Jeremiah 26:3 "It may be they will listen, and every one turn away from his evil way, that I may repent of the evil which I intend to do to them because of their evil doings." 

As we saw just the other day, God tried, through Jeremiah, to give His people every possible chance to turn back to Him, even as His chastisements had begun. He warned his people before the calamities began, and He warned them each step of the way, as things got worse and worse, each time hoping that they had realized that Jeremiah was right and they should listen to him. It never worked, but God did not stop trying.

When we look back on historical events like the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile, we tend to group everything together as one event that played out over several years. But that is because we have the benefit of knowing how the story played out. The people living through the fall of Jerusalem, who didn't know the end of the story, would have experienced it as a series of terrible events spaced far enough apart that they would grow a bit accustomed to life after one tragedy before the next one came. This breathing room was the time that God gave them to reflect on how what was happening was exactly what Jeremiah said would happen, and to realize that he was speaking God's words to them about what was still coming unless they repented. Unfortunately, the people never took advantage of these fragile respites, they needed to go into exile before they truly came back to God.

We are living through a similar time now. We keep suffering through traumatic events, with the breathing room between them becoming shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, beginning with Our Lady of Fatima, incredible Marian apparitions have been occurring with greater frequency, giving us messages from Heaven to which we are meant to attend. Consistently Mary warns us, as Jeremiah did, to turn back to God with our whole hearts, with prayer and fasting. It is not a veiled message, not is it something difficult to do, but for some reason we continue not to listen.

God is giving humanity every possible chance to turn away from our "evil doings". He will continue to give us these chances as long as He deems there time to do so. Each person who converts is worth every second of the wait. Mary has said that Medjugorje will be her last apparition, which certainly suggests that something big is on the horizon. While we are under no obligation to believe in private revelation, we can see with our own eyes the signs of the times and we would be foolish not to admit that something certainly seems to be happening.

Knowing what we know as Christians, and believing what we believe, this is not a time for fear or for us to hunker down. It is a time to go out and proclaim the Good News. People who don't know it need to hear it, only it will prepare them for whatever God has planned. And whatever He has planned, even if it is something as drastic as the fall of Jerusalem, it is possible that it may still be mitigated by "everyone turning from his evil way", that God May repent of what He intends to do.