Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. (vv. 9-10 from 1 Kings 19)
The first part of the scripture quoted above is also the motto of the Carmelites: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.” I am very inclined towards Carmelite discipline and spirituality. Personally, I think the Carmelites represent in our days a long line of God’s servants that stretch back to the Sons of the Prophets that continue the work that started in the early days of Israel.
Hours ago reports reached me of the massive earthquake in Kamchatka. The news reminded me immediately about the story of Elijah at the cave in Mount Horeb. There is a strong parallelism between Elijah in Horeb and Moses, who received the Law of God in the mountain while —at the same time— Israel committed idolatry with the abominable golden calf. (see Exodus 24 and 32)
There is so much prophetic material packed in both stories! Elijah and Moses share a similar experience. They have a profound, revealing encounter “as God passes by” while Israel engages in unfaithful idolatrous practices. Sounds familiar?
In both cases the presence of God is accompanied by strong natural phenomena such as storms and earthquakes.
When Elijah takes refuge in the cave —centuries after Moses climbed the mountain to receive the Law— a series of natural events take place: a great windstorm and a strong earthquake.
It is fascinating to read how Scripture repeats over and over “the Lord was not” in the storm, earthquake and so on. Why?
I noticed that, in general, both episodes follow a persecution. Israel is persecuted by Pharaoh in the Exodus account and Elijah is running away from the men of queen Jezebel who want to put the prophet to death. Both episodes are followed by a renewal of Israel’s faith and the violent death of the idolatrous parties.
Are these images representing a time in the future (let the reader use discernment) punctuated by man-made natural disasters when the Church will fall into the Great Apostasy described in 2 Thessalonians 2? Will that age also see a massive persecution of the faithful?
All those elements seem to be present in this age we are living. I dare to ask you to meditate on it. What do you think comes next?
I want to thank those readers who have sent their kind prayers and donations for this your blogger. Your encouraging comments are food for my soul. I believe my readers from all over the world are a grace of God. Thank you for your support and may God bless all of you.
Quod scripsi, scripsi 
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NORTH CAROLINA, USA
There is no question that the persecutions have begun. If you watch Catholic Unscripted (recently) they are quite open about the “public unrest” (a prudent understatement) that is coming in their country due to the religious antagonisms arising from the religion of peace. I must say any reading of history points to a certain inevitability in that regard.
As David Warren pointed out in a recent post, the population of followers of the prophet now solidly outnumber the Jews in Canada so the politicians recognize where the votes are and how to court them. We have Jewish friends here who are buying property in other countries as a safe refuge when things get worse here!. As the west dreams of spiritual inclusion, all of history shows that religio-political differences are a recipe for big trouble. From Ur to Gaza it’s the same old story!
J.
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RESPONSE TO J. NORTH CAROLINA
Thank you for the compliment but I found your response more interesting than my musings! 😉
I expect a renewal of the Catholic Faith mainly because Our Lady has announced it many times. Trouble is, Our Lady also warned us of a previous purification. I think the travails and trials of Elijah are a prophetic scale model of the travails and trials of the Church. I also believe those trials have started to happen. Look at China, Africa, and other places. Look at the hundreds of churches arson in France, Belgium. We are all suffering in one way or another.
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You do always manage, it seems, to find the loose nut that needs tightening. That is one of my five favorite passages in scripture, right alongside the prodigal son, but I always focused on the still, small voice from which Elijah withdrew in fear and trembling. By cutting the narrative early, you forced me to consider the interesting proposition that the tremendous events preceded the Lord. The text does not even hint that the Lord caused the fire and the wind and the earthquake – at least not directly. That would be just a bit of showmanship – a theatrical flourish. From your post I can now see that when God is moving in the world not only the stones cry out and quake, but the elements of wind and fire break out in witness.
I am reading a book entitled “They Flew” by Charles Erie in which he discusses the long history of levitation as an effect of profound spirituality. There is a lot more to the book as well. It is really an exploration of what happens when the eternal dimension spills into the dimensions of time and space. That could serve as a description of the miraculous, the intermixing of the eternal and the temporal.
The eternal has no seasons, it simply is. In the temporal realm we move through time always forward. When we move away from God, He doesn’t change, we do. Now some say that conditions in the quantum scale may be altered by an observer. Jesus said that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could tell the nearest mountain to uproot itself and move to the sea. In other words, I believe He is telling us that we have an effect on the physical world through our thoughts. Certainly, the placebo effect is one example. What then might be expected if hundreds of millions of people turn off their faith as is the case today? This probably is not the Great Apostasy, but who can say? It certainly could be the beginning of it.
There have always been earthquakes and fires and windstorms. And yet history shows there are interludes of renewal and the building up of civilization and culture. Those times seem to coincide with general belief in civic virtue based on morality, which itself comes from a divine source. Jesus tells us to pray, to ask the Father for safety, for sustenance, that we not be put to the test, and to deliver us from the evil one. He tells us to persevere in our prayers for those things. He tells us that no father would give a child a stone if he asks for bread. What happens then if a majority of a society stop asking? My guess is that they get what they get when they depend on their own puny powers and darkened imaginations.
There was a thunderstorm outside my window last night. It played about a single large storm cell that reached up into the stratosphere. It was just to the south of my position so that I could see the moon at the same time in a clear patch of sky. The cloud to the south flickered continuously. Every now and then a blinding filament of lightning broke across the darkness from cloud to cloud or from a cloud to the ground, miles in length. Then the lights of an airliner appeared against the storm cloud. The jet was on approach to an airport about fifteen miles from here. It looked frighteningly small and vulnerable like a firefly. I was glad I was on solid ground.
The lightening display and the thunder produced were so dramatic and so out of scale to the human, that I more deeply understood why the Greeks bowed before Zeus as the King of the gods. Science has made a mockery of Zeus and his kind. We now know that bolts are Volts. But God was not in the millions of electron Volts striking across the sky. He is the still, small voice calling to us in our hearts. It would be better for the world if we paid attention.
J.
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I think the sign is in the prediction. Men will be able to produce natural disasters. God is not in them. Even Trump’s comments on the Kamchatka earthquake suggest some kind of human intervention.
It could have been a test of what the Russkies will eventually do north of Britain to cause a wave that will pass over the British isles. More coincidences.
• King Charles has cancer. He cannot be operated.
• It has been predicted that his children will not reign.
• Irlmaier predicted a wave will pass over the isles reaching France and Portugal.
• St. Patrick predicted that Ireland will be “drowned” before the end to prevent Erie to fully participate in the Great Apostasy.
• The Russians have thermobaric weapons.
You do the math. It’s not pretty.
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The answers will be interesting.
I am unable to parse the riddle. Could it be that we are looking for the Lord to be in these earthly turmoil, when in fact He had nothing to do with them? Are we ‘looking for a sign’ when in fact there is none? Nonetheless, the events presage real changes.
MNJ
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