When Lightning Strikes

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There is much whirling about.

There are flashes of light.

There’s lightning.

Fathom: on the feast day of John the Baptist, a church dedicated to John the Baptist catches fire, in the U.S., after it is struck by lightning.

jefferson county fire

That was in Jefferson County, Wisconsin.

It’s also the same day that the Madonna of Medjugorje wrapped up a very unusual series of apparitions during a nine-day night-time novena that ended with two seers reunited for a simultaneous apparition for the first time in public in memory.

The apparitions, featuring the “Queen of Peace”—as she is known in Medjugorje—spurred a worldwide novena for that cause, and in the monthly message the day after conclusion, the Virgin clearly tied her special request to that cause, stating (to seer Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti, on June 25, 2024), “Dear children! I rejoice with you and thank God for permitting me to be with you, to lead you and love you. Little children, peace is in danger and the family is under attack. I am calling you, little children: return to prayer in the family. Put Sacred Scripture in a visible place and read it every day. Love God above all that it may be good for you on earth.”

This all came at a time when the leader of Russia was visiting the leader of North Korea, China maintained its coveting eyes on Taiwan, Ukrainians continued to battle desperately for survival, Iran was aiding enemies of Israel, and Israel remained in the searing Gaza battles.

Domestically, societies from Europe to North America heard the fore-echoes of civil war.

And there was more: there was the mention at Medjugorje that “the family is under attack,” and here one’s attention pivoted to the U.S. and Western Europe, where the incredible and appalling normalization of “transgenderism” and the warm receptivity to homosexuality, coupled with plunging rates of traditional marriage and stubbornly high divorce and concubinages, not to mention human trafficking, have directly contravened the Plan of God.

A similar message came on November 25, 2015: “Dear children! Today I am calling all of you: pray for my intentions. Peace is in danger, therefore, little children, pray and be carriers of peace and hope in this restless world where Satan is attacking and tempting in every way.”

Medjugorje first began the day after an unusual lightning storm caused damage in the village—on the feast day of Saint John the Baptist.

Do we mediate enough on why?

Might it be an indication that Christ will soon (in a way similar to His Blessed Mother) manifest?

One wonders because Medjugorje seems like a prelude to major world events.

Contemplate the “1990 prophecy,” part of which said, “I will come not as a man of flesh, but like My mother, who already nurses Me and holds Me in her arms, as a light and power. I will manifest Myself in a series of supernatural events similar to the apparitions but much more powerful. In other words, My second coming will be different than My first, and like My first, it will be spectacular to many but also unknown initially to many, or disbelieved. Yet truly I tell you, the arrogance of the world will have been broken, and so many more than normal will believe.

“I will come in towering light.

“My mother held me in her arms at Medjugorje, as an infant.

“I will come as she has come, in light.”

John the Baptist appeared on the scene just before Jesus.

Lightning struck in an unusual way at Medjugorje the day before Mary first appeared in 1981.

At her apparition concluding the special nine-day novena on Apparition Hill, Our Lady came dressed in a golden dress (that she wears for special feast days like Christmas). She was standing on a cloud with a crown of stars around her head.

[resources: Spirit Daily pilgrimage to Medjugorje]

[Footnote: from viewer Ann Downing from Melrose, Massachusetts: “When I reflect on the Joyful Mystery, the Visitation, I often think about the birth of John the Baptist and the role of the Blessed Mother as she visits Elizabeth. She was present for his birth and probably assisted or attended  in some way. Mary surely was one of the first to hold him after his birth. Therefore, I think Mary’s first appearance at Medjugorje on the Nativity of John the Baptist is perfect timing.”

[Footnote from Maria Meszaros in Detroit: “Thought I’d send you the text I sent out to my holy friends today:

“June 24 – Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
“43 Years ago today, in 1981, the Blessed Virgin Mary began her daily appearances on earth to a group of six young people in Medjugorje, in what was then Communist Yugoslavia. The youngest had just turned ten, the oldest was sixteen. Why had she come, and why on that day?
“She began to reveal to them that God was going to fulfill the Prayer of Petition taught to us by Jesus in the ‘Our Father:’ ‘Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’ The world was going to be purified ‘of all that is not of God,’ and ‘the infrastructure of evil’ was going to be destroyed. She gave them signs to know when and what should precede this next era of mankind. We see a similarity in the Signs given to Pharaoh to release the Hebrews, who then embarked on forty years of Exodus to the Promised Land.
“Mary came to Medjugorje under the title Queen of Peace to call man back to God, saying, ‘Pray until prayer becomes joy for you… Decide daily for holiness,’ and warning, “You have no future if You do not change to the Good.”
“We see in the Book of Apocalypse,  the purification of a world gone deep into sin, and in Chapter 20, not the end of the world, but a New Era of Peace between God and man, and man with each other, reigning for a long period of time.
“Mary came on June 24 in a way as St. John the Baptist came, about whom the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew 3:3 says:
“‘For this is he that was spoken of by Isaiah the Prophet, saying: A voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare ye the Way of the Lord, make straight His paths.” [Isaiah 40:3]
And because the children who saw Our Blessed Mother that first day ran away in fright, she asked that the next day, June 25th, when they stayed to speak with her, be remembered  as the Anniversary of the Apparitions.
“June 25 represents when daylight begins to decrease, and December 25, Christmas Day, represents when daylight begins to Increase, again recalling the words of St. John the Baptist…
“‘I am not Christ, but I am sent before Him…. He must increase, but I must decrease.’
[Holy Gospel According to St. John 3:28, 30]”]
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