Catholic during the Great Apostasy

Today we will begin by telling a certain true story.
A few years earlier, a certain man experienced a conversion. Because his sins were not small, it was quite a spectacular conversion, and in the first years, he also experienced various visions. For example, in realizing that no cooperation or even tolerance for today’s modernism in the Church was possible, a vision of one of the so-called popes in hell helped him.

Visions of losing his beloved wife also occurred quite often. It wasn’t clear exactly how it would happen, but it was connected to what he began to do for God after his conversion. It was always like a warning: there is no other way for you now. Over time, the intensity of such events decreased, but the awareness of what had been conveyed always guided his actions — until the moment he decided that the system in which he lived — work, home, and writing at night — could be changed if he returned to his old way of thinking about earning money.
Quick investments, initial successes — these consumed more and more time. Although he thought he wasn’t neglecting anything else, his mind began to be covered in fog. This lasted a month. Then came the news of his wife’s serious illness. He was unable to think. Only after two weeks did he check what was happening with his money. Losses. From the beginning, there was the awareness that it was his fault, he had broken the promise made to God.
Breaking free from the dark night lasted five months. Full awakening came on May 13, or rather on the 14th, because that’s when he realized that the day before, he had written a text in which he turned to Our Lady — and signs of hope appeared, not just sparks, but lights. May 13 is the anniversary of the Fatima apparitions — it was the first time in years he had forgotten it, but on that very day, he had turned to Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, without knowing what day it was.
Awakening is a state similar to conversion, but not as intense. It allows for a return to faith, that is, to home. However, for it to occur, we must know our own soul well, be able to react to the changes taking place within it. I described this in detail in the ebook Loneliness of the Soul.

Very often, just as Jonah fled to Spain, so we flee from fulfilling the will of God. This is our so-called free will. We oppose God’s wisdom with our human foolishness. The example presented does not have to reflect every one of our situations precisely, but it only shows a general pattern. A month of falling away required five months of awakening. We can assume that a year would need five years. Isn’t that a terrifying perspective?
And let us remember that this situation concerned a man who was already converted, so we must realize how hard it is for someone to emerge from such a state after years without faith. We can flee for years from fulfilling the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it leads us only into greater and greater darkness.
The eternal question is: how do we know the will of God?
There is a simple answer — as always in matters of the soul. The basic thing is peace of soul. It is the solid rock on which our Church is built. It forms an inner protective layer that prevents us from sinking, that allows us to survive all the storms life brings.
Of course, we are only human, but if our faith is as solid as a rock, even though we respond to various situations with feelings such as sadness, regret, or despair, these are only external symptoms, which — as flawed human beings — we cannot control. Inside we are calm and full of hope.
In the situation described above, we see that ultimate help was granted by Our Lady, which should be a natural thing for a Catholic. However, unfortunately, we can see today a downplaying of the role of our Beloved Queen. People claim they have direct contact with God, as can be seen, for example, in charismatic sects. I will just repeat what I have written several times: so-called speaking in tongues or throwing oneself on the ground is a sign of babble and demonic possession, not an action of the Holy Spirit.
For an ordinary person, direct contact with God is very difficult.
St. Catherine of Siena:

“O Lord, Your love is a fire that burns my heart, and I cannot bear it; grant me the grace to endure this flame, or I shall die of longing for You.”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux: “When the Bridegroom comes to the soul, its weakness trembles before His glory, and the heart aches, for it cannot fully respond to such great love.”
St. Bonaventure:

“For the mind to ascend to God, it must completely die to itself, and that death is so difficult that it surpasses all bodily suffering.”
Such situations are hard to describe. You feel such incredible goodness, love, and justice that it simply overwhelms the ordinary person, causing pain to the soul, and even the body. It’s difficult to recover after encountering such a great power as God. That is why we need Our Lady as our guide and mediator.
The beginnings of falling away from faith can be easily noticed because they always begin with forgetting about this Merciful Queen. Look at the Protestants: at first they thought Catholics gave too much honor to the Mother of God, until gradually they came to hatred.
Whenever we look at the world instead of God, we flee and act in exactly the opposite way from what His teaching — and simply sound reason — dictates.
Human kingdoms were born and died, the church hierarchy also passes away, church buildings fall into ruin — but one thing will always remain unchanged: our faith preserved in our souls.
Now we have the era of apostate modernism. It too will fall, it will pass, and only the memory of the terrifying evil it represented will remain: abortion and euthanasia, genocide on a scale never seen before, sexual abuse of children, depravity that is obvious evidence of the devil’s actions — just like financial fraud.
But only one thing is important now: the survival of souls in this trash heap of the world, in this synagogue of Satan. Our souls can halt the march of this murderous ideology. It truly does not matter how many of us remain. Let us remember that 12 apostles converted millions. We all have a calling to spread the Truth. Some as priests, others as transmitters of knowledge, but the most important are those third ones whose task is to persevere in faith to the end and to listen to the will of God, not of men.
Yes, that is the biggest problem of today’s Catholics — forgetting that free will is the acceptance or rejection of God, not choosing a middle way, listening to the will of some priest or even a pope.
Everyone faces a time of suffering. It is greater the closer we are to God. Soon, to all those who in recent years have looked for reasons to attack me because we do not identify with any human group, I will give a sword with which they can strike without any limits. They will not need to ask tricky questions, drag me into pointless debates, they will no longer need to search for lies where there are none.
For many years I was not ready. Now I am.
No one will understand this unless they answer one question:
Who was St. Paul the Apostle?

Arkadiusz Niewolski