It hit without warning. Just like the last time. But this time it hit with a violence that had me gasping.
On the morning of the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, I awakened very early to an unearthly silence in my heart. And an unsettling feeling, but nothing I could put my finger on. It was not a premonition, no uneasiness. Just a fleeting troubling of inner waters. Of something riding in on the crest of slight waves – there, yet not making itself seen.
Within the hour, a terrible wind had been loosed in my heart.
It smashed and rammed against every part within. In its immense power to cow and subdue, these winds tore and ripped my spirit to shreds. On and on and on, it hit and hit, keening from one corner to the other.
And I could only sit in stupefied silence, frozen in shock at what I was sensing. I scanned every landscape of action and inaction, sin and prayer alike I had crossed in recent days, searching for the abyss from which these ferocious gales awakened. But I could find no discernible start point. No actual fall that unleashed them.
And then, it got too hard to even think or recall; the ripping inside was horrendous.
Suddenly, in the swirling dark, I found my prayer~will. Or rather, what tatters that remained of it. Clutching at them, I gasped out prayers: the Hail Mary, snatches of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the 7 Dolours, even my own chaplets.
And every one of those prayers were unfinished, snatched from my heart by those howling winds.
For hours the struggle played out.
This was so different. Different from anything before. It was tearing, tearing at my soul. The world around me was in its usual motion. As far as I could see, what was happening with me wasn’t affecting anyone else. The calls to work and home and life – chimed in normalcy. No madness there. And in it I was functioning normally, efficiently even. No one looking at me could have seen a difference in me. Chores got settled, work got seen to. All that needed to be done got done, and no shadow of delay fell across my hours. No meltdown, no tears, no daze either. The shock and tumult I was experiencing within was hidden; I did not even need to make a stab at concealment – the storm inside was not visible to eye. It was as if I tread two worlds, one visible, and one not and that to do it was normal.
I thought of the words I received the previous week – Flee to the hills. Did I fail, I wondered? It certainly felt that way. It didn’t feel like I had reached the sanctuary of the hills. I didn’t feel safe. It was more like I had been caught in the very winds I had been told to flee from.
What winds were these? 1 Kings 19 came to me:
Then the LORD said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12 after the earthquake, fire—but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound.
…..a strong and violent wind ….but the LORD was not in the wind…
So, in all likelihood, this was not a wind from heaven. Thank God for that, I thought. But it didn’t feel like something unleashed from hell either. The spectre of dark malevolence was missing from it.
Deeply weary, I had reached the point where I did not know what to think. And I did not care to probe further. But for some odd reason, always having been one to flee things, I did not even want to escape this.
I just wanted the prayer for it. All that mattered to me was that I be given my weapon for it. In addition to the others, I surmised that there had to be another prayer – for the present moment.
While waiting, I kept on with the Hail Mary’s. And repeatedly invoked Our Lady of Lourdes – I knew She could hear me. If it was a dark wind, it was after my spirit, and I didn’t want victory to go to the dark.
That was when an old, old prayer fell into my heart like a light.
Mother, into Your hands I commend my spirit.
Stunned for a split second, I lunged for it. In a relief so deep, I repeated it, over and over.
Into Your hands I commend my spirit.
Into Your hands I commend my spirit.
Into Your hands I commend my spirit.
Suddenly, the mad, tearing tumult stopped. In a heartbeat, the winds had died down. I was stunned. It had been stopped by the Prayer of Spirit Safekeeping that I was led to through the doorways of the Holy Rosary and the Chaplets.
It was late in the following day when I felt a soft whisper alight on my heart, but didn’t stay long. I hadn’t recovered from the tearing of the previous day; everything felt painfully empty inside. So, I wasn’t in the mood to go over what had happened during the hours of Lourdes.
And yet, two to three more times, that silken gentleness came to caress my spirit. Finally, I turned to it. I saw someone’s face in my mind.
Tell her.
I was to take this experience and press it into this person’s heart.
I groaned. The person concerned had enough on her plate without this madness added to it. I wanted to give hope to others, not burden and weigh them down.
And yet, once more, it came: Tell her.
In the dark sable hours of the night, I walked back to the experience and found the words for it for an email. Halfway around the world they went, to this beautiful soul. She read it and immediately brought clarity and understanding of the experience to me. God’s emissary told me I had been given a foretaste of what is to come. It was not of the past nor the present. This was why when I examined my conscience, I could find no open manhole to blame.
The tearing winds were from the future.
When one is led through such a troubling, there’s a heavy weight of responsibility attached to it, because nothing happens without a reason. When you are given a glimpse of the future, it is so you act in His Will in a way you might not, under normal circumstances. As I read this golden soul’s words again and again, I knew with a certainty that whatever was coming, was coming for our spirits. That was the ultimate prize. In no way was this a new revelation. From the birth of the word of God, this has been the siren sounded to man: the alerting of a vicious ripping away of souls, an alerting repeated through the approved Marian apparitions around the world.
Up till now, I had only heard and read of this coming terror. Maybe the experience of 12 Nov 2015 had something to do with it too. But on the Feast of Lourdes of 2017, I truly felt its outer winds.
It is no mere suffering that is coming. Even severe suffering might not suffice to explain what lies ahead. This is different.
It is the Warning. And it will rip and tear our spirits beyond what we can ever imagine.
Having understood this much, this time I flee. No backward glance. But I flee not to save myself alone; I try to carry others. I flee and fall into the prayer Jesus taught me on Sept 14th, 2015 – on the Feast of Triumph of the Cross – Mother, into Your hands I commend my spirit. His own words on the Cross, but it was now to be prayed to His Beloved Mother – Mary.
Back then, the prayer was just for me. Now it was for every soul on earth.
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