Yesterday, Monday, August 7, 2023 a massive destructive storm struck the eastern US and a tornado

ripped through Knoxville, Tennessee!

Storms are nothing new. But this one struck Knoxville, JUST and I mean seconds after a man who had never stepped foot inside a Roman Catholic Church and who had no interest in ever doing so, was greeted by a lovely woman with a kind face who had just seen him almost get struck by a car!
I had sent him on foot to go to the nearest Roman Catholic church, find a priest, and ask to hear his general confession. If you have never heard of that phrase, it is when you blurt out every sin and foul deed and thought you ever had starting from childhood on up until the day you get in the confessional. It’s for everyone. BUT it’s especially meant for those who never go to church, never examine their conscience, and never even think about his/her relationship with God nor how they will die nor where his/her soul will end up!
Anyone can go to a priest and confess. The priest can’t give you absolution because you are not a baptized Catholic but GOD hears the confession and digs into your soul and purges you on the spot. It can be painful and for this poor soul it was.
We are not allowed anymore to bitch slap someone wailing that they cannot be saved. Pity that. We should be able to hall off and slap the crap out the person. No one should ever be allowed to despair. And no one should ever watch someone condemn himself or herself and leap into the pit of hell. You might want to give them a push, yes, we do have such urges, but you shouldn’t do it.
At age 54 and a life we shall not disclose except to say it was BAD at times and disgraceful recently. And so this wounded to the core and desperate soul stepped inside and a kind priest agreed to hear his confession just as it started to sprinkle.
And here is where it gets SUPERNATURAL!
There are a lot of steps to doing a confession so this poor soul sits down and BAM the storm starts. They are saying the Lord’s Prayer and and the man who had seen a demon lunge at him on Saturday, began to tell the priest about what he had experienced and how he was terrified. The storm, he texted
“grew so intense that the water raged against the windows and lightning strikes all over the place as I got to the point somewhere along in the conversation about [the woman who everyone had told him was incarnate evil] that lightning struck the tree outside in the branch crashed to the ground, and he said Calm down brother, Calm down! I said they don’t want me here. He said it’s okay I understand you’re not the only one. Lightning struck the tree outside! The storm was so intense he even said we have not had a storm like this in a very long time. All the lights went out in the church! They flickered and went in and out! The stoplights went out! There were screeches of cars on the sidewalks in the streets! As soon as we went through the Ten Commandments and I repeated Lord Deliver Us when the prayer was done the storm was over”!
And just like that the storm STOPPED. The sun came out and he shook and got a bottle of holy water and invitations to come back and talk some more and got a blessing and walked back SEVEN minutes to his motel room and collapsed.
Having never even heard the word hagiography before, this now trembling soul who had the fear of God in him, asked what do you MEAN a saint is not a saint from birth? NO, myth. Rubbish. Some of the greatest saints ever were hardened criminals and I mean murderers, in Buddhism, one was a cannibal. The GREAT saints who go down in history perform amazing miracles – usually after they die, but sometimes while alive and you’d gross out and recoil if you knew their past.
“But I’m not that! I’m a terrible person!”
Well, I replied, “You were until the angelic hoard of Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels aligned with God were battling their exact counterparts in the demonic realm for the exact number of minutes the thief and recalcitrant Know it All soul was pouring his guts out to a priest in the confessional!
I am no longer a Catholic nor an Eastern Orthodox. But I will use whatever means is necessary to save a soul. He was in an area with a huge Catholic Church nearby. Gorgeous landscaping. A Catholic high school and rectory. Everything you could ask for except they were not Latin Rite (Tridentine). Had he been near a Buddhist temple I would have had him incensed and talk to a monk who could have ALSO heard his confession and prayed mantras over him. Not far from Knoxville, is a giant Hindu complex. Had Sadhguru been in residence, he could have knocked all the crap out of him.
But a Christian needs to be treated as gently as possible because the culture shock when in shock would be too much. His soul is now on the right path. The priest warned him the demons can still get him so the stricken soul needs to NEVER sin ever again and be vigilant. I hope he NOW believes in HELL. He witnessed something few have ever experienced yesterday. God doesn’t always send a storm to kick butt!
This means so much coming from a person condemns christianity and any way why doesn’t this happen when the Priest and the rest of the tribe molest people? Don’t you think the supreme being would cast a huge bolt of lighting down upon them as well!!
LikeLike
There is a GREAT reply to a question about dharma.
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/41216/when-the-dharma-will-have-been-forgotten-by-most
This gets VERY complicated. In Hinduism and Buddhism one is taught to practice a what is called dharma. When the world is nearing destruction (each yuga ends up destroying itself not unlike the Hopi belief in the four worlds), shit happens.
It’s really hard to make this simple. There are supernatural forces in the universe.
A human soul is unique and according to all, very precious and fragile.
The fact that priests in the Catholic churches, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu temples, monks in Buddhist temples, Taoists, you name it, are not immune from dharma and karma and the battle for one’s soul, is not a mystery, per se, but something of a conundrum.
Western society has dumbed down the incredible complexity of the spiritual realm to a vapid and simplistic feel good infantile belief system which almost no one adheres to even at the most basic toddler level.
You are like I am in thinking that if there was a Zeus like ALL KNOWING deity he/she would send lightening bolts and fry pedophiles on the spot – preferably before they get to harm anyone.
But alas, Indra-dev got demoted and he never did hurl bolts at sinners. Yahweh was a Semitic war god and he hasn’t done much to clean up the corruption in HIS churches.
BUT that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something else that we have not considered going on.
Lady Justice seems to be on vacation.
If we are nearing the end – and it will get a lot worse – more like what you see in old 1970s films – think Mad Max on crack spills over into Soylent Green, then alas, all the sick Satanic stuff going on in churches and schools and temples and cults like scientology will happen unabatted.
WHY?
Ask Job and his wife Sitis. I don’t have an answer.
LikeLike