A prelude to very interesting times?

Carlos Caso-Rosendi

It was early June, 1963. The bells of the little church of Garabandal began tolling “a muerto.” Then Conchita González, one of the visionaries of Garabandal, said to her mother Aniceta:

“The bells are tolling, someone has died. Surely, it is for the Pope [John XXIII]. Now there are three Popes left.”

The Virgin Mary had told her that after John XXIII there were only three more popes left before the end of the end times would begin.

“After this Pope there are only three popes left and then comes the end of times.” (Diario de Conchita,  entry of June 5, 1963.)

Here I must ask my friends to locate some information for me. In one of the numerous books about Fatima currently gathering dust in my personal library, there is a report stating that Sister Lucia dos Santos (Sister Lucy of Fatima) was promised by Our Lady that she was going to live long enough to see the beginning of the end times. If I remember well, Sister Lucy received that prophecy in 1946. If any of you can locate that information, please add a comment to this article and I will be happy to include it here. Unfortunately, my memory is not as good as it used to be and I cannot locate the quote at this moment, but I promise you it is true. Eventually, I will find it and post it here.

Sister Lucy died on February 13, 2005 only a few weeks before the third Pope passed away on April 2, 2005 on the eve of Mercy Sunday. Putting both prophecies together one can  easily conclude that we have been “in the end times” at least since 2005. In my opinion, we have been threading the final part of the end times much longer than that, at least since the days of the II Vatican Council.

Few would disagree with me that we are living in the “times of confusion” prophesied for the Church by Our Lady of Mount Carmel in her visits to Garabandal during the early 1960’s. And here I have another piece of information I must locate for you. Reportedly, the last time Our Lady visited Sister Lucy of Fatima, she departed with the following words:

“I will see you [“you” is plural here] at St. Sebastian.”

Now, the complete name of the village of Garabandal is San Sebastián de Garabandal. It may so happen that the name of St. Sebastian is not there by mere chance. Nothing ever happens by chance during the visitations of Our Blessed Mother.

St. Sebastian was a young Christian martyred by Roman Emperor Diocletian. Our saint is the only one I know to have been martyred twice. He is usually depicted shot by many arrows. He is remembered by the Church on December 18.

“St. Sebastian, having sent so many martyrs to heaven before him, was himself impeached before the Emperor Diocletian (284-305), who…delivered him over to certain archers of Mauritania (country in western Africa), to be shot to death. His body was covered with arrows and left for dead.” Acts Of Sebastian.

In March of 1944, Sister Lucy wrote to the Pope, recalling the vision received July 13, 1917:

[We saw] … a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. (The Message of Fatima)

I always wondered if the arrows in this vision are significant. If the arrows are an oblique reference to the martyrdom of St. Sebastian: Could that be an indication that this is a double martyrdom? The Bishop dressed in white could be representing the papacy and not merely  a specific Pope. At this point, let us remember that at every important Passover of the people of God, there have been two witnesses. (See Deuteronomy 19:15)

Aaron and Moses during the Passover from Egypt (Exodus 6:26)  while Annas and Caiaphas were both High Priests at the time of  the Crucifixion. (John 11:49-52) See also the account of the two witnesses in Revelation 11:1-13. I hesitate to call your attention to the fact that for the first time in the history of the Church, two men who have held the Chair of Peter are alive and living in the Vatican at the same time. One more detail that caught my attention: the first important event presided by Pope Francis was the World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro. The Patron saint of that city is — you guessed it — St. Sebastian.

I know these are only barely connected thoughts, un parfum de la fin des temps and may mean nothing at all or may be the echo of a prelude to very interesting times: the great Passover into the age of Mary.

On the day of Saint Vincent de Paul