Anne Lastman

As I watched the Olympics Games 2024 and the antics satan put up to display his antipathy and supposed superiority by the use of that offensive parody of Last Supper, I had to realise how hard he tries the one upmanship against God, and yet we can be assured that he went back to his burning abode without any medals or even any success because his attempts, as always, fail. 

Some will say how can I look at such horrors and not be angry, scandalised, ropable that our faith is being mocked? say those who disagree with my opinion? Because we saw, visibly, God make lemonade from satan’s very bitter lemons. 

The opening ceremony and that blasphemous parody of our most sacred sacrament of the very real presence of Jesus present every time the blessed Eucharist is celebrated, did not result in loss of faith but indeed the reverse.

Why the reverse? Because after the ceremony and that abomination, all the lights over Paris went out.  God shut down all the lights and plunged Paris into an eerie darkness except Sacre Coeur cathedral another of his son Jesus’s homes.  The Tabernacle because the Master was home.  That was an amazing. Truly a miracle in our time. 

I am so surprised that most of our catholic people did not see this.  We saw God bring about a miracle of the Old Testament variety, like Crossing of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud by day to lead them on their way, and a pillar of fire by night.  He went before them and protected them (Ex 13:21) and we remember the day that the sun stood still “Oh sun stand still over Gibeon, Oh moon over the valley of Aijalon” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped till the nation avenged itself on its enemies” (Joshua 10).  Do we believe that God acted then or was that some fantastical story. If the OT episodes can be believed to be true, then how is it not possible that when we saw Paris in darkness it couldn’t be an action of God showing his displeasure over that abomination.

Another most amazing miracle was seen, via media (usually used by satan as his mode of communication, to corrupt) This time the media unwittingly brought before the eyes of the world and we were able to see humanity, not only Catholics, but other faith leaders come out in protest. We saw Cardinals, bishops, priests, laity in their hundreds of thousands brought to our screens praying, singing, worshiping our God. The Trinity. This in atonement for the mockery done to the Holiness of God the son Jesus 

Clerics who would normally not get involved, remain silent in case of causing offence, led their flock in prayer and fasting and singing hymns and in numbers not seen before.  The Holy Father came out strongly, “those who blaspheme cannot be forgiven because they close themselves to forgiveness.”  They close themselves to the Mercy of God. 

This is the sin against the Holy Spirit, which means that all sins can be forgiven by God but sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven because the individual has closed his/her heart, spirit, to forgiveness.  Perhaps like satan, whose pride refused to let him see his own sin,  Holy father spoke strongly but politely about the assault against our faith. His style is always gentle to remember that those who sinned in bringing this abomination to the forefront were led by the claws of one who was expelled from his place of glory before the mighty God. As Peter (Pope Francis) he is the shepherd of all, and his words and behaviour call forth those who wish to plead for forgiveness.  

In past times (eons ago) people would have seen these events as a visible miracle.  These people whom today we consider to have been primitive and without knowledge, actually understood their God better than the enlightened of our day who see and believe ourselves to be “modern” happier, and much more enlightened. Knowing all the sciences, forgetting that God is the creator of all the sciences.

These enlightened ones explain the events of the darkness (even for a short time) of Paris as some glitch in the power grid as an explanation, because modern society feels more at home with the mundane than the holy offering explanations which are devoid of the possibility that God responded to the dishonouring of his son in a way fitting our day, that is overriding science.

Globally we have been able to see more prayers, fasting, adoration, worship before the blessed sacrament than at any time in my 65+ years. 

The many authors who wrote about the blasphemy in Paris mostly haven’t looked very deeply but only superficially, just continuing the fuelling of anger, confusion, dissension

Other abuses God also dealt with via help of nature and again brought to us via media.  All forms including dirty waters, comforts, complaints, but then a global vision of a young 16-year-old Brazilian skater, (Rayssa Leal) forbidden from showing her Catholic faith use sign language to speak her beliefs (Jn 14:5) “Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life” What ingenuity for one so young!  The words of an evangelist to her peers.  Surely a saint in the making.  And again, the most glorious responses were the hundreds of thousands of people all around the world who came out prayed and worshipped.

Pilgrims in Fatima, Lourdes, Marian places, youth, groups, hundreds of thousands singing the Ave Maria whilst holding candles. Others openly praying Rosary.  Imagine. Paris had thousands of its own citizens come out to pray and sing and worship. Churches in France and around the world all prayed, fasted. We actually saw a huge miracle and didn’t see it because we didn’t expect a miracle in our day or even recognise one because miracles are expected to be extraordinary events and things which only reputedly happened in the past. We may even expect something like a big hand popping out through the sky and smiting the sinners. That would have been different and thought to be miracle but not power grid malfunction or that sciences would proclaim that it was a mass illusion.

God “uses” the people where they are at and in their time and in their manner.  In this instance he used the tool of satan, the media.  The eerie darkness. The beacon of light which was the Cathedral. It shone so brightly and then The young athlete using sign language to praise Jesus.  and other smaller ways to get us to see Him.

Imagine blasphemy against the Lord’s supper and all of Paris goes into darkness except for where the tabernacle is. No greater miracle is needed. God the Father responded to honour his son “Father glorify me with the glory I had before the world was” (Jn17:5) and the Father “ I have glorified you and will glorify you again “ (Jn :12:28)  He did as he had promised his son.  For those who have eyes to see we saw a great miracle. The type of OT major miracles. For those who cannot see it was the worst Olympics ever everything was wrong beginning with the opening ceremony 

For me God showed that he will tolerate only for a time and then no more. This was one of those times.  These were very blessed Olympics and nothing to do with medals. It had to do with God’s visible action when his beloved son is offended. The Holy Spirit will also not permit for Jesus to be offended and that is what the Holy Father Pope Francis meant.

Why do you see and speak such errors? They not errors because I can see God make lemonade from lemons by showing his mighty hand even at a time of the human’s supposed intellectual superiority, so, a spectacular response to the enemy’s antics was warranted and given. That’s not error.

So, for me, these will remain the Olympics of the great miracles.