Putting Ideology Before Duty to Christ the King and Simple Common Sense

Perhaps the best and most cogent summary of the incompetence of government officials in the State of California, the County of Los Angeles, and the City of Los Angeles, California for their lack of preparation and organized response to the latest outbreaks of massive wildfires in southern California that has, in essence, destroyed Palisades Hills neighbor of Los Angeles was given by defense attorney Brian Claypool, who had to evacuate his house without any official direction or evacuation plans:

An evacuee who fled his Los Angeles-area home as wildfires raged nearby, criticized local officials for not being better prepared for the disaster.

Brian Claypool, a criminal defense attorney, said he had about 15 minutes to leave his Pasadena home early Wednesday morning.

“I mean, this has been chaos, urban carnage. And we were blindsided,” he told “The Ingraham Angle.” “There's absolutely no preparation for this at all. There wasn't one political leader on TV saying 'Hey, here's what to do. Here's where to look.'"

Claypool said police officers told him at around 5 a.m. that the direction of the wind had changed and that the fire was less than a mile away from his home, prompting him to quickly leave with his loved ones.

He also criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom and local leaders for not being more clear on where to evacuate and doing a better job of allocating resources.

“The fact of the matter is we had zero political leadership in L.A. County to help us through the worst fire disaster in the history of our country,” Claypool said. “We were blindsided. We were sucker-punched. We were mugged. We were carjacked in our own communities. And people are losing homes and lives. It's inexcusable.” (Palisades Fire, Eaton Fire rage across Los Angeles County, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes.)

Mr. Claypool is entirely correct, of course. The State of California has been run by ideologues for decades now as the state’s last self-professed “law and order” governor, the pro-abortion Republican named Peter Barton Wilson, who served from 1991-1999, was succeeded by the liberal pro-abortion Democrat L. Gray Davis, who was succeeded by the pro-abortion Arnold Schwarzenegger after he, Davis, had been recalled by the voters in November of 2003, who was succeeded by former California Governor and then State Attorney General, the pro-abortion Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr. (who had succeeded Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan in 1995 and had been succeeded in 1983 by the pro-life, tough on crime Governor George Deukmejian in 1983). The descent into ideological madness began with Davis, was institutionalized under Schwarzenegger and took off during “Jerry” Brown’s second eight years in the governor’s mansion (or wherever he had chosen to live) in Sacramento, California, and then, in 2019, was promoted with gusto by the pro-abortion Catholic Democrat Gavin Michael Newson, who continues to cleave to supposedly “progressive” ideas as everything in California has collapsed around him.

As Mr. Claypool noted, people are losing their lives in southern California because of abject government mismanagement and, I would add, by a singular obsession to forgo needed infrastructure maintenance and the replenishment of basic supplies, such as replacing fire hydrants and filling them with water, to secure the safety of residents to advance “diversity” first, last, and always, and this obsession is costing people their lives, their residences, and their businesses:

As Los Angeles firefighters faced down the most destructive blaze in the city’s history, they ran out of water.

“The hydrants are down,” a firefighter said over the radio, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Another chipped in: “Water supply just dropped.”

Fire crews were forced to watch as entire blocks of the Pacific Palisades — one of the most scenic and celeb-packed neighborhoods in LA — were incinerated in a matter of hours late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

“There’s no water in the fire hydrants,” Rick Caruso, who owns the Palisades Village mall in the heart of the devastated area, fumed to local media. “The firefighters are there, and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. … It should never happen.

The water shortage was the result of years of mismanagement of LA’s water system — including a federal indictment of a leader and high profile resignations — as well as major operational problems that drained reserves too quickly.

The Pacific Palisades fire, whipped up by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds, destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses. By Wednesday night, it had spread to 16,000 acres, bigger than the island of Manhattan in New York — and crews had not managed to contain any of it.

LA residents voiced their outrage over the conditions that allowed the fire — and two other blazes in Los Angeles County — to rage out of control. Five people died as of Wednesday night, several others were injured and at least 70,000 were told to evacuate their homes across the LA area.

Adding insult, Democratic Mayor Karen Bass was 7,400 miles away in Africa, and months earlier she had approved an $18 million cut to the fire department.

“RESIGN! WHY ARE YOU IN GHANA?!,” one person commented on an X post by Bass’ office giving an update on the wildfires.

One angry Angelino told Fox News: “I’m born and raised in Los Angeles, I spend my life worrying about when the earthquakes come, when the Santa Ana Winds come. I plan my trips around this. For someone to be in charge of my town… where were you?”

A legacy of terrible fire management by the state of California and Gov. Gavin Newsom also hangs over the smoky skies of LA.

LA’s water system simply could not handle the demand of the multiple blazes — which was four times normal and last for 15 hours, Janisse Quiñones, the head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, told the LA Times.

The city has 114 massive water tanks that store water for and help ensure consistent flow. All were full when the fire started Tuesday. Three 1 million-gallon tanks supply the hydrants in the Pacific Palisades.

The first was empty before 5 p.m. The last was trained by 3 a.m. Wednesday, Quiñones said.

Without the water tanks, the city’s system was simply not able to maintain pressure to the hydrants.

The problem was not isolated to the city of LA.

Malcom Stewart, who lives near Pasadena, had not seen a single fire truck on his street as he watched the Eaton fire — a huge blaze east of Los Angeles — swallow his neighbors’ houses one by one, creeping closer to his childhood home.

The water supply to his house had been cut, leaving him and his brother without so much as a garden hose to douse spot fires and keep the flames from spreading to their property.

“The county did nothing. He’s literally out there with dirt and a shovel and hope,” his wife Charlene Stewart told The Post, hours after she had lost contact with him.

When the same thing happened in neighboring Ventura County in November, humiliated officials blamed damaged pumps and overall lack of water — despite backup systems and protocols that allow firefighters to draw water from other sources, the LA Times reported.

In LA, those fail-safes should have been working, the hydrants should have stayed full, and a water shortage on this scale “should never happen,” Caruso, a former utility commission head and candidate for LA mayor, told the newspaper.

The failure of LA’s water system comes after years of criticism from President-Elect Donald Trump and others that California’s leaders are not managing their water — or their fire risk properly.

Trump pinned blame for the water shortage on Democratic Gov. Newsom — who derailed a 2020 Trump admin order redirecting water from the verdant north of the state to parched SoCal.

Newsom’s excuse, a tiny endangered fish that has already been declared functionally extinct.

“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt… but didn’t care about the people of California,” the incoming president ranted on his Truth Social Platform.

Trump has also slammed Newsom for failure to clean up underbrush and dead trees that can fuel forest fires — though it’s not yet clear whether that is a factor in these latest blazes.

“I told him from the first day we met that he must ‘clean’ his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers,” Trump posted to X in 2019.

Trump was referring to measures such as prescribed burns and fuel breaks, or firebreaks, which help keep wildfires from spreading.

Newsom has bragged about his forestry accomplishments, but a 2021 investigation by CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom found that he overstated the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns by a whopping 690%.

But LA’s utility system has its own massive institutional problems.

Bass, who has touted her DEI appointments, ousted Cynthia Ruiz, the department’s first-ever Native American commissioner, after less than a year of service.
Two out of the last three general managers of the utility have resigned in disgrace: One allegedly mismanaged $40 million in funding. Another, David Wright, was sentenced to six years in prison for taking bribes.

Most of the public backlash, however, has centered on Bass, who rushed home from attending the inauguration of Ghana’s new president when the blaze broke out Tuesday night. She was overseas despite warnings about the Santa Ana winds days earlier.

In addition to Bass, the city’s fire chief Kristin Crowley — the first woman in that role — is also taking heat, including from ex Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who flamed Crowley for putting virtue signaling and woke branding above doing her job.

“In recent years LA’s fire chief has made not filling the fire hydrants top priority, but diversity,” Kelly said on her eponymous show, referencing Crowley’s stated goal to bring more women and LGBTQ+ people into the fire department. (How LA ran out of water in the middle of the Palisades fire. Also see See the devastation left behind by the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles: photos, Before and after pics show complete devastation of LA wildfires: photos, and Southern California wildfires kill 5, destroy more than 1,100 buildings.)

Ideology has deadly consequences, and it is not for nothing that those who do not believe in providing security to the innocent preborn and, instead, defend their destruction at any time for any reason, whatsoever are incapable of acting competently to defend the lives of anyone else, including their own.

For his own part, the greased up pretty boy who lived it up at a part in the French Laundry restaurant in Napa, California, in November of 2020 at a time he had imposed draconian lockdowns, especially on churches and small businesses, during the coronascam plandemic, is a slave not only to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” but to the equally discredited ideology of “climate warming” people responsible for the wildfires even though California has been known for wildfires and mudslides long before Marxist-trained scientists invented the ideology of climate change as a means to promote “population control” (contraception, abortion, sterilization, “voluntary” proposals to limit the size of families), state control of the economy by massive taxation, oppressive environmental regulations that were meant to crush small businesses, increase the cost of gasoline, diesel, home heating fuels and natural gas, and to transfer wealth from the middle class to the government to impoverish those being crushed by California’s high cost of living and statist regulations in order to empower state and local officials to increase their control of citizens’ lives and to restrict the exercise of legitimate liberties in the name of “controlling hatred” and “anti-government” rhetoric.

President-elect Donald John Trump called out Gavin Michael Newsom’s slavery to enviromaniacal ideology during his first term and he is doing it again now in the midst of the conflagration that is running rampant in Los Angeles County at this time:

President-elect Donald Trump blamed California’s Gavin Newsom for the ‘apocalyptic’ wildfires ravaging the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles — claiming he chose to save an extinct tiny fish species, instead of sending more water to southern California.

Trump raged that the Democratic governor blocked an order that would have diverted more water from the much wetter north to the state’s parched regions “including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.”

“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt… but didn’t care about the people of California,” the incoming president ranted on his Truth Social Platform.

“Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is to blame for this.”

Trump has long supported diverting supply from California’s main water hub, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, to farmers who have struggled with repeated droughts.

But his plans faced resistance from environmental groups that argued they would disastrously hurt the population of delta smelt – small fish that were once crucial California’s ecosystem, but has since been rendered effectively extinct.

Trump first promised to redirect California’s northern runoff south to benefit farmers during his first presidential bid in 2016, and made good on his promise in 2020 with a federal memorandum that redirected millions of gallons of water he said was otherwise “needlessly flushed” into the ocean, according to Courthouse News Service.

But days later Newsom’s administration sued to block Trump’s move, and succeeded in limiting the amount of water that can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The two politicians have spent the ensuing years duking it out over the state’s water plans – which are regulated by both state and federal laws.

In September, Trump said that if elected he would cut off wildfire aid to California if Newsom refused to change a policy protecting the smelt and allow water to flow on his terms, the Hill reported.

“If we don’t give him money to put out his fires, he’s got problems,” Trump said at the time.

Rather than capitulating, Newsom doubled down and teamed up with President Biden to devise their own regulation to direct water to southern California with the smelt in mind.

Newsom’s office also denied Trump’s claims Wednesday, with his spokespeople claiming they weren’t quite sure what “water restoration declaration” Trump was referring to.

“There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction,” a statement said. “The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.”

Though Trump appeared to be blaming Los Angeles’ fires on water shortages – the area’s water situation is much less dire than it has been in years past.

While LA is currently under a drought, the situation is only rated “moderate drought,” the lowest ranking on the US Drought Monitor’s scale.

At least two people have been killed in the three separate infernos raging around Los Angeles, the biggest of which — the Palisades Fire — remains 0% contained, according to fire officials.

The Eaton Fire – which is burning on the north side of Los Angeles – exploded from 2,000 acres to more than 10,000 in hours on Wednesday.

More than 70,000 LA residents have been ordered to evacuate their homes. (Trump says Gov. Gavin 'Newscum' chose to save an extinct fish instead of sending water to Southern California to fight 'apocalyptic' wildfires.)

President Trump is correct to criticize Gavin Michael Newsom for diverting water to protect the smelt while refusing to follow the true science of forest management that the former and future president described so well in 2018 and again just yesterday, Wednesday, January 8, 2025.

Many there are in public life in the United States of America who put duty the ideological myths before duty to the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Holy Trinity as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church, and even to simple common sense, which must fall by the wayside when one's intellect is darkened by myths that come from hell and are mean to lead there for all eternity.

As always, however, Catholics must keep a supernatural perspective about everything that occurs within their own lives and within their country and the world.

The following words of the Prophet Amos, writing about the fate that would befall the northern kingdom of Israel in a mere forty years following the invasion of the Assyrians, are useful to call to mind in light of the terrible tragedy that is afflicting California in the form of monstrous wildfires at this time:

Hear the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O ye children of Israel: concerning the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying: [2] You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities. [3] Shall two walk together except they be agreed? [4] Will a lion roar in the forest, if he have no prey? will the lion's whelp cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? [5] Will the bird fall into the snare upon the earth, if there be no fowler? Shall the snare be taken up from the earth, before it hath taken somewhat?

[6] Shall the trumpet sound in a city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord hath not done? [7] For the Lord God doth nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. [8] The lion shall roar, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who shall not prophesy? [9] Publish it in the houses of Azotus, and in the houses of the land of Egypt, and say: Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the many follies in the midst thereof, and them that suffer oppression in the inner rooms thereof. [10] And they have not known to do the right thing, saith the Lord, storing up iniquity, and robberies in their houses.

[11] Therefore thus saith the Lord God: The land shall be in tribulation, and shall be compassed about: and thy strength shall be taken away from thee, and thy houses shall be spoiled. [12] Thus saith the Lord: As if a shepherd should get out of the lion's mouth two legs, or the tip of the ear: so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria, in a piece of a bed, and in the couch of Damascus. [13] Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord the God of hosts: [14] That in the day when I shall begin to visit the transgressions of Israel, I will visit upon him, and upon the altars of Bethel: and the horns of the altars shall be cut off, and shall fall to the ground. [15] And I will strike the winter house with the summer house: and the houses of ivory shall perish, and many houses shall be destroyed, saith the Lord. (Amos 3: 1-11.)

Bishop Richard Challoner commented as follows about the meaning of Verse 6:

[6] "Evil in a city": He speaks of the evil of punishments of war, famine, pestilence, desolation, etc., but not of the evil of sin, of which God is not the author.  (Challoner Bible Commentary: Douay-Rheims Bible.)

Once again, the Prophet Amos was prophesying about the fate of the northern kingdom of Israel (he, a native of the southern kingdom of Juda, had been sent to the northern kingdom to announce his prophecies) that would befall it because of the people’s infidelity and unrepentant sins. Nonetheless, however, the Prophet Amos’s words, which were, of course, written under the inspiration of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, are certainly useful to reflect upon during the terrible chastisements that are being inflicted now in various parts of the world, including in California as wildfires in the southern part of this socialist “paradise” that aggressively promotes and forces taxpayers to subsidize all manner of wickedness under the cover of the civil law while forfeiting many of their legitimate property rights.

Never mind the fact that the claptrap about “climate change” has always been, is now and will always be a smokescreen used by socialists to seize more power and limit more legitimate human liberties and by population controllers to do away with more and more innocent human beings, the actual truth of the matter, stated clearly in 2015, must ignored and denied:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most accurate, up-to-date temperature data confirm the United States has been cooling for at least the past decade. The NOAA temperature data are driving a stake through the heart of alarmists claiming accelerating global warming.

Responding to widespread criticism that its temperature station readings were corrupted by poor siting issues and suspect adjustments, NOAA established a network of 114 pristinely sited temperature stations spread out fairly uniformly throughout the United States. Because the network, known as the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), is so uniformly and pristinely situated, the temperature data require no adjustments to provide an accurate nationwide temperature record. USCRN began compiling temperature data in January 2005. Now, nearly a decade later, NOAA has finally made the USCRN temperature readings available.

According to the USCRN temperature readings, U.S. temperatures are not rising at all – at least not since the network became operational 10 years ago. Instead, the United States has cooled by approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is more than half of the claimed global warming of the twentieth century.

Of course, 10 years is hardly enough to establish a long-term trend. Nevertheless, the 10-year cooling period does present some interesting facts.

First, global warming is not so dramatic and uniform as alarmists claim. For example, prominent alarmist James Hansen claimed in 2010, “Global warming on decadal time scales is continuing without letup … effectively illustrat[ing] the monotonic and substantial warming that is occurring on decadal time scales.” The word “monotonic” means, according to Merriam-Webster Online, “having the property either of never increasing or of never decreasing as the values of the independent variable or the subscripts of the terms increase.” Well, either temperatures are decreasing by 0.4 degrees Celsius every decade or they are not monotonic.

Second, for those who may point out U.S. temperatures do not equate to global temperatures, the USCRN data are entirely consistent with – and indeed lend additional evidentiary support for – the global warming stagnation of the past 17-plus years. While objective temperature data show there has been no global warming since sometime last century, the USCRN data confirm this ongoing stagnation in the United States, also.

Third, the USCRN data debunk claims that rising U.S. temperatures caused wildfires, droughts, or other extreme weather events during the past year. The objective data show droughts, wildfires, and other extreme weather events have become less frequent and severe in recent decades as our planet modestly warms. But even ignoring such objective data, it is difficult to claim global warming is causing recent U.S. droughts and wildfires when U.S. temperatures are a full 0.4 degrees Celsius colder than they were in 2005.

Even more importantly than the facts above, the USCRN provides the promise of reliable nationwide temperature data for years to come. No longer will global warming alarmists be able to hide behind thinly veiled excuses to doctor the U.S. temperature record. Now, thanks to the USCRN, the data are what the data are.

Expect global warming alarmists, now and for the foreseeable future, to howl in desperation claiming the USCRN temperature data are irrelevant.

Of course, to global warming alarmists, all real-world data are irrelevant. (Government Data Show U.S. in Decade-Long Cooling.)

What do facts mean to the lords of Modernity who are steeped in the throes of the adversary’s influence, whether directly or indirectly?

Then again, the counterfeit church of conciliaism itself is a tool of the adversary to promote evil by its endorsement of everything that is forbidden by the Ten Commandments, starting with their “popes’” and “bishops’’ praise of false religions and including the sins of willful murder and sodomy. It is no wonder, therefore, that we live during a time of apostasy, a time where the adversary is worshiped openly in some places and where his works of darkness are being promoted with abandon by Hollywood producers, who live and work in a culture steeped in satanic practices:

Hollywood studios are “drenched in the blood of innocent children” according to Mel Gibson who claims the consumption of “baby blood is so popular in Hollywood that it basically operates as a currency of its own.”

Hollywood elites are an “enemy of mankind continually acting contrary to our best interests” and “breaking every God given taboo known to man, including the sanctity of children,” Mel Gibson said in London, where he is promoting his role in Daddy’s Home 2, his most prominent on-screen role in years.

“It’s an open secret in Hollywood. These people have their own religious and spiritual teachings and their own social and moral frameworks. They have their sacred texts – they are sick, believe me – and they couldn’t be more at odds with what America stands for.”

Mel Gibson appeared on the Graham Norton Show on the BBC on Friday, and he schooled shocked guests about the real nature of Hollywood elites in the green room backstage after his appearance.

Explaining that he spent the last ten years “working on my own ideas, outside of the Hollywood system” after being blacklisted by Hollywood in 2006 for sharing opinions about the industry and the world that run counter to liberal orthodoxy, Gibson said, “I don’t know how to break it to you gently… Hollywood is institutionalized pedophilia.

“They are using and abusing kids.“

“They churn through a huge amount of kids every year. Their spiritual beliefs, if you can call them that, direct them to harvest the energy of the kids. They feast on this stuff and they thrive on it,” the Hacksaw Ridge director said.

“What do I mean? This isn’t some kind of artistic abstraction. They harvest the blood of children. They eat their flesh. They believe this gives them life force. If the child was suffering in body and psyche before it died, they believe this gives them extra life force.”

“There is a creative and loving force inside most of us that guides us through life. These people don’t have this. For them it’s the opposite.”

According to Mel Gibson, who has spent 30 years in and out of the Hollywood system, the industry elites “thrive on pain, trauma, stress, abuse, and suffering.”

“Hollywood is drenched in the blood of innocent children. For a long time all the references to pedophilia and cannibalism were symbolic or allusive. But I was personally introduced to the practice in the early 2000s. I can talk about this now because these people, the execs, they’re dead now.”

“The blood of a sexually abused infant is considered highly ‘enriched’ and is highly prized. The money changing hands, the favors, the kickbacks – you have no idea. Babies are a high-functioning currency all of their own. Babies are their premium brand of high-grade caviar cocaine diamond steak.”

But according to Gibson this isn’t a flavor-of-the-month perversion, popular among men and women who have grown bored of standard issue sins.

“This isn’t anything new. If you do some research you will see it’s a metaphysical, alchemical phenomenon and you can find it behind the scenes in all the dark eras in history. 

“It’s a dark, multidimensional occult art and practice, used by secret societies in the last few hundred years for social programming and mind control, and raised to a zenith by Hollywood in America in our era.” (Mel Gibson Exposes Hollywood's Evil Practices.)

This is all undoubtedly true.

To amplify the truths told by Mel Gibson, who has had to deal with his own demons of lust and alcohol over the years, I was told by the Catholic gentleman who served as the chairman of my campaign for New York State Right to Life Party senatorial nomination in 1998 that he had been in the office of a major motion picture studio executive in Hollywood, finding the man’s office darkened and illuminated only by the light of sanctuary lamp that burned before an image of the devil himself. No, I am not making this up, and the man, the late, kind-hearted Salvatore Guadagana, who was truly a victim soul after he had been partially paralyzed by a medical procedure that caused him to have a stroke, was not prone to story-telling.

How can any Catholic justify partaking of so-called “entertainment” produced by Hollywood that is under the control of satan himself?

It is to take nothing away from the tragedy of epic proportions that has taken the lives of at least five people now and burned hundreds of homes in California to state simple truth that such disasters are the result of the epidemic of unrepentant sin in the world. God will not be mocked. Sin must be punished.

Who says so?

Well, consider the words of Saint Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews:

For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must of necessity come in. For a testament is of force, after men are dead: otherwise it is as yet of no strength, whilst the testator liveth. Whereupon neither was the first indeed dedicated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been read by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, Saying: This is the blood of the testament, which God hath enjoined unto you.

The tabernacle also and all the vessels of the ministry, in like manner, he sprinkled with blood. And almost all things, according to the law, are cleansed with blood: and without shedding of blood there is no remission. It is necessary therefore that the patterns of heavenly things should be cleansed with these: but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others:   

For then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment: So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation. (Hebrews 9: 21-28.)

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every drop of His own Most Precious Blood to redeem us. Though innocent, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man. We are called to make reparation for our own sins and those of others, something we must bear in mind at all times even when facing epic chastisements such as those afflicting California at tis time.

Yet, of course, most people do not see the hand of God in any of these chastisements any more than they have seen them in the events and government overreach associated the measures taken during the coronasam plandeic, and in this regard, they are no different than were most people in Noe’s day before the Great Flood:

[36] But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone. [37] And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. [38] For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark, [39] And they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away; so also shall the coming of the Son of man be. [40] Then two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. (Matthew 24: 36-40.)

It was after he had personally lived through the Peshtigo (Wisconsin) Fire of 1871 which occurred on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire, October 8, 1871, but was far more deadly (2500 people killed and over a million acres burned), that a French missionary priest, Father Peter Pernin, wrote the definitive report about the catastrophe and then came to conclusions that were so damning and so opposed to American naturalism that they were edited out of the 1918 edition of his book, The Finger of God Is There, by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Herewith are those conclusions, which are just as relevant today in the midst of all the diabolical forces at work in the world as they were when written one hundred fifty-three years ago:

"Whilst passing through Indiana on my way to St. Louis, barely two months after the catastrophe of which I have endeavored to relate a few details, I saw a notice in a journal of that place to the effect that a Protestant gentleman was to give a public lecture that very evening on the great event. The subject of the discourse was: The fires of our day a faithful of that fire which shall consume the earth at the end of time. The topic was so full of interest to me that I resolved to delay my journey so as to assist at the lecture. There was but a small audience present, so true is it that mankind is to-day what mankind was in the time of Noah, and will be till the last hour, indifferent to all the warnings of heaven.

The learned lecturer after much laborious research, had collected many important facts relating to the great fires of the past, and corroborating his words twice by quoting passages from some descriptive articles of my own published in the journals, proceeded to show how much severer in character were the fires of our days, which, in the strange fierceness of their nature, seemed to be a foreshadowing and image of that which will consume the earth on the last day. And truly we may see in this wild confusion of the elements, roaring of tempests, trembling of the earth, this land and sky in flames, with men looking on, stupefied and withering with fear, a realization of the vivid description given by Holy Writ of the end of the world.

But why these warnings? And why are they sent so unequally to nations equally guilty?

Ah! who can sound the ways of Providence? Perhaps is it because God is often lost sight of in the present day, especially by those who know and consequently ought to serve Him. Do not numbers of Catholics work, act, in a word, live as if they had neither a Creator to obey, a Saviour to love, nor a soul to save? And if it be true that God created man, if it be true that He descended on earth to redeem him, He surely possesses the strictest claims on this creature of His bounty. Those claims being consistently ignored and trampled under foot, our feeble reason itself will tell us that Providence must occasionally recall them to our minds and proclaim them as it were by those great catastrophes which prove at the same time that He is, despite what we may do or say, our Lord and Master, and that we are bound to treat Him as such. Was it not thus that He acted in former times towards His chosen people when they became ungrateful and prevaricating? The sovereignty of God over man and the duty of man towards God, are the same to-day as under the Old Law. Unquestionably, forgetfulness of these obligations seems to be almost a general thing to-day, but at the same time where is the nation or people really exempt from these chastisements? God's scourges may be varied, but they make themselves felt everywhere. If His justice seems to weigh more heavily on some than on others, if His voice sounds more menacing and terrible here than elsewhere, it is perhaps because He wishes that this punishment of a small number may afford a salutary lesson to millions of others who, horrified by so formidable a display of Almighty Power, may hasten to return to the way of salvation. When He rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom of old, the Bible does not say that Sodom was the only city deserving of such a fate. In the calamity, awful as that of Sodom, which has over- taken Peshtigo town, perhaps not more guilty than others that have nevertheless been spare, Peshtigo may be looked on as a modern Sodom in the sense that it can serve as an example to all. Et nunc reges intelligite, erudimi qui judicatis terram." (Ps. 11.) "And now, O ye kings, understand: receive instruction you that judge the earth. Serve ye the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto him with trembling. Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way. When his wrath shall be kindled in a short time, blessed are all they that trust in him!" (Father Peter Pernin, The Finger of God Is There. As found at: The Finger of God is There. Interestingly, American British military officials studied Father Pernin’s account of the Peshtigo Fire to learn how to create the thoroughly immoral firebombing of Dresden, Germany, from February 13-15, 1945: Peshtigo.)

Please re-read that last paragraph

We must view all things through the eyes of the Holy Faith.

We must view all things through the eyes of the Holy Faith at all times.

We must never allow the events of the world to agitate us as agitation is from the devil.

We must rest secure in our absolute trust in Our Lord’s Divine Providence, remembering that we are living at the exact time which He has ordained from all eternity for us to live and thus to give Him honor and glory as His consecrated slaves through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Is it not the case today that most “Catholics work, act, in a word, live as if they had neither a Creator to obey, a Saviour to love, nor a soul to save”?

That was written at the beginning of the eighth decade of the Nineteenth Century!

Well, it cannot be that way with us.

We must think supernaturally at all times, and we must give thanks at all times that we have been given the gratuitous gift of the Catholic Faith so that we can see the world and everything in it clearly through the eyes of the true Faith. Our gratitude must express itself especially in the midst of personal trials and those tragedies in the world as we give thanks to Our Lord and Our Lady that we can rise about naturalism and as we pray for the gift of perseverance to continue doing so.

We must do penance for our sins, and the chastisements that are at hand, including those associated all kinds of government overreach, including those that have occurred within the last few weeks as the current reprobate in the White House issues executive orders that either exceed constitutional or stautory authority or are attempts to make laws that are the constitutional province of Congress alone,  remembering that Our Lady herself explained in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, that she wanted us to do penance for our sins and those of the whole world in order to hold back her Divine Son’s wrath against us for our infidelity and ingratitude: 

"I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, [August] to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you."

"Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe."

Lucia made some requests for sick people, to which Mary replied that she would cure some but not others, and that all must say the rosary to obtain such graces, before continuing: "Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary."

"You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

"To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."

Mary specifically told Lucia not to tell anyone about the secret at this stage, apart from Francisco, before continuing: "When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: 'O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need.' "

Lucia asked if there was anything more, and after assuring her that there was nothing more, Mary disappeared off into the distance. (Our Lady's Words at Fatima.)

Our Lady promised on July 13 1917, to return to request the consecration of Russia by the Holy Father. She came to visit Sister Lucia in Tuy, Spain, on June 13, 1929, to specify the terms of this consecration:

"The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the Bishops in the world, to make the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means. There are so many souls whom the Justice of God condemns for sins committed against me, that I have come to ask reparation: sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray." (Our Lady's Words at Fatima.)

As I have noted on this site before, some will protest that the Church never passed on the June 13, 1929, apparition of Our Lady to Sister Lucia in Tuy, Spain, believing that the terms of the proper consecration of Russia were spelled out in the July 13, 1917 apparition, which terms were fulfilled, they believe, when Pope Pius XII singly consecrated Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart in 1952. Others, however, believe, as I do, that Our Lady came in 1929 to make the specific request for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart by a pope with all of the world's bishops. As was pointed out in Our Lady Does Not Act on Her Own, the Church never ruled on Our Lady's December 10, 1925, apparition to Sister Lucia dos Santos wherein she specified the practice of the Five First Saturdays to be kept in reparation for sins against her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart:

Have compassion on the heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation. Look, my daughter, at my heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me." (Our Lady's Words at Fatima.)

The Church has given, at least in a de facto sense, recognition to this private apparition made in 1925, making it plausible, at the very least, that the 1929 apparition of Our Lady to Sister Lucia in the convent at Tuy, Spain, in which Our Lady called for the collegial consecration of Russia by a pope with all of the world's bishops to be an elaboration on that same July 13, 1917, message in the Cova da Iria in which she first called for the Communions of reparation on the First Saturdays and called for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart by the pope.

Although even some who accept the legitimacy of the 1929 apparition contend that the time for such a collegial consecration has passed, noting correctly that World War II could have been prevented by such a collegial consecration, Sister Lucia continued to insist that the collegial consecration needed to be done. With all due respect to those who do not accept these conclusions, I would like to submit that the state of the world-at-large and that of the Church Militant on earth during this time of apostasy and betrayal is a direct chastisement for the fact that Popes Pius XI and XII were advised badly to refrain from consecrating Russia collegially with all of the world's bishops to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We must, therefore, bear the cross with joy and gratitude in this time of chastisement, recognizing that the errors of Modernity in the world and those of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism are intertwined with each other as but similar manifestations of the errors of Russia. 

We have much to suffer for our own sins. We must suffer well as we place not our trust in the princes of naturalism in this world or the princes of false "reconciliation" and "dialogue" with false religions in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. We must place our trust in the Immaculate Heart of Mary as we give this heart, out which the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was formed, all of the sufferings of the present moment so that she can present whatever merit we earn from patiently and lovingly enduring them to the Throne of the Most Blessed Trinity.

The following words of Our Lady, spoken to Juan Diego four hundred ninety years ago this year, should always have a place in our minds and hearts:

"Listen and take heed, least of my sons," she said quietly. "There is nothing which thou needst dread. Let not thy heart be troubled. Do not fear this illness, neither any other illness or affliction. Am I not here beside thee; I, thy Merciful Mother? Am I not thy hope and salvation? Of what more dost thou have need? Let nothing distress or harass thee. As to the illness of thy uncle, he will not die of it. Indeed, I ask thee to accept as a certainty my assurance that he is already cured." (Frances Parkinson Keyes, The Grace of Guadalupe, published in 1941 by Julian Messner, Inc., pp. 47-48.)

Indeed.

What more do we need?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now, and at the hour our death?

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Once again, while taking not a thing away from the physical and emotional suffering that has afflicted so many in California at this time, a suffering that must be relieved by our prayers and by whatever temporal assistance can be rendered unto them, we must recognize that no suffering, not even that which has resulted in so much devastation in the Golden State, is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and that caused His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with those Seven Swords of Sorrow.

Catholics who love God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church give thanks to Him for each and every cross and humiliation that He sees fit to fashion for the.

Each and every cross that the good God sends us is the means by which we are meant to give Him honor and glory through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Each and every cross that the good God sends us is the means by which we are meant to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world, praying with urgency for the unconditional conversion of all non-Catholic to the true Church before they die and praying for the return of lapsed Catholics to the bosom of Holy Mother Church before they die.

Each and every cross that the good God sends us is the means by which we can give salutary example to lukewarm Catholics and to all non-Catholics that God never permits us to endure any cross that is beyond our capacity to carry by means of the graces that His Co-Eternal and Co-Equal Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, won for us by the shedding of each and every drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces.

Catholics rejoice in their crosses.

Catholics rejoice when they are castigated and humiliated and misunderstood and calumniated.

Catholics rejoice when they are denied temporal honors and worldly success.

Catholics rejoice when they are deemed worthy to suffer some terrible physical or emotional affliction as this means that God has seen fit to make it more possible for them to pay back what they owe for their sins in this passing, mortal vale of tears and thus to do their Purgatory on earth.

Mind you, by way of reiteration, this is not to denigrate or to minimize in any way the tremendous suffering that is taking place in California at this time. This is, however, remind the very few readers of this little-read website that we are supposed to look at each of the events in our own lives and in the world through the supernatural eyes of the Holy Faith.

The loving hand of the good God is seeking to chastise us.

God is seeking to humiliate us in order that we might rely more fully upon Him as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through the Catholic Church.

God is seeking to remind the creature that He, the Creator, has created the laws and the properties of the universe and that no amount of human planning, no matter how sincerely motivated or how carefully implemented, can probe the depths of the creation that came into existence at His mere willing it so.

The earth itself will end in God's good time, and it will end by fire, meaning that the events in California are meant to give us a foretaste of the destruction of the world at the end of time. God is, I believe, seeking to remind us that no created thing on this earth will last forever, that the end of our own particular lives can occur at any time. We are not to take even our next breath for granted. Everything good thing that we have, starting with the Holy Faith Itself, is His gratuitous gift to us.

Catholics must, therefore, have the same sense of detachment from as did holy Job after Satan was permitted by God to deprive him of everything he had, including his life and children, willing to bend under the mighty arm of God as He seeks to rid us of our disordered self-love to have a pure love of Him and His Holy Will:

[12] Then the Lord said to Satan: Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand: only put not forth thy hand upon his person. And Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. [13] Now upon a certain day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their eldest brother, [14] There came a messenger to Job, and said: The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them, [15] And the Sabeans rushed in, and took all away, and slew the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell thee.

[16] And while he was yet speaking, another came, and said: The fire of God fell from heaven, and striking the sheep and the servants, hath consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell thee. [17] And while he also was yet speaking, there came another, and said: The Chaldeans made three troops, and have fallen upon the camels, and taken them, moreover they have slain the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell thee. [18] He was yet speaking, and behold another came in, and said: Thy sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their elder brother: [19] A violent wind came on a sudden from the side of the desert, and shook the four corners of the house, and it fell upon thy children and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to fell thee. [20] Then Job rose up, and rent his garments, and having shaven his head fell down upon the ground and worshipped,

[21] And said: Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord. [22] In all these things Job sinned not by his lips, nor spoke he any foolish thing against God. (Job 1: 12-22.) 

We must never murmur against the will of God. Not once. Not ever. None of us ever suffers truly as his sins deserve. God is merciful even in the administration of his chastisements to those who love Him.

The chastisement that is afflicting many in California, a leader in the worldwide exportation of evil laws, entertainment, music and decadent “culture,” at this time is meant not only for them. It is for us all.

Although paganism is rampant in California, it is rampant in many other places in the United States of America as naturalism, which is really the state religion, if you will, of this country, has convinced even traditionally-minded Catholics that men do not need to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End as they submit with humility and docility to the Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good of souls.

Yes, the chastisement that has afflicted many in California is meant for us all.

Time will tell whether the wildfires currently burning will spread much more before being contained.

We must remember that the wildfires set by the sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance that are protected under cover of the civil law and promoted all throughout what passes for "popular culture" in the United States of America and elsewhere in the “civilized” West must be punished.

What a privilege it is for us, sinners who have helped to cause this wildfire of sins by our own infidelities and lukewarmness and inattentiveness to our interior lives of prayer and so unwilling to engage in voluntary acts of fasting and mortification and self-denial, to suffer here in this life so that we will be ready at all times to die a good death as we make sure to start each morning with our Morning Offering and our Acts of Faith, Hope, Charity and Contrition, mindful that each day God sees fit to give us might be our very last.

Thank God upon arising in the morning that you are a Catholic, able to see the world through the eyes of the true Faith.

Thank God throughout the day that you are a Catholic, willing to accept each bit of suffering and difficulty and rejection and humiliation as the means by which you can give Him honor and glory and to sanctify your immortal soul as a member of the Catholic Church and the consecrated slave of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour, Christ the King, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother, Mary our Immaculate Queen.

Never be afraid of natural disasters and catastrophes. Never be afraid of who has criticized you or who has rejected your friendship or who has made life difficult for you. Indeed, be grateful to those who criticize you and reject you and make life difficult for you as they are the means sent to you by God to sanctify and save your souls.

Fear only to die in a state of final impenitence:

The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law

And as a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. (Mt. 10: 21-40)

Consider how Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself told Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres that the sins of men in Ecuador, a country favored with the visits of Our Lady of Good Success and ruled for twelve years (1859 to 1865 and 1869 to the time of assassination in 1875) by that great exemplar of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Gabriel Garcia Moreno, would diminish the luster of the sunsets in that country on the equator:

She saw that when this would happen, the beautiful dawn that each morning would break forth with refulgence over this land--so enchantingly spectacular that some persons would rise at daybreak just to see the day break--would lose some of its brilliance. Thus does earth reflect Heaven, and the earth's beauty and vitality diminish with sin and infidelity to grace. This favor of beautiful dawns should cease, Mother Mariana was given to understand, because the Republic [of Ecuador, which was then only a Spanish colony] would become corrupt and ungrateful for the benefits it received from God. (Marian Therese Horvat, Ph.D., Stories and Miracles of Our Lady of Good Success, Tradition in Action, Inc., 2002, p. 68.)

Men must quit their sins and repent of them in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. They must treat each other as they would treat Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who was made Flesh in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb, where He spent nine months growing to the point of His Nativity in poverty and anonymity in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. No one can say that he loves Our Lord and yet supports His dismemberment mystically in the persons of innocent preborn children. And it is impossible to provide for any element of  the common temporal good on an enduring basis as long as the innocent preborn are attacked with legal impunity, as long as the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage is denied by means of contraception, as long as perversity is promoted under the slogans of "diversity" and "human rights," as long as men live as though there is no true Church and that they do not have to face Christ the King as their Judge at the moment of their Particular Judgments.

We do not know how long it will be until Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Second Coming at the end of the world, which is why we must be prepared at all times for the end of our own lives. We do not know if the signs of natural disasters and cataclysms that are occurring at the time signify the nearing of Our Lord's Second Coming. What we can say for sure, however, is that truly extraordinary things are happening in our midst as a world that has gone mad with the conceits of the deification of man and his "rights." It is up to those of us who have the Faith to see the deeper supernatural significance of these events and to make more and more reparation for our sins, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

It is my belief, far from infallible, that God is indeed speaking to us through the events of nature, trying to demonstrate what appears to be some to be a terrible inconvenience and a source of material loss is symbolic symbolic of the horror of our own sins and the devastation that they wreak in our own souls and in the world-at-large. At the same time, however, God is also demonstrating the wonder of His creative handiwork, showing forth His own righteous power that baffles scientists and medical doctors who think that they have "answers" to even the physiological aspects of human existence.

We should take heed of the fact that natural disasters and other calamities are a sign of our own morality and of our utter dependence upon God as He has revealed Himself to us solely through the Catholic Church and upon the supernatural helps that are available to souls only through that same Church. Again, to Saint Alphonsus's Preparation for Death:

The Lord does not wish us to be lost; and therefore, by the threat of chastisement, he unceasingly exhorts us to a change of life. Except you will be converted, He will brandish His sword. Behold, he says in another place, how many, because they would not cease to offend me, have met with a sudden death, when they were least expecting it, and were living in peace, secure of a life of many years. For whey they shall say: Peace and security: then shall sudden destruction come upon them. Again he says: Unless you shall do penance, you shall likewise perish. Why so many threats of chastisements before the execution of vengeance? It is because he wishes that we amend our lives, and thus avoid an unhappy death. "He," says Saint Augustine, "who tells you to beware, does not wish to take away your life." It is necessary, then, to prepare our accounts before the day of account arrives. Dearly beloved Christians, were you to die, and were your lot for eternity to be decided before night would your accounts be ready? Oh! how much would you give to obtain from God another year or month, or even another day, to prepare for judgment? Why then do yo not now, that God gives you this time, settle the accounts of your conscience? Perhaps is cannot happen that this shall be the last day for you? Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day; for His wrath shall come on a sudden, and in a the time of vengeance He will destroy thee. My brother, to save your soul you must give up your sin. "If then you must renounce it at some time, why do you not abandon it at this moment?" says Saint Augustine. Perhaps you are waiting till death arrives? But for obstinate sinners, the hour of death is the time, not of pardon, but of vengeance. In the time of vengeance He will destroy thee. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Preparation for Death.)

Our Lady explained Our Lady of La Salette told Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud about the terrible effects of sin in the world on September 19, 1846:

The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But now Enoch and Eli will come, filled with the Spirit of God. They will preach with the might of God, and men of good will will believe in God, and many souls will be comforted. They will make great steps forward through the power of the Holy Spirit and will condemn the devilish lapses of the Antichrist. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. It will rain with a fearful hail of animals. There will be thunderstorms which will shake cities, earthquakes which will swallow up countries. Voices will be heard in the air. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test? At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Enoch and Eli will be put to death. Pagan Rome will disappear. The fire of Heaven will fall and consume three cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be lead astray because they have not worshipped the true Christ who lives among them. It is time; the sun is darkening; only faith will survive.

Now is the time; the abyss is opening. Here is the King of Kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the Savior of the world. He will rise proudly into the air to go to Heaven. He will be smothered by the breath of the Archangel Saint Michael. He will fall, and the earth, which will have been in a continuous series of evolutions for three days, will open up its fiery bowels; and he will have plunged for all eternity with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of hell. And then water and fire will purge the earth and consume all the works of men's pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified." (Message of Our Lady of La Salette.)

As recorded in The Mystical City of God, Our Lady explained to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, the earth itself will be shaken of the work of the devil to inspire us to commit unrepentant after unrepentant sin, and that she, Our Lady, will make possible our salvation by her perfect fiat to the will of God the Father at the Annunciation:

"Woe to the earth, and to the sea, because the devil is come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time." Woe to the earth, where so many sins and such wickedness shall be perpetuated! Woe to the sea, which refused to pour forth its floods and annihilate the transgressors at the sight of so great offenses against its Creator, and to avenge the insults against its Maker and Lord! But more woe to the profound and raging sea of those that follow the demon, after he had descended in their midst in order to war against them with great wrath and with such unheard of cruelty! It is the wrath of the most ferocious dragon, and greater than that of the devouring lion (I Pet. 5, 8), who attempts to annihilate all creation and to whom all the days of the world seem a short time to execute his fury. Such is his hunger and thirst to do damage to mortals, that all the days of their life do not satisfy him, for they come to an end, whereas he desires eternal ages, if possible, in order to wage war against the sons of God. But incomparably greater than against all others is his rage against that most blessed Woman, who was to crush his head (Gen. 3, 15).  (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God.)

Yes, our trust must be placed totally in Our Lady to help us save our immortal souls. Saint Alphonsus wrote in Preparation for Death of the confidence we must place Mary our Immaculate Queen , the Mother of God:

Oh! how great will be our thankfulness for the mercy of God, for having given us for our advocate, Mary, who, by her prayers, can obtain for us all the graces we stand in need of. "Truly wonderful," exclaims St. Bonaventure, "is the bound of our God, who has given thee, O Lady, to his guilty subjects as their advocate, so that thou art able to obtain for them by thy assistance whatever thou wilt." Sinners, brethren, if we find ourselves debtors to the divine justice, and commended to hell by our sins, let us not despair; let us have recourse to this divine mother; let us put ourselves under her protection, and she will save us. But we must have a sincere purpose of amending our lives. If we have such a purpose, and place confidence in Mary, we shall be saved. And why? Because Mary is a powerful advocate, a merciful advocate, an advocate that desires to save all." (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Preparation for Death.)

Our hope must then be in Our Lady, to whom we commend the particular needs of those suffering at this time.

We trust in Our Lady to help us to save our own souls, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.

We must trust in Our Lady to save our souls from the destruction power of sin, even venial sin, in our own souls, which shone so brilliantly at the moment of our baptism but.

We need to ask Our Lady every day to help us to be prepared for the moment of our own deaths, recognizing that we live at a time in salvation history when the forces unleashed by the social toleration and promotion of sin are exacting a heavy toll on us all and might take us from this mortal life when we least expect it.

We do indeed need Our Lady's help so that our souls will not be lost for all eternity, which is why, of course, we must pray our Rosaries every day without fail and to pray them so very well. We never know when our next Rosary will be our last Rosary. And one way to avoid being burned for all eternity in the flames of Hell that emit sulphur dioxide—and from which there is no escape route—is to pray our Rosaries well as we meditate upon the mysteries contained therein, making sure also to be enrolled in and to wear and to fulfill the conditions of her Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel that protected four priests from the atomic blast in Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. May it protect us today from the contagion of sin that can rob us of eternal glories in Heaven for all eternity.

May we keep Our Lady's Fatima requests so that the day will soon arrive when all hearts in this country and around the world, consecrated to Our Lord through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, will exclaim:

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

Saint Joseph, pray for us. 

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.