GRACES HAVE been showered upon Punto perhaps for its being unique in that it has been gracious in giving space to Marian matters through this column. I don’t know of any other publication that’s supposed to be secular yet takes in the supernatural rather regularly. That’s eclectic. That’s broadminded. That, as some readers of this space have told me, is wonderful; and some of them related to me conversions as a result.
As Punto celebrates its anniversary today, I have reasons to be thankful. Not so much for the multi-faceted generosity of its management (yes, we admit human frailty over fat envelopes) as for the chance of a self-imposed mission that has run through decades (even pre-Punto) to spread the messages from the supernatural, inevitably mostly Marian arising from the explosion of Marian events in the recent years in all continents and even islands. Such is the urgency of times that the call to spread of Marian messages is now of paramount importance, in a magnitude as never before.
No, the world is not about to end, if we are to take the words of the Marian visionaries in Garabandal, Spain and in Medjugorje. But what we are facing, again from the quotes of visionaries, is at the level of the apocalypse. Thus, some of the recent prophecies which merely detail what were already told in different fashions in the Bible, have been terrifying. Yet, they were told and at times even shown by no less than the Mother of God to humans of our times. Again, the urgency.
In Fatima in 1917, for example, the Blessed Mother so wanted the salvation of souls that she opted to allow three children, aged from 9 to 12, to see hell. As people around them witnessed, the children shrieked with terror as they saw what one of them, Lucia, described as follows:
“She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”
Young visionaries of Medjugorje also saw hell and were terrified.
If we course these events through our worldly legal processes, the Blessed Mother would have been charged with child abuse. Or with being a terrorist. But the Mother of God, in her wisdom, has always known the importance of our everlasting souls. She wants us in Heaven and it is of no significance that we be terrified for once for everlasting bliss. This is how to explain even the other terrifying prophecies the Blessed Mother has conveyed to us in her recent apparitions. In life in this planet, whatever, anything is worth the price for a ticket to happy eternity.
In Akita, Japan in 1973, and this I had cited repeatedly, the Blessed Mother issued the following warning through Sister Agnes Sasagawa:
“As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never see before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.”
Despite such terrifying warning, allow me to wallow meantime in the joy of marking the anniversary of Punto.
