Michael H. Brown's Talk: Reclaiming North America's Christianity

Michael H. Brown's book, Where the Cross Stands and Fr. John Hampsch, CMF Prayer For Healing the Family Tree

Today's post is the last in a series of blog posts on Michael H. Brown's talks given during the Marian Day Retreat on May 20, 2017, here in Toronto, at Canada Christian College. It was a grace-filled day, organized by Ave Maria Centre of Peace, that consisted of four intriguing and thought-provoking talks on: Heaven, Hell and Purgatory; Spiritual Warfare and Family Healing; The Current Prophetic Pulse; and Reclaiming North America's Christianity. 

Attending this year's Marian Day Retreat was an especially beneficial time for me as I had greatly anticipated these talks having known about them for many years; part of an impressive list of contributions that Michael H. Brown has made to fellow Catholics and Christians alike to reclaim North America's Christianity.

Michael H. Brown is a prayer warrior whose mission has been to strengthen his brethren primarily in North America and throughout the world. In addition to his talks, he has accomplished this through the writing of his many books, articles, and blog posts which are available at his web site, Spirit Daily.com—a web site that I first discovered in 2001—where one can find: the truth, knowledge, and understanding of the Catholic faith journey; current, real, and relevant news; information on the events and signs of our times; and resources on spiritual warfare, healing, and the afterlife.

In typical fashion at the Marian Day Retreats, each one of the four talks was preceded by prayer: the first three by the group recitation of the Rosary, and the last by the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Brown also added his own selected prayers that differed from talk to talk, imploring God's blessings, mercy, protection, healing, and deliverance upon all in attendance.

Reclaiming North America's Christianity entails many things, in particular prayer: prayer for conversions and purity of heart, that will stop God's chastisements upon the world; prayer for the spirit of truth, invoking the Holy Spirit to make the truth known to us; as Our Lady in Medjugorje stated in her January 25 message, prayer for peace in human hearts, families and the world, and to fight against materialism, modernism and egoism; and prayer for Divine Intervention to end the many evils of this world.

In addition, we also need to be cognizant of the signs of the times if we are going to pray to stop God's wrath upon us for our disobedience, and the disorder that we have created; and we need to seek an understanding about our mission in the Church and the world, and to go forth and fulfill it.

Brown has written about reclaiming North America's Christianity in his book, Where The Cross Stands; a book that, as is noted on the back cover, is a "...[M]ost powerful book about current events and the 'prophetic pulse' since Brown's 1992 best seller, The Final Hour." The accolade further describes this treasure trove of information as follows, "Michael H. Brown takes the reader on a fast-paced tour through America's often hidden history, surveying everything from culture to politics to apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a sweep through the decades and centuries that lead up to this present hour—and what is America's last chance to recover—to reclaim—its Christian and Catholic foundation."

Reclaiming North America's Christianity

Brown began this talk with Father John Hampsch's Prayer For Healing the Family Tree, part of which has been captured in the above photo. It is an important prayer and subject matter which you can further read about from Fr. Hampsch's book, Healing Your Family Tree.

The next thing that Brown shared with the audience was a "word of knowledge" from one particular individual (who remained anonymous) that receives message—four in the past twenty years—that Brown has been following. Here is the message that Brown read to the audience:

A new and great evil has now come and settled and will be there for the duration. It was a choice by man, including my people, who find deception and rancour, and rancour where was ordained love. Not for years will an interior light return for those whose god is gold and whose love is cold. Not since times in history deep ago, have my children so been skewed in what they perceive, with eyes that distort and minds that form reality in a way that has no true destiny. Flee to Saint Joseph and the Blessed Mother of the holm oak who tells us that brightness can be found only by those who practice the diligence of prayer amid consternation. Those who frame the future in accordance with their own time tables, now find disbelief in prophecies though they unfold around you.

Brown expanded upon the "new and great evil," specifically the growing division, deception, and rancour that exists both in the Church and in the world. If one looks to talk radio and television, people seem to always be at each other's throats, both conservatives and liberals. Brown interpreted  "ordained love," to mean the Church. He went on to describe how we see this today: factions fighting each other; liberals and the traditionalists, and the Marian people; Catholics will tell other Catholics that if you don't do things this way, "you're no good"; others attacking Medjugorje, and so forth.

An essential aspect of reclaiming North America's Christianity is prayer! Brown mentioned how important and necessary prayer is against existing and coming chastisements. Here is how he put it, "If we are going to think and pray when it comes to quote, chastisements, we must pray these things away. We must pray for the type of conversion and purity of heart that will stop epidemic..." 

When Brown mentioned this I could not help but think of a related post I wrote about prayer back in October 2016, The Rosary: An Effective Weapon Against the Evils of Society. At that post, I also included a list of the evils of today's world that could easily add to Brown's talk about the prophetic pulse and God's chastisements upon mankind for its disobedience to God: abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, New Age and occult practices, gender mainstreaming, gender ideology, the LGBTQ agenda, and other aspects of the global sexual revolution, just to name a few.

A little further in the talk, Brown cited a few examples of possible chastisements that, if they were to occur, would "illuminate our consciences." Further emphasizing the importance of prayer he stated, "That's why we need not wait for stuff to occur with excitement, but pray that none of this has to occur because things can be prayed away..."

As to what we should understand about prophecy with regard to chastisements, Brown actually explained and clarified this by quoting from Cardinal Bertone, Secretary of State for the Vatican from 2006-2013:

Cardinal Bertone, who used to be a high ranking official at the Vatican, in fact, he was in charge of the release of the third secret dealing with Sister Lucia [Fatima], but like he said, 'When a prophesy doesn't occur, it doesn't necessarily mean the prophecy is in error,' it just, the prophecy is showing you what would happen at that time in history if things continued as they were right at that time...Like Cardinal Bertone said, this is his quote, 'Prophecy does not predict some inevitable fate that is deterministically bound to happen no matter what. Otherwise we would be at the mercy of dark forces dangling us over an abyss of nothingness. That would make absolutely no sense given everything we know about theology, spirituality, or the Church. Prophecy gives us a glimpse of the wailful consequences of certain individual or collective actions of behaviours. It gives us a glimpse of them, but this doesn't mean they are necessarily bound to occur.

Putting things into perspective in our own time Brown stated, "The prophetic pulse is ringing pretty strongly." Citing from the prophecy of Our Lady, who appeared to a young, devout woman, Adele Brisé, in Wisconsin in 1859, he illustrated how we need to be part of the process of reclaiming Christianity in North America. Brown then read what Our Lady told Adele, "If they do not convert and do penance, my son will be obliged to punish them."

Commenting further on this apparition, Brown was quite adamant about how there should be no opposition to its authenticity, since it is an officially Church approved apparition. Brown also emphasized that prophecy should be understood as a matter of Divine Intervention:

Church approved apparition. The only one in the United States history and I believe the only one in North America; fully approved by the Church. If the Virgin Mary says that we get punished for sin, I don't want to hear said by anybody in the Church, that that's not true. It is throughout the bible, there is chastisement, there is purification, in God's mercy because he would rather do that then send people to Hell. I believe it when we are at a point in a region of the world or a city where there is more people going to Hell than not going to Hell, that's when he sends purification in mercy to stop it...to try wake people up.

Brown further stressed the importance of prophecy. Sadly, many pay no heed to them, thinking that nothing will happen, and carry on with their lives according to their own time tables. Brown described such people as those who, "Eat, drink, and be merry just like before the time of Noah." He then added his own recommendation, "We have to be careful about all these things...the future is extremely dynamic right now."

Michael H. Brown talking about the dynamic future and the prophecy from Howard Storm

Elaborating on that "dynamic future," Brown cited the near-death experience of Howard Storm and how the future may not be so bright for America. Here is what Brown had to say:

Doctor Howard Storm, when he claimed to have been shown the future by those angels, said that he was shown the United States was supposed to share more of its wealth with the rest of the world and because it did not, will be turned into a third-world country. I don't know if you noticed it from up here, but there are some glimmerings of that already. And broken down: the infrastructure broken down; this technology we have broken down; the end of our technological era; the regional chastisements; the rise of nefarious persons who will try to take advantage of the disorder...we are not talking about the end of the world, we are talking about the end of our era...because according to some of these people we were meant to live more simply and more in tune with what God created, instead of building a false world, and a false reality ourselves. It's Satan who was cast down for trying to ascend to the throne and be as God, and yet that is what our science too often, and our economy, aspire to do.

A particularly important point Brown that made about prophetic warnings and coming chastisements is that, "All these things can stopped, but we need to realize them to stop it." 

Brown emphasized how important coming to that realization is, which requires that we constantly pray for the spirit of truth; it is the truth that will set us free (John 8:32). Here is what he had to say about it:

That is something we should pray for constantly, not just about events like this, but in our own lives. The spirit of truth...the truth of who we are, the truth of circumstances, because it is the truth that sets you free...So, it is the Holy Spirit of truth that we have to remember to invoke, many, many times. All the time, especially now.

Elaborating on the importance of "now," Brown cited from the Marian apparitions in Medjugorje; one of many apparition sites that he subscribes to. He mentioned the prophetic messages coming out of Medjugorje—already considered to be a holy place, a shrine and designated as such by Cardinal Dr. Franjo Kuharić, Archbishop of Zagreb—including the ten secrets, part of which warns about chastisements for the world. So important are the messages coming from Medjugorje, that Brown read Our Lady's January 25, 2017, message to the visionary, Marija:

Dear children! Today I am calling you to pray for peace: peace in human hearts, peace in the families and peace in the world. Satan is strong and wants to turn all of you against God, and to return you to everything that is human, and to destroy in the heart all feelings towards God and the things of God. You, little children, pray and fight against materialism, modernism and egoism, which the world offers to you. Little children, you decide for holiness and I, with my Son Jesus, intercede for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.

It is a message that speaks volumes about the times and the world we live in, and what we need to do: pray, fight, and decide for holiness. Anyone seeking to better understand Medjugorje and Our Lady's messages should seriously consider reading Wayne Weible's book, Medjugorje The Last Apparition: How It Will Change The World.

Brown also referred to the Church approved apparition in Argentina, in the Diocese of San Nicolas, Buenos Aires, where Our Lady first appeared to the seer, Gladys Quiroga de Motta on September 25, 1983. This apparition also ties into the message Our Lady gave in Medjugorje regarding materialism. Brown read from one of Our Lady's messages to Gladys and added his commentary:

'At these moments all humanity is hanging by a thread. If the thread breaks, many will be those who do not reach salvation. That is why I call you to reflection. Hurry because time is running out; there is no room for those who delay in coming. Today the Sacred Heart of Jesus is beside you, to be your guide and to ward off the Evil One who is attacking with all his fury. The enemy attacks like a violent tempest in all places.' But she also says, she showed Gladys a wall and she said, 'This is my protecting cloak. The Lord places me like a shield, like a guardian; I will defend you my children. The enemy is challenging me pitilessly, he is tempting my children openly; it is a war between light and darkness; a constant persecution of my dear Church.' She also adds here, 'All is falsehood because it is a mistaken way of living.' Talking about materialism again, as was also emphasized in Kibeho, Rwanda.

When we read and hear about the enemy (the Evil One), our response should not be one of fear, but one of prayerful action: there is no need to run and try to avoid the battle because as Brown put it, "You will be protected wherever you are if you are under the Mantle of Virgin Mary, like Adele Brisé was during the great Peshtigo fire in 1871."

Michael H. Brown at the podium during his last talk at the Marian Day Retreat

Living under Our Lady's mantle is not some abstract concept, but a lived experience for Brown and his family, who moved from Albany, New York, to St. Augustine, Florida: hurricane country.

Brown shared that his move to St. Augustine was spiritually motivated, as the Diocese of Albany proved to be somewhat lacking. 

The Browns experienced hurricanes, but did not incur any damages or great inconveniences; a living example of the safety living under Our Lady's mantle. Brown actually explicitly expressed this point; that what is most important to understand about living under Our Lady's mantle is that, you should not be afraid to go anywhere, because as Brown put it, "You go where you are called, you go to your place of blessing." 

Adding to that point, Brown stressed that, "It is not a time for fear, but it is a time for sobriety, and to see the signs of the times."

As to what the signs of the times say to us today, Brown offered his own personal opinion: a "guestimate" at best, based on the assumed lifespan of the Medjugorje seers. All six seers in Medjugorje will see the ten secrets unfold in their lifetime—whose current age range is from the early-to-mid 50s—so Brown considers that there may be events (not the end of the world, but major changes) beginning to occur during our current year and building up through the 2020s; events that will culminate into a crescendo by the mid 2030s.

The one thing we do know is that our time on earth is limited; it is precious, there is no time to waste! In the interim, Brown reiterated the importance of dedicating the time we have to purification and fulfilling our mission.

Fulfilling our mission brought to mind St. Pope John Paul II's apostolic exhortation, Christifideles Laici (Christ's Faithful People), a post-synodal document on the vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and in the world. It is a document that is known in Catholic circles for St. Pope John Paul II's quote, "It is not permissible for anyone to remain idle," (3) and in my view, is not only an apt additional mention to Brown's point, but a great resource for further reading on "fulfilling our mission." 

Adding to the importance of fulfilling our mission, Brown referred to near-death experiences from the morning talk on Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, that the fulfillment of one's mission in life is an especially important aspect during one's "life-review."

In citing another near-death experience of a US Marine, Brown utilized the example to express how important it is for us to invoke the angels: Saints Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, and our guardian angels.

Brown shared an especially beautiful description of God from an individual who went through a near-death experience, "God is love, love is light, light is life. God is the light of the life that loves."

Coming to the conclusion of this talk, Brown offered advice in the form of "bullet-points" where he stated in all humility, that they are as much for him as the audience. Here is some of that advice: sense your mission and go forth; your mission is where your gifts are; bless those who curse you; remember, the trials handled with joy turn into glory; drink not of the poison, if somebody says something to you to get you going, to get you angry, to get you hateful, get you into a fight and tension, don't drink that poison; remember in painful times, a pruned tree bears more fruit; to hover over a hurt is to give it power: forgive, forgive, forgive; remember that the bigger your problem, the greater your destiny; If you are right with God, what do you care what others think; cast out darkness by the rhythm of faith; finding little prayers that lead to little answered prayers, that lead to bigger prayers that lead to bigger answers when it is God's will; when things don't go as planned, it could be God stirring up the pot; and bad things are only bad when they bear no lesson.

Brown closed out his talk with a couple of jokes—a standard fixture of all four talks—that not only helped lighten the mood, but put a smile on everyones' face.

For those who would like to watch this entire talk on video, please visit my YouTube channel for the following three videos: Reclaiming North America's Christianity, Reclaiming North America's Christianity Part 2, Reclaiming North America's Christianity Part 3.

To Michael H. Brown, thank you for coming to Toronto!