The Attack on the Altar at the Annunciation of the Lord
The characters in this true story are called by their middle name.

To all who were my fellow parishioners at the Annunciation of the Lord when our altar was attacked,

Grace and peace of the Lord be with you. Immediately after the attack on our altar, our priest led us in prayer, asking the Lord to help us understand why such a thing happens. That prayer was heard, and now that I fully understand why it happened, I am obliged to relay what I have learned to you.

Don't worry. It's not that we did anything bad. It's that we are being called to do something good, and simple too. Please allow me to begin by telling you the incredible story of how it happened. Nobody can make this stuff up. But God can.

It was the last week of September in 2005.

On Tuesday or Wednesday night, Marie has a dream about her and her live-in boyfriend tearing a church apart. She does not tell him about it.

On Friday, Marie's boyfriend Joseph has a vision which matches her dream! It's a vision of them "tearing up a church." He tells her about his vision, and she tells him that she dreamt the same thing a few nights earlier! The coincidence begins to consume them. They will not be themselves for the next few days. They are living with their two friends, Beth and her husband Eugene, who are also told about the dream and matching vision.

On Saturday, the featured church in the weekly religion section of our local newspaper is our church, which is named after the Annunciation that was heard by St. Mary in her vision and by St. Joseph in his dream. Could ours be the church that was seen by Marie in her dream and by Joseph in his vision? We would find out the next day.

Neither Marie nor Joseph nor their two friends saw the newspaper story. It was about the relics which are under our altar.

On Sunday morning, Joseph and his three friends drive into town, not knowing which church they will go to. At about 11:30, they see our church and pull into our parking lot. They get out of the car and wander into our 11 o'clock Mass. When asked why they chose Annunciation of the Lord, Joseph answered, "I woke up Sunday, went, pulled in, and there it was." "Nothing was going through my mind," he said.

Right after communion, Marie goes up to the altar and starts preaching to us. Then, Joseph goes up and lifts our altar and pushes it over, sending it down the steps where it breaks into pieces.

Marie figured that God must have elevated their abilities, so that they could be "his puppets," because "I don't like to speak in front of crowds," she said, and Joseph "cannot lift a 500-pound altar." He said, "Pushing over the altar, I have to say it was a bit overboard. It's not exactly like I knew what I was doing. I couldn't see, and I can't explain it any more."

Joseph figured that he didn't do what he was doing in his vision, which was "tearing up a church," because he "just tore up a table." However, dreams and visions are subject to interpretation, and the interpretation of their dream and matching vision is this, that they were going to tear down the most important part of a church, which is the altar, and that they were going to tear it down at Annunciation of the Lord.

That brings us to the aftermath. Right after our altar was torn down, our priest led us in prayer, asking the Lord to "help us to make sense of why something so senseless happens." Seeing that prayer as a cue, and believing that it might get answered, I, John, would search the newspaper articles in the coming days, looking for the reason why our altar was torn down.

What I would find are the things that I have written here. The remarkable case of antithetic parallelism between the Annunciation of the Lord and the overturning of our altar makes it evident that both events were orchestrated by the same divine being.

But why? That's the question, and the answer can be found by considering the fact that overturning an altar reveals what was under it; and under our altar was the relics, the very subject of the story in the previous day's newspaper.

Putting relics under the altar is a tradition that goes back to the ancient catacombs, when the underground Church would use the table tomb of a martyr as an altar for Mass. When Christianity was legalized, it was fitting to continue having the remains or relics of saints under the altar; because it is the place of sacrifice, and the saints offered themselves as a sacrifice for Christ and his Church.

In addition to that, it has always been thought that the souls under the altar in the vision of St. John (Rev. 6:9) are the martyrs who gave up their lives as a holy sacrifice for Christ. That is one of two possibilities. The other is that they are victims of unholy sacrifices. If the latter is true, then it will need to be revealed at the appropriate time. Is now the time? Apparently, it is.

The reason why Holy Father orchestrated the overturning of our altar was so that he could reveal to us the identity of the souls under the altar in the Fifth Seal. We can have the level of faith that is necessary to receive the revelation through prayer, because why would he orchestrate the overturning of our altar if it is not to reveal to us the identity of the souls under the altar in the Fifth Seal?

Don't be afraid to keep searching. You will find that the revelation is bad news, but it presupposes a new message of good news, a novus evangelium if you will. I'm sure you would like to learn what the good news is now. But you should learn what the bad news is first.