Visions of Mary

I see the Catholic church is going to get stricter on visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. So anyone out there with a piece of burnt toast or windows angled toward the sun on which you're able to see things, stake your claims now before you have to prove it.

In this story,

Catholics who claim they have seen the Virgin Mary will be forced to remain silent about the apparitions until a team of psychologists, theologians, priests and exorcists have fully investigated their claims under new Vatican guidelines aimed at stamping out false claims of miracles.

The Pope instructed the proper office that deals with things like this to draw up a new handbook "to help bishops snuff out an explosion of bogus heavenly apparitions." I like the logic in one of the guidelines: If you're quiet about what you've seen it's more likely you've seen it. If you tell folks what you've seen it's more likely it's false. So there's some incentive. If you really see something, don't even tell the Bishop, don't tell anyone, then you'll know it's true!

But apparently they don't expect you to keep completely quiet, because at some point they're going to have a team of psychiatrists come by and certify your mental health while theologians evaluate what you've seen and the messages (if any) obtained therefrom. The next step is even more interesting. Next, "one or more demonologists and exorcists" will investigate the situation to make sure Satan isn't hiding behind the apparitions. I can hear the devil now: "Curses, foiled again!"

As for you, the visionary, if you would like to avoid all this terrible red tape, in my opinion, just claim what you've seen, and if they don't like it ... that's their problem.

Jesus' Return in 1988

I meant to have a really good internet observation of the 20th anniversary of Jesus' return in 1988, as predicted by Edgar Whisenant.

I remembered it was September 1988 but didn't have the dates clearly in mind after all this time. Now I look at Wikipedia and the dates were between Sept. 11 and Sept. 13.

I do remember this part, that he had a book (two books combined), 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988 and On Borrowed Time. I am virtually 100% sure that there was an edition of the book that didn't have the word "Could" in the title but a more definite word, which I think was "Will." What other options could there be that would be definite?

They have a quote by Whisenant that I also remember, at least a variation of it: "Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong; and I say that to every preacher in town."



I went to one of his meetings in 1988. And I have tapes of several of his radio shows that were broadcast on KAAY radio from Little Rock, Arkansas. My collection is a hodge podge and I don't have them catalogued well. The shows were repeated from time to time, so what dates they were presented is unknown to me. He wrote another book after the Lord's coming didn't happen in '88, predicting it for '89, basing this revised theory on the fact that he felt he was mistaken in having considered the year 0 an actual year, or something like that. In other words he was off by a year, making '89 the true year. This book had a title something like "The Midnight Call" or "Midnight Cry," just going by memory.

His co-host on the show was named Greg Brewer. So ... 20 years have passed. And Jesus still hasn't come. Wikipedia says Edgar died in 2001.