THE FOUR WINDS OF THE EARTH

 A SERMON FOR ALL SAINTS DAY

Whenever our Mass readings are taken from the Book of the Apocalypse, we always seem to feel a chill of foreboding.  Actually, it is a happy book, filled with the promises of the good things to come after the world ends and we find ourselves amongst the blessed in heaven, giving worship to God, happy forever.  But despite this promise we remain fully aware that the world has not yet ended, and that, before we arrive at this final blessed state, we must first endure a number of rather less pleasant events.  And it is these events that fill us with dread.  Because for us to get to that happy state after the world ends, the world must end.

The same thing happens to us all as individuals.  Every one of us must first die before we can enjoy heaven.  We look forward to heaven, but we dread that final step we have to take in order to get there.  So too with the world itself. 

St. John the Apostle, in writing his apocalyptic vision of the world’s end, describes four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.  Here is the scene in heaven, even as we sit here in this church on this Sunday morning on the first day of November.  Four angels are all that stand between us and the final end of man.  Four angels who, fortunately for us, obey another angel sent to them by God.  As this angel cries out with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, he orders them to “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”   

God is waiting.  Waiting patiently until this final step takes place when his servants are sealed in their foreheads.  These are mystical words.  Not meant to be taken literally perhaps.  But one day, when it happens, we’ll know finally what this prophecy means, and that it has been fulfilled.  Until then, we should ponder upon these words, and ask ourselves what they mean.  Watch the world events, and try to find some correlation between what is happening around us, and this prophecy of the end of time.

First of all, who are God’s servants in this prophecy?  St. John lists them, one by one.  Literally speaking, they are none other than the twelve tribes of Israel.  From each of these twelve tribes, twelve thousand shall be sealed.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret this quite literally, believing that exactly 144,000 shall save their souls.  The other billions of humans simply won’t make it.  But like all prophecies, this one too is shrouded in mystery so that we cannot know exactly what it means until it happens.  Then those men who are of good will can make the connection and understand what they must do.  So let’s be aware of this prophecy, particularly in these increasingly uneasy times we live in.

We have been protected so far by four angels.  Protected from the winds that would otherwise blow from the north, the south, the east and the west.  What are these winds, if not the winds of change?  Not all change is a bad thing—there’s always room for improvement.  We should always be trying to do better as individuals, obeying God’s laws more closely.  As a nation too, our duty is to constantly improve our civil laws so that they more closely reflect the commandments of our Creator.  I hope that our new Supreme Court Justice will help this country to remain on, or return to, that path toward God. 

But the winds of change are already blowing.  We can fill the chill in our bones as the four angels seem to be relaxing their grip on those winds.  Calls to change the very fabric of civilization are being made everywhere we look by progressives who want nothing but change for the sake of change. 

There are four winds.  The first wind blows against the Church.  The God-given Holy Mass of Christ and his Apostles?  Let’s change it!  The Rosary?  Let’s change it!  The Our Father?  Let’s change it!  And why should the natural not follow the spiritual?  The second wind blows against the Nation.  Abolish free speech, abolish the right to bear arms, tear down the border with Mexico, open the prisons, allow looting and rioting in the streets.  The third wind blows against nature, as people invent their own corrupt version of what God created.  They imagine they can overturn the laws of nature by inventing other genders than male and female, by claiming that homosexuality is natural, or that it’s a natural thing for a mother to want to murder her own baby.  And the fourth and final wind, where does that blow?  That, my friends, blows in our very heart and soul.  It seeks to blow away any attachments we may have to God, to the Ten Commandments, to virtue.  It seeks to sweep out of us all love of faith, family, our nation and the institutions and society it provides, our flag, our Constitution, our hallowed traditions and history.  Beware this fourth wind.  It blows along with each of the other three to form a perfect storm destroying all in its path.

They have names, these four winds.  Four institutions of our society that form an unholy alliance to bring about their destruction.  In no particular order the four institutions are Education, Media, Church, and Government.

The Education of our children ensures how they will think when they become adults and take their place in society.  A brief glance at the evils being taught in our schools and universities will confirm which way this is going.  Under the heading of Media, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the open bias of the news organizations, of Hollywood and TV, and of social media like Facebook, Google and Twitter.  They mention nothing that isn’t part of their agenda to pervert our society and our souls, re-forming them into their own image and likeness and not God’s.  By Church, I mean the Conciliar Church.  We’re actually better off, God help us, listening to hardcore Evangelical Protestants these days than to the so-called pope with his globalist and socialist anti-Christian agenda.  The last of the four winds is Government.  Politics.  The progressives have succeeded in infiltrating and controlling totally one of the two political parties, as well as the silent but powerful bureaucracy that turns the wheels of government behind the scenes.  Republicans are not far behind.  The analogy of a swamp is well chosen.  All it takes is for the Democrats to gain total control of our government, and the last bastions of godliness in our civilization will surely vanish beneath its muddy and infested waters.

On Tuesday, if we haven’t done so already, we are called upon to exercise our civic duty by voting.  We are told that this election is the most important, the most momentous and consequential election ever held.  We’ve been told that in every single presidential election I can remember.  It’s in the interest of both parties and of the news media to hype things up.  The politicians want your votes  and the networks want your ratings.  But if we look past the hype, I think we actually can see for ourselves that this election goes way beyond the usual political carrying-on.  The choice we are being given, for once, is not between two merely political opinions of how best to run the government.  If it were, this pulpit would not be the appropriate place to be speaking about it.  But it has become quite clear that our choice this time around is more fundamental in its nature, and definitely more far-reaching in its consequences. 

We are faced with the most basic choice of all.  Good versus evil.  I can’t put it any more plainly.  We know which is which, and what our duty is.  To stay home and not vote is not an option.  Our Lord has said that if we are neither hot nor cold, if we can’t decide whether to choose good or evil, he will vomit us out of his mouth.  There’s no room for the indecisive when it comes to choosing between good or evil.  Choices must be made, and our conscience cannot sit on the fence on this one!

Is it the end of the world if Joe Biden wins the election?  Well, it’s not for us to know the time nor the hour, and many things are prophesied to take place before the actual end.  But know ye this… one day the world will surely end, and the outcome of this week’s election will either make it happen sooner or will postpone the inevitable for a little time longer.  As individuals it’s our job to place our minuscule little vote in such a way as to influence the outcome as best we can.  But the winds of change are ready to be unleashed, and Tuesday is perhaps our last chance to stop them.

May the great army of all the angels and saints in heaven fight on our side as we vote against the forces of darkness.