Interpreting the Signs: A Prophet for our Times

We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel, with all its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.

America needs much prayer lest it lose its soul. —Saint John Paul II

We are travelers on a journey that has a destination. Our life is an adventure with battles to fight and people to love…and thankfully we have Jesus Christ, the “Word,” the Gospel of life and love as our signpost, pointing us to all that is true, good, and beautiful. In addition, we have been given a very special saint and prophet to help us decipher the signs of our time. His name is Karol Wojtyla, also known as Pope St. John Paul ll.

How is one to interpret the signs of the time?

In the United States in 1976, as part of our nation’s bi-centennial celebration, and two years before his ascendancy to the Chair of Peter, (then) Cardinal Karol Wojtyla spoke these words in an address in Philadelphia:

I do not think that wide circles of American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel.

This confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence; it is a trial which the whole Church must take up. It is a trial of not only the Church, but, in a sense, a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.

We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future; trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, and a total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it. How many times has the renewal of the Church been brought about in blood! It will not be different this time.

What has become increasingly clear is that the battle is intensifying. What many fail to understand is that the real battle is not between left or right, black or white, old or young, but between our Lord and Satan. The forces led by Satan have as their primary goal the destruction of humanity.

Today Satan is utilizing the Global Elite, the Secular Government Rulers of the world, and all of its citizens who align with them, to destroy humanity at its very foundation, children and marriage. By promoting so-called progressive ideologies, they have effectively removed God from our culture through various “systems” such as Globalism, Secularism, Socialism, and Communism on the one hand, while simultaneously removing human beings through abortion and the annihilation of marriage and the nuclear family on the other.

These present-day ideologues who have already forfeited their future and retold human history, now seek to destroy human reason and with it the capacity to understand what it means to be a Human Person. Humanity is now standing at an abyss, experiencing the most violent attack on marriage and the family, the very foundation of human life, than at any other time in history. 

Sister Lucia, the main Fatima visionary, who met with Pope St. John Paul ll on three occasions, wrote. “A time will come when the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and the family.” This is the time, said Cardinal Caffara, in which we now find ourselves.

The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign.¹

The problem in our post-Christian western culture is that it is often the human person who is cooperating with Satan to prevent the building up of God’s reign. “Although he was made by God in a state of holiness, from the very onset of his history, at the urging of the evil one. Man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God.”² Hence, there is an inevitable consequence:

While human progress is a great advantage to man, it brings with it a strong temptation. For when the order of values is jumbled and bad is mixed with the good, individuals and groups pay heed solely to their own interests, and not to those of others. Thus it happens that the world ceases to be a place of true brotherhood. In our own day, the magnified power of humanity threatens to destroy the race itself.³

Modern man has forgotten God, but God has not forgotten man. The solution to the problem of evil, sin, and death? “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Let us turn then to our heritage, our history, and our future—to a baby conceived in the womb and the mother who carried Him. God’s plan to bring good out of evil and offer fallen humanity another solution, the culture of life, comes through a family, the Holy Family.

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-38)

“May it be done to me according to your word.” Our Blessed Mother’s ‘Fiat’! This marks the moment when the Holy Spirit, who had already infused the fullness of grace into Mary of Nazareth, formed in her virginal womb the human nature of Christ.⁴ God the Father told St. Catherine of Siena, “It was, therefore, necessary to join human nature with the height of My nature, the Eternal Deity, so that it might be sufficient to satisfy for the whole human race.”⁵

The love of our Father, who sends forth Jesus his Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, does so through a human woman’s yes, from whom the Redeemer is born, so that we might each be joined, in our own divine filiation, in the family of God. So “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

The Mother of the Redeemer is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the serpent which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin (cf. Gen 3:15). Likewise, she is the Virgin who shall conceive and bear a son, whose name shall be called Emmanuel (cf. Isa. 7:14; cf. Mic. 5:2-3; Matt. 1:22-23). The Son of God took His human nature from her, that He might in the mysteries of His flesh free man from sin. The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by the acceptance of her who was predestined to be the mother of His Son, so that just as a woman contributed to death, so also a woman should contribute to life.⁶

Pope St. John Paul II said, “the future of humanity passes by way of the family.” Here is the final message he left for us on April 3, 2005, just before his passing from this life:

To humanity, which at times seems to be lost and dominated by the power of evil, egoism, and fear, the risen Lord offers as a gift his love that forgives, reconciles and reopens the spirit to hope. It is love that converts hearts and gives peace. How much need the world has to understand and accept Divine Mercy. Lord, who with (your) Death and Resurrection reveal the love of the Father, we believe in you and with confidence repeat to you today: “Jesus, I trust in You, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”—Pope John Paul ll

Photo retrieved from The Diocese of Phoenix

¹Catechism of the Catholic Church 395.

²Gaudium et Spes 36.

³Gaudium et Spes 37.

⁴Redemptoris Mater, Pope John Paul II, No. 1.

⁵St. Catherine of Siena’s ‘Dialogue’ with God the Father.

⁶Lumen Gentium Nos. 55-56.