The John-Henry Westen Show - Episode 19： Are the end-times predicted in the Scriptures upon us？ (Part 2 of 2)

00:00:00.280 Hello and welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.

00:00:03.740 I'm excited to bring you part two of our interview with author, novelist, painter and speaker Michael D. O'Brien, a true prophet of our times.

00:00:12.920 In this episode we discuss the end times and why Michael feels that the great apostasy predicted in the scriptures has indeed begun.

00:00:21.620 And let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.

00:00:24.860 In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

00:00:28.860 It's going to be an exciting show. Stay tuned.

00:00:32.240 So, one of the things you just mentioned is probably the heart of the confusion.

00:01:02.040 Or at least for many.

00:01:03.720 It's also one of the hardest things for the common non-Christian men to accept about Christianity, about faith generally.

00:01:14.020 That's the concept of hell.

00:01:15.340 You were mentioning how our Lord said you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

00:01:19.660 And probably the most famous question.

00:01:21.940 I ask you this also because you've been on the other side in flirting with or into atheism and then come out of it.

00:01:29.940 You've also argued with some of the intellectual greats of this world.

00:01:35.160 And how do you, you're a lover of Jesus that's so evident, and yet you believe in this possibility of hell, eternal hell, or eternal damnation as they call it.

00:01:50.380 And the big question from the world always on this thing is, well, if you believe in a loving God, how can a loving God send people to hell?

00:01:58.400 Well, what would you respond to that?

00:01:59.780 Oh, hell is real.

00:02:05.540 Well, Jesus speaks about the reality and the risk for all of us of ending up there.

00:02:15.140 He speaks of it several times.

00:02:19.700 The book of Revelation, he is speaking again of the great risk.

00:02:25.620 Look towards the final chapter of Revelation.

00:02:27.900 Revelation, it's very clear.

00:02:30.300 There is no ambiguity.

00:02:33.840 The problem with our contemporary consciousness, our ears, so to speak, our ears which have been tickled by so many alternative voices, loud voices, brilliant voices,

00:02:50.060 is that we can no longer hear the voice of love speaking to us in these warnings.

00:02:57.900 Revelation, this is love speaking.

00:03:02.000 The Lord is saying, I desire that all man be saved.

00:03:06.940 He desires this.

00:03:09.040 But he cannot force faith upon anyone.

00:03:12.980 He cannot force salvation on anyone.

00:03:15.540 To do so would be a violation of his own nature.

00:03:19.600 It would be a violation of love and the moral order of the universe that he has created.

00:03:25.640 So, what are we to do when we meet people who simply dispense references to eternal suffering, eternal exile from God as an ancient myth,

00:03:44.120 a dishonored, discredited myth which we in the modern age have evolved beyond?

00:03:50.840 What do you say to such people?

00:03:54.300 Well, personally, I look at my own psychology as an individual during my years of agnosticism and atheism.

00:04:06.740 I look at the pride which blinded me.

00:04:10.960 I'm an intelligent guy.

00:04:12.940 So, I can read really, really intelligent books and regurgitate massive rationalist thought, massive amount of it.

00:04:23.520 I can sound pretty convincing.

00:04:26.580 And in those years, I sounded pretty convincing.

00:04:28.920 But I was blind.

00:04:33.020 And the very nature of such blindness is that you cannot see your own blindness.

00:04:41.140 You're inside yourself and you're especially unable to see reality if you're convinced of your own superiority, your own superior vision.

00:04:50.480 So blind was I that it took a divine mercy of extraordinary mercy from our Lord to shatter in an instant all my conceptions,

00:05:04.300 which I had carefully built up in the 1960s by reading existential philosophy and new age thought and all the modern rationalists,

00:05:14.160 Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus, all these other brilliant minds, sometimes very creative minds.

00:05:23.300 But dead letters, dead words, ultimately not reality.

00:05:29.560 How do you speak through, as one who has met the Lord, who has seen the nature of the great war in the heavens,

00:05:40.760 who has seen the malice and deceits of the enemy infesting even your own heart, mind?

00:05:50.780 How do you speak to those still trapped in that?

00:05:53.540 It's a great dilemma for me, because everyone is at different stages of perceptual consciousness

00:06:03.360 and psychological openness and also intellectual entrapment or freedom.

00:06:13.380 At the very least, you have to see each of us, each of us who follow Christ, who seek to follow him wholeheartedly,

00:06:23.100 have to say to Jesus in prayer,

00:06:28.380 be within me this moment, Lord, meeting this person,

00:06:33.060 this person who's screaming in my face or this person who is downloading endless rationalism in brilliant language.

00:06:45.600 How do you penetrate through those force fields?

00:06:49.720 You are the Word.

00:06:51.400 You are a living member of the body of Christ.

00:06:57.040 And if you invoke him to be within your heart, soul, mind, and the Holy Spirit,

00:07:02.220 he will give you the words to say.

00:07:04.440 They may be very simple.

00:07:07.280 They may be, in the face of a tsunami of rationalism, only this.

00:07:14.800 I once thought of you.

00:07:16.780 I know your arguments.

00:07:19.740 But then I met Jesus.

00:07:21.420 He who loves you with a love you can't fathom right now.

00:07:29.020 He loves you.

00:07:30.580 You don't know him yet.

00:07:33.520 One day you'll know him.

00:07:35.040 One day you'll meet him.

00:07:37.460 And that's my belief.

00:07:38.840 I think our task, our missionary task at this time of history is primarily,

00:07:45.380 without negating all the other dimensions of evangelization,

00:07:48.740 is primarily to pray for souls.

00:07:51.420 To pray and sacrifice for souls, with much fasting as well.

00:07:59.020 Where this ends up, and it's many pastors that now do this,

00:08:03.380 they teach and or preach the concept of an empty hell.

00:08:10.200 Or their answer to that question is to basically abandon the question,

00:08:14.000 just to say, oh, it's all nonsense anyway.

00:08:15.900 But this is now not only, it's very common among pastors, among prelates even,

00:08:23.560 to make this suggestion, to teach this suggestion.

00:08:27.120 One of the things Pope Benedict said recently was, even in retirement,

00:08:33.320 that was that, you know, without that impetus to save people from hell,

00:08:37.340 what would have happened to the impetus for the martyrs who came to evangelize and got killed?

00:08:43.600 What would you say to a pastor who is given to this theory of,

00:08:48.900 or hope of an empty hell, and who's preaching this?

00:08:51.720 I would say, dear pastor, you are trying to reassure your flock,

00:09:00.280 but you are trying to reassure them with a placebo.

00:09:05.700 They need the fullness of the truth.

00:09:07.680 They need the words of Christ.

00:09:09.240 They need the words and the witness of the martyrs and apostles.

00:09:12.440 They need to be warned.

00:09:15.980 They need to be awakened.

00:09:18.200 You can do it with sensitive pastoral language if you wish,

00:09:21.640 but they do need to be awakened.

00:09:25.280 It is a heresy to say that there is no eternal damnation.

00:09:30.120 It's the heresy of universalism.

00:09:35.320 To go halfway and say, well, there is hell.

00:09:39.300 Well, the Lord says there's a hell, but there's probably no one in that.

00:09:44.000 It is presuming far too much, and it is also counter-scriptural.

00:09:50.580 The Lord warns us, many fall into it.

00:09:55.220 Wide is the road that leads to perdition, and many fall into it.

00:09:59.620 Narrow is the gate that leads to paradise.

00:10:04.640 These are hard sayings of Jesus.

00:10:07.540 We've always called them hard sayings.

00:10:10.300 But what heart of a father would say to their child,

00:10:20.120 oh, I love you so much.

00:10:22.380 I love you tenderly.

00:10:23.640 I want to see you happy and peaceful.

00:10:26.780 I want to see you exercise your own freedom.

00:10:29.540 Yes, if you feel convinced that you wish to play ball in the middle of the 401 freeway,

00:10:39.880 if you wish to run into traffic,

00:10:43.040 I want you to know that I always support you.

00:10:47.740 What does a true father do?

00:10:49.500 My child, if you do that, if you run into traffic again, you will die.

00:11:02.100 You will be harmed, at the very least, severely harmed.

00:11:05.600 I love you so much, but I'm not going to let you do that.

00:11:10.640 And if the will to radical autonomy is such in a child,

00:11:20.600 understandable in little children,

00:11:22.920 understandable to a degree in adolescence,

00:11:26.200 but with grown adults,

00:11:29.460 can you wrap your arms around them and pull them away from the traffic

00:11:34.840 when they say,

00:11:37.260 there's no danger, there's no traffic,

00:11:40.000 I won't die.

00:11:45.340 What does one do?

00:11:47.120 If it's your own children,

00:11:48.300 you can wrap your arms around them and drag them away.

00:11:51.740 What do you do with the human race in general?

00:11:54.360 I think all you can do is be faithful to the word that says,

00:11:58.660 wait, do not go there.

00:12:03.640 You will die. 0.98

00:12:06.380 Pretty simple. 0.99

00:12:07.740 Some would say simplistic,

00:12:09.300 but it's reality.

00:12:12.200 So with all of this situation,

00:12:15.180 the situation of,

00:12:17.520 as you were saying,

00:12:18.240 the great apostasy,

00:12:19.600 of the massive confusion in the church,

00:12:23.580 even among the prelates who govern the church,

00:12:28.560 where do you get your hope?

00:12:29.920 Now you're an Irishman, 0.93

00:12:31.260 and you're a melancholic Irishman,

00:12:33.180 but nevertheless,

00:12:34.900 hopeful,

00:12:35.460 you can still smile.

00:12:36.640 You still pray with joy.

00:12:40.120 And I know,

00:12:41.040 in your own life,

00:12:42.340 you're having all sorts of difficulties,

00:12:44.560 yet you can smile,

00:12:46.500 yet you don't lose the faith.

00:12:48.420 You cling even more and more and more

00:12:50.300 to our Lord,

00:12:51.500 especially His Holy Mother.

00:12:53.320 Where does that hope come from?

00:12:55.340 How do we convey that hope to people?

00:12:57.640 And especially for the Catholics today,

00:13:01.420 who are living in a church replete with confusion,

00:13:04.080 even when they actually see it.

00:13:05.460 So for the few who are actually seeing what's happening,

00:13:08.740 and just suffering because of it,

00:13:11.340 where are they to draw their hope from?

00:13:13.060 Where we always draw it from,

00:13:15.340 that is,

00:13:15.920 from the springs of living water,

00:13:19.300 that is,

00:13:19.920 from the source of the springs,

00:13:21.300 who is the Lord Himself,

00:13:22.900 the life within the Holy Trinity,

00:13:25.180 poured out for mankind

00:13:26.200 through Jesus Christ,

00:13:28.780 who is with us,

00:13:30.520 who was,

00:13:32.080 who is,

00:13:32.620 and who is coming.

00:13:33.680 But He is with us right now.

00:13:37.440 I derive my own sense of hope

00:13:39.500 through primarily the Eucharist

00:13:43.460 and the sacrament of reconciliation,

00:13:46.640 confession,

00:13:48.380 by an ongoing

00:13:49.200 faithfulness to constant conversion.

00:13:56.660 And I am in constant need of conversion.

00:14:00.400 And living in that poverty,

00:14:02.240 accepting to be poor,

00:14:04.220 that I really need a Savior

00:14:05.680 every day of the life.

00:14:07.700 So little by little,

00:14:08.720 as one matures in the Holy Spirit,

00:14:11.480 you can come to an inner condition

00:14:16.360 where you say,

00:14:17.180 I cannot save mankind,

00:14:19.340 I cannot even save myself.

00:14:21.080 I cannot save the church

00:14:22.920 in its time of severe crisis.

00:14:26.160 What I can do

00:14:27.460 is be faithful to Jesus Christ,

00:14:29.940 to be everything He teaches us

00:14:32.920 we should be

00:14:35.020 if we seek to follow Him

00:14:36.580 with our whole hearts,

00:14:38.000 to learn from the saints,

00:14:41.560 from the teachings

00:14:42.440 of our true shepherds,

00:14:45.540 the popes who've gone before,

00:14:47.380 to learn from the experiences

00:14:50.980 which divine providence

00:14:53.680 brings into our lives

00:14:56.260 and shapes us with.

00:14:58.460 By prayer,

00:15:00.140 that when we are discouraged,

00:15:01.820 when we feel angry,

00:15:04.040 when we feel tempted

00:15:05.880 to dismay or despair,

00:15:08.160 we don't curl inwards

00:15:10.500 to our own resources.

00:15:12.040 we run immediately

00:15:16.120 to the Lord

00:15:16.840 and say,

00:15:18.020 Here I am, Lord.

00:15:18.980 Here I am.

00:15:19.620 You see my anger.

00:15:20.640 You see my grief.

00:15:22.500 My grief

00:15:23.120 over the condition

00:15:24.060 of the church.

00:15:25.700 Lord, Lord,

00:15:26.660 I give you

00:15:27.180 my little sufferings

00:15:28.700 united to your cross

00:15:31.380 for the purification

00:15:32.960 and the strengthening

00:15:35.480 of the church

00:15:37.480 that we may bear the light,

00:15:39.720 that we may continue

00:15:42.020 to be salt of the earth

00:15:45.360 for other souls.

00:15:50.840 Hope is a supernatural virtue.

00:15:54.660 It's not optimism.

00:15:57.160 It's very different

00:15:57.960 from faith and love,

00:16:00.640 although there's dimensions

00:16:01.900 of supernatural gift in both.

00:16:04.980 But hope is a particularly

00:16:06.500 unique kind of grace

00:16:10.360 which we have to ask the Lord for.

00:16:15.960 If I may add,

00:16:18.600 especially we Irish melancholics

00:16:20.580 must particularly ask for.

00:16:22.940 Natural optimists?

00:16:25.860 Good for you.

00:16:26.800 I'm glad you're optimists.

00:16:28.260 But there will come a time

00:16:30.100 when all of us will be tested

00:16:31.540 in the dimension

00:16:33.660 of interior hope.

00:16:36.440 So for me,

00:16:37.960 this is a horribly long answer

00:16:39.640 to a short question,

00:16:41.140 but it's so crucial,

00:16:42.420 I think,

00:16:42.800 for the times

00:16:43.560 that we are entering

00:16:45.260 into more and more.

00:16:48.340 We will need hope

00:16:49.740 in a way we have not

00:16:51.000 until now.

00:16:54.680 We must keep our eyes

00:16:56.480 on the true horizon,

00:16:58.140 the eyes of the heart,

00:16:59.200 the eyes of the soul,

00:17:00.100 of the true horizon.

00:17:02.020 The Lord is coming,

00:17:03.700 He is near,

00:17:05.560 He will purify the Church, 1.00

00:17:08.340 He will bring mercy

00:17:10.820 and truth to mankind.

00:17:13.860 And in Him we have to trust.

00:17:17.540 Beautiful.

00:17:18.400 Let me just ask you

00:17:19.240 one last thing,

00:17:20.500 and that is about Our Lady.

00:17:23.180 I know you have

00:17:23.660 a devotion to Her,

00:17:24.740 you have beautiful icons

00:17:26.740 which to me

00:17:27.700 bespeak of your love

00:17:29.100 for Our Lady,

00:17:29.780 because I see

00:17:30.320 in Her eyes

00:17:31.140 the love with which

00:17:33.260 you created the image.

00:17:36.760 So what is Our Lady to you?

00:17:39.340 What is Our Lady

00:17:40.060 to the Church right now?

00:17:42.340 Oh, you're asking me

00:17:43.540 to condense an ocean

00:17:44.620 into a little teacup.

00:17:47.980 Our Lady.

00:17:48.760 I think she is God's great gift

00:17:52.920 to accompany Christ as Redeemer.

00:17:58.820 In a sense,

00:17:59.420 she is co-redemptrix,

00:18:01.620 in a subsidiary sense,

00:18:04.240 united to Jesus

00:18:05.120 on the cross

00:18:06.260 and in the resurrection.

00:18:09.920 But touching upon her role

00:18:11.760 in our own times,

00:18:14.580 she has always been

00:18:15.520 been our mother intercessor.

00:18:18.440 She has always been

00:18:19.520 prophetic,

00:18:21.040 bringing words of warning

00:18:22.160 to the Church

00:18:22.960 at its times

00:18:24.580 of gravest crisis.

00:18:26.740 The last 170 years

00:18:29.840 of Marian apparitions,

00:18:31.460 approved by the Church,

00:18:33.720 are a continual maternal call

00:18:36.240 to repentance,

00:18:37.700 to prayer,

00:18:38.380 to intercession,

00:18:39.240 to the conversion

00:18:40.340 of our own hearts,

00:18:42.100 lest justice fall

00:18:44.700 upon mankind.

00:18:47.000 The justice

00:18:47.700 that we have called down

00:18:50.440 upon ourselves.

00:18:52.760 Heaven desires

00:18:53.800 to pour out mercy

00:18:55.080 on mankind,

00:18:56.400 but if we do not repent,

00:18:59.460 the Lord will not allow

00:19:01.760 evil to continue

00:19:04.880 to devour the good

00:19:06.420 indefinitely.

00:19:08.380 Ad infinitum.

00:19:09.680 It is mercy

00:19:11.300 that will bring

00:19:12.780 the times

00:19:15.640 of the apocalypse

00:19:16.340 to their definitive conclusion.

00:19:18.480 It is mercy.

00:19:19.420 We tend to think

00:19:20.060 of it as justice.

00:19:21.700 It is justice,

00:19:23.220 but it is primarily mercy.

00:19:25.460 But the reign of evil

00:19:26.780 will end.

00:19:28.880 What is Our Lady's role? 1.00

00:19:31.460 There is that

00:19:32.320 most beautiful passage

00:19:33.680 in Genesis

00:19:36.540 where

00:19:38.720 the reference

00:19:41.160 is to the woman.

00:19:43.700 I will set enmity

00:19:44.820 between you

00:19:45.780 and the woman, 0.79

00:19:46.500 your offspring

00:19:47.160 and her offspring. 0.99

00:19:50.700 And she will crush 0.99

00:19:51.760 the head of the serpent. 0.61

00:19:55.080 Then in the final book

00:19:56.460 of Sacred Scriptures,

00:19:58.040 from Genesis

00:19:58.680 forward to Revelation,

00:20:01.040 we have the great

00:20:02.520 vision of St. John

00:20:04.020 of the woman

00:20:04.740 clothed with the sun,

00:20:07.680 the crown of twelve stars.

00:20:10.920 You are all familiar

00:20:11.720 with the iconography

00:20:12.800 of this

00:20:13.400 in Western

00:20:14.280 and Eastern art.

00:20:16.000 But this is the role

00:20:17.260 of not only the church,

00:20:19.440 it is a type

00:20:19.960 of the church,

00:20:20.980 but the woman 0.99

00:20:22.360 of Revelation.

00:20:23.920 But the woman 0.99

00:20:25.280 clothed with the sun,

00:20:26.760 standing on the moon,

00:20:27.940 surrounded by twelve stars.

00:20:29.400 She is also Mary.

00:20:33.020 She is our mother.

00:20:34.100 She is

00:20:34.780 the new Eve.

00:20:39.020 And in

00:20:39.720 her assistance,

00:20:43.620 assisting the redemption

00:20:44.800 of mankind

00:20:45.460 in an absolutely

00:20:47.040 unique manner,

00:20:49.180 God in his mercy

00:20:52.480 has allowed,

00:20:54.460 poor word,

00:20:55.680 the reversal

00:20:56.300 more accurately,

00:20:59.920 the restoration

00:21:00.520 of man

00:21:01.320 through Christ.

00:21:02.700 But through

00:21:03.160 Christ the new Adam,

00:21:06.060 Mary the new Eve.

00:21:08.320 This is love at work

00:21:09.600 in salvation history.

00:21:14.840 I keep in mind,

00:21:17.000 and I pray often,

00:21:19.300 the promise of Genesis,

00:21:20.640 which,

00:21:22.640 if the apocalypse

00:21:23.760 is to unfold

00:21:24.920 in its final phases

00:21:26.460 in our lifetimes,

00:21:27.960 we will see

00:21:29.200 incarnated

00:21:30.600 in her

00:21:31.920 crushing 0.98

00:21:32.600 the head 0.62

00:21:33.160 of the serpent.

00:21:34.620 What form

00:21:35.240 that will take,

00:21:35.840 I don't know.

00:21:37.520 Surely,

00:21:38.380 part of it

00:21:38.900 will be

00:21:39.440 our prayers,

00:21:42.320 assisting

00:21:42.840 her prayers

00:21:44.840 to the Father.

00:21:46.820 Amen.

00:21:48.180 Beautiful.

00:21:49.100 Thank you, Michael.

00:21:49.740 I want to be

00:21:51.760 short.

00:21:52.240 Info by the answer.

00:21:53.580 Sorry, sorry, sorry.

00:21:56.320 That's all the time

00:21:57.160 we have for this episode.

00:21:58.620 No, that's great.

00:21:59.520 That's all the time

00:22:00.220 we have for this episode

00:22:01.340 of the John Henry Weston Show

00:22:02.660 from the beautiful

00:22:04.860 Ottawa Valley.

00:22:06.100 May God bless you

00:22:06.920 and keep you,

00:22:08.080 and we'll see you next time.

The John-Henry Westen Show - July 30, 2019

Episode 19： Are the end-times predicted in the Scriptures upon us？ (Part 2 of 2)

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