If we can’t be moved by the apocalyptic messages from the Blessed Virgin Mary’s apparitions in Garabandal, Akita, or Medjugorje because the events have yet to be fully recognized by the Catholic Church, we can swerve to what’s already been approved and whose messages, alas, turn out in the tone of modern-day Marian apparitions.
In the year 2000, the late Blessed Pope John Paul II canonized Sis. Faustina Kowalska who had lived in our modern times (she died in 1938). We now associate her with the devotion and feast of the Divine Mercy, whose chaplet most Filipinos know through television as The 3 O’Clock Prayer.
Her canonization came with a virtual declaration of her diary as worthy of belief, the diary containing quotes from no less than Jesus Christ.
Here is one quote from our Lord Jesus as cited in her diary:
“You will prepare the world for My final coming. Speak to the world about My mercy… It is a sign for the end times. After it will come the Day of Justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fountain of My mercy. Tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near.
I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of My visitation. Before the Day of Justice, I am sending the Day of Mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice”.
Here, we find apocalytpic tones in the first sentence. What follows definitely repeat messages from the recent Marian appartions: we are still in the hour of mercy, but after this the day of justice will follow.
Rather more definitely, Jesus Himself gave a more detailed description of The Warning that was cited by the visionaries in Garabandal and Medjugorje.
Again to Sis. Faustina, Jesus said:
“Before I come as the just judge, I am coming first as the King of Mercy. Before the day of justice arrives, there will be given to people a sign in the heavens of this sort: All light in the heavens will be extinguished, and there will be a great darkness over the whole earth.
Then the sign of the cross will be seen in the sky, and from the openings where the hands and the feet of the Saviour were nailed will come forth great lights which will light up the earth for a period of time. This will take place shortly before the last day.”
Now, that’s from Jesus Himself, from an apparition to one already declared a saint by the Church and contained in the saint’s diary declared by the Church as worthy of belief.
