have dreamed of. For, according to: http://www.hngn.com/articles/134691/20150929/isis-nuclear-weapons-terrorist-group-plans-kill-hundreds-millions-largest.htm


 


ISIS Nuclear Weapons: Terrorist Group Plans To Kill Hundreds Of Millions In 'Largest Religious Cleansing In History,' Says Report



 


German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer compared ISIS to a "nuclear tsunami preparing the largest religious cleansing in history."


….


"They are the most brutal and most dangerous enemy I have ever seen in my life," German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer said of ISIS. "I don't see anyone who has a real chance to stop them. Only Arabs can stop IS. I came back very pessimistic." ….  


The Islamic State group (ISIS) is planning to use nuclear weapons to launch a global assault on anyone who holds differing religious beliefs – all in the name of worshipping Allah, according to German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer, who in 2014 was the first western reporter allowed to embed with the terrorist outfit and live to tell about it, spending 10 days in Mosul in northern Iraq with its fighters.


"The terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people," Todenhofer, 74, writes in his book, "Inside IS - Ten Days in the Islamic State," which details his findings, reported the U.K.'s Daily Express.


"The west is drastically underestimating the power of ISIS. ISIS intends to get its hands on nuclear weapons," he added, comparing the group to a "nuclear tsunami preparing the largest religious cleansing in history." ….


[End of quote]


 


Fatima


 


And they may even be allowed to achieve some of their boldest ambitions.


That brings us back to Fatima.


Does it provide us with any clues as to what we might expect?


The answer lies in the Third Fatima Secret, according to




 


“Pope Francis: World War III has begun –



Third Secret of Fatima gives warning”



 


By Marshall Connolly, Catholic Online (CALIFORNIA NETWORK)


 


11/19/2015 ….


 


“Pope Francis has invoked World War III, saying that it has begun in a piecemeal fashion. The Third Secret of Fatima could provide Christians a framework for considering this terrifying new development”.


 


(The Third Secret of Fatima has been encapsulated in the following picture):


 


http://www.marys-touch.com/truth/ThirdSecret.jpg


 


So far, however, the proper interpretation of this Secret has been difficult to achieve and somewhat confusing.


What is not confusing, however, is Our Lady of Fatima’s direct statement in 1917:


 


“The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer,


various nations will be annihilated."


 


I think that this must be a general kind of answer, without fine details, to the Pope’s question:


“What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now?”


 


With a combination of decadent west and decadent ISIS, the stage is set for apocalyptic chaos. Pessimistically, but not unrealistically, Canadian Mark Steyn has proclaimed that (http://www.google.com.au/url?url=http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/islami):


 


Islamisation will wash away the west



 


http://www.europeanguardian.com/images/Islam.jpg



....
The West cannot win this thing with a schizophrenic strategy of targeting things and people, but not targeting the ideology, of intervening ineffectually overseas and not intervening at all when it comes to the remorseless ­Islamisation and self-segregation of large segments of their own countries.
So I say again: what’s the happy ending here? Because if Francois Hollande isn’t prepared to end mass Muslim immigration to Europe, then his “pitiless war” isn’t serious.


And, if they’re still willing to tolerate Merkel’s mad plan to reverse Germany’s demographic death spiral through fast-track Islamisation, then Europeans aren’t serious.


In the end, the decadence of Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the rest of the fin de civilisation Western leadership will cost you your world and everything you love. So screw the candle-light vigil.