I RECENTLY met with a group of other Catholic leaders and missionaries in Western Canada. During our first night of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, a couple of us were suddenly overcome with a deep sense of grief. The words came to my heart,

The Holy Spirit is grieved over ingratitude for the wounds of Jesus.

Then a week or so later, a colleague of mine who was not present with us wrote saying,

For a few days I have had the sense that the Holy Spirit is brooding, like brooding over creation, as if we are at some turning point, or at the beginning of something big, some shift in the way the Lord is doing things. Like we now see through a glass darkly, but soon we will see more clearly. Almost a heavyness, like the Spirit has weight!

Perhaps this sense of change on the horizon is why I continue to hear in my heart the words, “Quickly! Fill your lamps!” It’s from the story of the ten virgins who go out to meet the bridegroom (Matt 25:1-13).

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 I HAVE felt a strong urge to watch the movie Troy for a number of months. So finally, we rented it.

The impenetrable city of Troy was destroyed when it permitted an offering to a false god to enter its gates: the "Trojan Horse." At night when everyone was asleep, soldiers, hidden within the wooden horse, emerged and began to slaughter and burn the city.

Then it clicked with me: That city is the Church.

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A FRIEND wrote me today, saying she is experiencing an emptiness. In fact, I and many of my companions are feeling a certain stillness. She said, "It’s like the time of preparation is ending now. Do you feel it?"

The image came to me of a hurricane, and that we are now in the eye of the storm… a "pre-storm" to the coming Great Storm. In fact, I feel Divine Mercy Sunday (yesterday) was the center of the eye; that day when suddenly the skies broke open above us, and the Sun of Mercy shone down upon us in all its force. That day when we could emerge from the debris of shame and sin flying about us, and run to the Shelter of God’s Mercy and Love—if we chose to do so.

Yes, my friend, I do feel it. The winds of change are about to blow again, and the world will never be the same. But we must never forget: the Sun of Mercy will merely be hidden by dark clouds, but never extinguished.

THERE were a few times this past week when I was preaching, that I was suddenly overwhelmed. The sense I had was as if I were Noah, shouting from the ramp of the ark: "Come in! Come in! Enter into the Mercy of God!"

Why do I feel this way? I cannot explain it… except that I see storm clouds, pregnant and billowing, moving quickly on the horizon.

TIME—is it speeding up? Many believe it is. This came to me while meditating:

An MP3 is a song format in which the music is compressed, and yet the song sounds the same and is still the same length. The more you compress it, however, even though the length remains the same, the quality begins to deteriorate.

So too, it seems, time is being compressed, even though the days are the same length. And the more they are compressed, the more there is a deterioration in morals, nature, and civil order.

THE intolerance of “tolerance!”

It is curious how those who accuse Christians of
hatred and intolerance
are often the most venomous in
tone and intent. 

It is the most obvious—and easily over-looked
hypocrisy of our times.