The First Secret of Medjugorje
Year: 2009
Month: April
Day: 10th
Day of the Week: Friday
Liturgical Calendar: Good Friday
The Warning is the same as the first secret of Medjugorje; this event is also called The Day of Repentance.
Why: To prepare the world for the first part of the tribulation, as described in the Book of Revelation (but the second part of the tribulation is in the distant future).
What The First Secret Is
The First Secret of Medjugorje is exactly the same as the Warning of Garabandal, in other words, it is the Day of Repentance, when God touches each and every human soul on earth. Generally, this experience takes the form of an illumination of the conscience, revealing to each person their own sinfulness. For holy persons, or at least those who have thoroughly dealt with their own sins and sinfulness, it will take the form of true sorrow at the sufferings of Christ and at the sinfulness of others. For those souls not yet having reached the age of reason, i.e. young children, infants, and prenatals, it will take the form of grace to assist in avoiding sin (not that they will be sinless).
Good Friday was chosen by God as the Day of Repentance so that the world would realize, while repenting in sorrow for its sins, that Jesus Christ forgives those sins through His salvific death on the Cross. Good Friday was also chosen so that the holy faithful would have true sorrow, not only because of their own sins, but because of the suffering that Jesus Christ had to endure for the sake of everyone's sins. And this day was chosen so that the world would realize that all religions are not equal and that the Christian Faith is above all other religions, with Catholicism being the truest form of Christianity.
The First Secret of Medjugorje = the Warning of Garabandal = the Day of Repentance
See the other articles on the Warning of Garabandal for more details about the event of the first secret in general. See below for an explanation of certain points that have long been known about the first secret.
Ten Days Before…
Mirjana said: “Ten days before the first secret and the second secret, I will notify Father Petar Ljubicic. He will pray and fast for seven days, and then he will announce these to the world”. Since the first secret occurs on April 10th, ten days before is March 31st; on that day, she will tell Fr. Peter the first and second secret. Then from April 1 to April 7, inclusive, he will fast and pray. Then on April 7th, three days before the first secret, he will reveal both the first and second secrets. (April 7th is the true historical date of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.) The first secret coincides with Good Friday, and the second secret coincides with Easter.
Now compare these dates at the beginning of the secrets to the dates at its end. The last event of the last secret is the three days of darkness, occurring on March 29, 30, and 31, which coincide in that year (2040 A.D.) with Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. The next day, April 1st and Easter Sunday, is the first day after the events of the ten secrets have been completed. So, the secrets begin with the days of preparation for the first secret March 31/April 1st, and the secrets end with the last day of the sufferings being March 31 and the first day after these events being April 1st. The total length of time is 31 years. The liturgical calendar days of Good Friday and Easter figure prominently at both the start and the end of the secrets.
Breaking the Back of Satan
It has long been known, having been revealed by some of the visionaries, that the first secret of Medjugorje would 'break the back of Satan.' Now some persons have incorrectly worded this as 'break the power of Satan.' The reason that the Warning is correctly said only to break the back of Satan, but not to entirely break his power, is that the Warning reduces his power significantly, but does not take away his power in the world completely. If the Warning (i.e. the first secret) had been said to break the neck of Satan, that would mean the loss of nearly all his power, since those who have their necks broken become nearly powerless. But instead the figure of speech is that the first secret will 'break the back of Satan.' Thus, Satan will lose a substantial amount of power over sinners, but not all power over all sinners.
Why does he suddenly lose so much power over sinners that it can truly be said his back is broken? Because so many sinners repent so thoroughly from their many sins, thereby moving much closer to God. Even many great sinners will repent greatly. Even holy persons will become holier. So Satan loses most of his influence over them, although he and the other fallen angels can still attempt to tempt sinners.
Why is it not correct to say that Satan loses all power over sinners at this time? Because a significant number of persons around the world reject this gift of repentance from sin, thereby moving further away from God and thereby becoming more susceptible to the temptation and influence of Satan and other fallen angels. In fact, the complete rejection of the gift of repentance on the day of the Warning is an actual mortal sin, which causes the loss of the state of grace in the soul.
The Upheaval
It has been said that the first secret of Medjugorje involves an upheaval in one part of the world. But this idea is not the first secret itself, but rather, one result of the first secret. The Warning (i.e. the first secret) causes changes in the world. One of those many changes is an upheaval in one area of the world.
This upheaval is a political and social upheaval, where evil persons, enraged and terrified by this blessed act of God in the first secret, and realizing that they are in danger of quickly losing power to good persons, gather all their supporters, and then fight to overthrow the nations in one particular area of the world, an area where evil is particularly strong: the Arab/Muslim nations of the Middle East and northern Africa.
These evil persons, these extremists, are not true devout Muslims who sincerely worship the One God; they are not even the moderate Arab/Muslims who are rather worldly and who seek to bring western ways to the Middle East. Many of these extremists use religion as a pretext for their rise to power, but they are not even sincerely misguided. They are deliberately choosing evil, and deliberately feigning religious devotion. However some number of these extremists are very worldly, and do not even offer the pretense of being devout.
The nations involved in this upheaval are Iran and Iraq and the other Arab/Muslim nations of the Middle East and northern Africa. In those nations, when the event of the first secret occurs, many persons will repent and seek God in true sorrow for their sins, including very many Muslims. However, a significant number of persons in that area of the world will instead reject this gift from God, which he does not force upon them; God shows them their own sinfulness, but the gift of repentance, they freely choose to reject. By rejecting so great a Mercy, they become so much more sinful than ever before, just as the Pharisees, in rejecting the true Messiah, became much more evil than before the Christ arrived.
These evil persons, newly spurred on by the terror of knowing their own sinfulness and by the fear that good persons might prevail in their nations, and also deeply enraged by this act of God itself, make a sudden concerted effort to take power in these nations. It is an act of fear and desperation. It is an act of deliberately choosing evil over good.
The upheaval consists of coups, insurrections, and outright war. If they cannot take over a nation's political and military power by coups and insurrections, then from those areas over which they do gain control in this way, they launch sudden attacks of warfare against the nations that they cannot capture internally. There is war and battles, chaos and killing, the disorganized and desperate acts of a loosely-knit group of persons bound by their rejection of God. It is an all or nothing gamble that they are taking. And they win. They succeed in conquering all of the Arab/Muslim nations of the Middle East and northern Africa, from Iran and Iraq, throughout the Middle East (but not the holy land of Israel).
This upheaval occurs in this particular area of the world because evil is strong there. Some fallen angels offer some impetus and assistance to these evil persons, but this upheaval is very much a surprise to the fallen angels, for they did not know when this event of the first secret would occur. The upheaval is not of demonic origin, even though fallen angels will generally try to encourage or cooperate with any evil on earth. Rather, the upheaval is the act of human persons who reject the gift of God to be sorrowful for sin and to repent, and who deliberately choose evil instead of good. They hope (against reason and faith) that gaining worldly power will keep them safe from this repentance from sin which so threatened them to the very core of their beings.
But, of course, they are not safe from the Justice of God. The Almighty will permit them a reign for a number of years, in order to rebuke those other nations, where many persons also either rejected the repentance offered by God, or, after accepting it, fell back into the same or worse sins. But, thereafter, they will be completely thrown down and defeated.
Yes, a significant number of persons worldwide will reject this gift of the first secret of Medjugorje, which is called the Warning. So while a very large number of persons repent and become closer to God, the number who reject this gift, and so move further away from God, is also large. If everyone were to repent on this day, then perhaps the rest of the sufferings would be averted or greatly reduced. But it is not to be so. Free will and the very wide acceptance of sin in the world results in a significant number of persons either rejecting this gift of repentance outright, or quickly falling away from the path of repentance afterward.
The upheaval will occur over just a few months, beginning and ending in the year 2009. By the end of that short period of time, extremists who have chosen evil over good, many of whom use the mask of religion to cover their sinfulness, will have taken power in all of the Arab/Muslim nations of the Middle East and northern Africa. Of these nations, all led by extremists, the leader of Iran and the leader of Iraq (whoever emerges as the leaders of those nations out of the upheaval) will have the most power and control and influence over the other nations of that group. One of these leaders will be a secular (military/political) leader; the other will claim to be a spiritual leader of some kind.
A common fear of goodness and a common evil purpose will unite these nations into one group very quickly. All this occurs in the year 2009.
by Ronald L. Conte Jr.
published April 9th, 2007
May God give you grace and peace during the difficult years ahead.
