Is the End of the World. Hooray!
Is Sister Hermann Maria and the Orphanage Fire which She Alone Predict!
Is my very great pleasure today to present for to you the annual apocalyptic predictions from Sister Hermann Marie Assumpta, the well-known hallucinating mystic nun with the migraines and the sunglasses. Notorious for the accuracy of her predictions, Sister Hermann Maria has been preparing all Devouts to brace themselves for the Second Coming of Our Lord God Jesus since 1963, when she experienced her first visitation from Our Lady while on a shopping trip to Medjugorje. She is neverthenonetheless shy of publicity, a handicap in the mystic nun stakes, and which make her not necessarily the best vehicle for maximizing her very important message. Is therefore why I am reproduce below her latest forebodings, knowing that the thousands of pious and holy readers who come here will take note and do everything they can to circulate her incredible good news. Here is what she is predict for the year ahead:
January: The Liberal-Left Agenda to destroy Christian civilization continues apace with the introduction of a new BLASPHEMY LAW in Ireland. The new law extends the crime of blasphemy so that it applies not just to Catholicism but also to all other religions, an unwarranted extension of tolerance, cosmopolitanism, pluralism, and barbarism at a time when the need for a muscular Catholicism to guide humanity is at its greatest. As punishment, God will smite each government minister, one by one, with a serious illness, until the law is repealed.
February: As foretold in the Book of Revelation, the DEAD will begin to RISE from the GRAVE. It transpires that they are able to run after all, but don’t do it very often because it’s a waste of energy. Also, despite another popular misconception, they do not eat human flesh, being zombies, not cannibals. They do, however, exhibit a fondness for bestiality and golf.
March: The WHORE OF BABYLON comes from nowhere and goes straight in at Number One with her download-only single, “Hot Love.” Purists argue that it isn’t as good as the T. Rex original, but she observes blithely that they’re missing the point. Her dismissive attitude wins her few friends in the media. Max Clifford takes on her PR.
April: ITV announces that there will be no more series of Britain’s Got Talent. There is much WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH. There is also much inexplicable gnashing of woolens. And a plague of child singers roaming the streets.
May: The first appearance of THE BEAST, as described in the Book of Revelation, The Observer Guide to How to Spot the Beast, and Harry Potter and the Mysterious Tumour of Gold. To the Beast’s consternation, he is not immediately recognized, but this is because he gives his number as 00 353 61 836 66121, which isn’t as immediately memorable as 666. Those who call discover that it is a telesales number for a life insurance company and accident claims specialists. The Beast says in an interview with the Daily Mail that he is “raking it in” but also “spending it like there’s no tomorrow.” Because there isn’t.
June: The Great Irish iPod Famine. Teenagers across the country are distraught. There will be great TEARING OF HAIR AND TEARING OF EYES. On the upside, the art of teenage conversation is briefly revived, and the generation gap is momentarily breached. A 13-year-old in Ballinasloe utters the first word heard by a teenager this millennium: “Whatever.”
July: The sound of SEVEN TRUMPETS will be heard across the entire European landmass, throwing cities into panic, horses into ditches, water into wine, etc. Residents around Croke Park lodge a complaint and stage a picket outside the Dexy’s Midnight Runners reunion concert. Singer Kevin Rowland says the extraordinary volume of his brass section is the result of the cavernous echo of an empty stadium.
August: In line with the Prophecy, SEVEN SEALS are washed up on Brighton beach. A massive row ensues when a so-called “expert” from the local zoo points out that they are not seals at all, but sea lions, escaped from the nearby circus. God is hubristically accused of inattention to detail. Smites Brighton.
September: The most convincing sign yet of the ENDTIMES, September 10 sees the terrifying discovery of a massive gas-giant planet a mere 130 miles from Earth. Everyone says to themselves, “I wondered why the high tide level was in Mansfield.” In mitigation, astronomers say that all their telescopes had been pointed the other way, into deep space. Everybody’s watches stop, yet all trains are suddenly and miraculously “on time,” and not just because of dubious accounting practices. Astrologers are finally vindicated as the real scientists, since they’d been predicting that this would happen every September for the last two centuries.
October: Massive EARTHQUAKE tips San Francisco and L.A. into the sea. About bloody time, say seismologists, homophobes, and fashion gurus. Shares in Bollywood film companies soar.
November: EVOLUTION DISPROVED. In China, there are reports of the discovery of the fossils of a group of centaurs. Religious observers argue that the new find disproves the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. Biologists respond by pointing out that it also disproves Intelligent Design. Only the wisest heads, familiar with the ancient languages of the Bible, realize that these are the four horse-men of the Apocalypse.
December: The END OF THE WORLD. Shops report a noticeable drop-off in pre-Christmas sales. The Day of Judgement beats the X-Factor finals in Christmas Day ratings. The Irish government announces that the economy is on the upturn. A fawning media credit the “brave Taoiseach” for his heroic obliteration of the public sector. God finishes the job by obliterating all other sectors.
I am not a superstitious man in general, but I shall be keeping my finger and leg and eye crossed all year in the hope that Sister Hermann Maria have finally got it right this time. Is all in the hands of Our Lord now. All we can do is pray!
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