It is a hard question; when I've asked it, I've been reminded that the 3 days is literal, &c things that don't fit perfectly. But prophecies are hard (esp putting several together), and it seems to me that very few people ever recognized they were living in prophetic times.
But don't we already act very careful about exposing our families to the outside world, maybe most especially to conciliar teachings? Just yesterday, we had a 14 yo altar boy (Confirmed last year) email everyone he was quitting Church (thank God I don't read email before Mass). This kid apparently likes what Frank has to say, but his actions (emailing everyone with blasphemies before Mass) were evil (left his mother in tears; he's saying he's an agnostic who thinks trads are too focused on the rules.)
:dwarf:
And it's hard to ignore that Putin is posturing for a stand against the West, and the West is bucking up against him. I could see some real ugliness coming from this "Russia vs the Sodomites" thing. Post-nuclear annihilation is the only way my meager brain can imagine decades of peace
after the Chastisement. This morning CNN was rambling on about how "unfair" Russia is acting with legal action against Madonna and Lady Gaga for pushing the gαy message in Russia last year (of course CNN made Russia out to look as bad as possible, but I was actually applauding Russia's actions!)
I know my g-ma (Lord let light perpetual shine on her) thought the two witnesses were alive in her day (++Lefebvre was one of them, IIRC), the argument being that anyone who
cared to ask "what happened to the Church" could learn of ++Lefebvre's excommunication for standing against Satanic rites. So she lived as if she was in the Chastisement.
Also, the sign in the sky: that lightening bolt at St. Peter's got A LOT of press coverage, and I didn't think much of it at the time, but now, I wonder if maybe it was a warning that even the remnants of the Latin Rite (motu) would be removed. A valid Mass was already hard to find without some kind of compromise (and some people already have no access within 4 hrs of where they live), but I really do feel sorry for the Franciscans who had thought they could get something holy from the conciliar church. They LOOK sad. (Why some went ahead with their vows this weekend, I can't explain. I would've run like Satan was behind me and never looked back.)
My (maternal) g-ma apparently walked out of a strange "mass" in the late 70s with her head held high
not even knowing the SSPX would be there later (it was, but not right away); she just knew what wasn't right, and LEFT forever. My dad was critical of her, but as we grew up, my parents started driving further and further away to Mass, until it became an expensive weekend trip once a month to a warehouse-looking building with a meager setup inside; and then my parents stopped going altogether (I just got them a priest these last several years to go to their home for visits). So I know how ugly it can be to see people who don't know what to do when the Mass is "suddenly" not available to them. Very sad. They question themselves, they look at the EO, wonder if God left them; they're mocked, humiliated, and threatened by their own former friends.
So I'm thinking, maybe the lightening bolt was a sorta
last warning to any Catholics left that we're at least near the Chastisement, if not smack dab in it. I don't think it hurts to live as if we're in the Chastisement, and leave the unfolding of the details to God. So glad I have the example of my g-ma to follow, though. (I'm not sainting her, but looking back, she was right all along; even Daddy attests to that now.)