Mike Willesee Conversion Story

Chapter 13

Mike Willesee was one among millions of lapsed Catholics. Not Catholics who had lost the faith by continuing to go to church and thus absorbing the false teachings of modernising priests, but those who lost the faith by walking away from a Church in shambles and disgrace but then abandoning their own prayer life.

Then something happened on the way to the agora. He returned late in life to the faith of his childhood. He is an exception that proves the rule.

Hardly anyone reverts or converts these days. Anyone who tried would be manoevred backwards through the door by some secret agent pretending to be a priest. "No need, my friend. Just come to God in your heart. It's the heart that matters. God knows your heart. He loves you. Trust in the Lord. O ye of little faith." Anyone who got past the checkpoints would lose the faith anyway, for a fake church saves no one, only corrupts what little faith they have. "No one can give what he hasn't got." If anyone still going to one of these dead churches will be saved, it will be despite, not because of.

What made the media mogul board a sinking ship and then work so hard to try to save it? He had a spiritual experience that convinced him to think less about fame and fortune and frivolity on this earth and more about the endless possibilities that lie beyond the grave. Because you can't take it with you, mate. Besides eternity's a long time.

It all came about when friend and colleague and believer Ron Teseriorio challenged Willesee to make a TV documentary about some allegedly miraculous phenomena happening to Katya Rivas, an old woman in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Producer and camera crew watched awestruck, unable to believe their eyes when one Good Friday bloody wounds like those of crucifixion known as "stigmata" began forming on the woman's hands and feet. It was real blood, not tomato sauce, and the wounds obviously caused real pain. Then just as miraculously, they healed overnight, leaving only minuscule scars. It was neither hoax nor stunt nor "female hysteria" nor "the power of positive thinking." No one in the presence of a team of cynical journalists can produce holes in their hands and feet just by lying there and thinking about it--not without some supernatural agency being involved. Was it a black magic trick? Or was it a miracle, a sign of God? Was it good or evil spirit perpetrating yet another of his deceptions "inasmuch to deceive if possible even the elect"?

The documentary that emerged from it was called Signs of God. He has since done another about Eucharistic miracles that prove to the skeptical that the bread is indeed supernatural. "This IS My body!"

Willesee is distressed about the fate of many souls whose faith has been made a victim of modern times and the barrage of anti-theistic media propaganda in which he himself had once had a role to play, and, good bloke that he is, he is trying to make amends. God's ways are a marvel. How ironic that Mike Willesee the TV producer and corporate mogul has become the prophet Australia so sorely needs. So far though he still has not awakened to the insidious effect of the Anglican Mass and of the teaching of universalism in which even his friend Cardinal Pell naively believes. For Gorgeous George is not one of those secret agents, just one of those good people who are too blind and too nice to see anything malevolent.

What Are Miracles For?

Miracles are an aid to those inclined and ready to believe but not yet sure. Jesus said, "If you will not believe my words at least believe my miracles." Miracles are of less value to those who already believe. And no value to those who will never let any fact get in the way of theories like "evolution" and "fossil" fuels and "demythologising" and a universe that has a brain and just created itself out of random chance mutations that produced something better every time, unlike every known accident. Accidents and mutations by their nature do not produce improvement. A selfish man will believe whatever it takes not to diminish his pleasures. Mike Willesee's video on the Eucharist includes miracles in which the appearance of bread gave way to the reality of human heart muscle tissue according to the laboratory report. Hence the Sacred Heart and the Eucharist are one.

How can It be That The Rich Are So Poor?

There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day, and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus who lay at his gate, covered in sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one gave to him, moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died and he was buried in hell. And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said to him: Son, remember that you did receive good things in your lifetime. And Lazarus commensurately evil things. But now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you, there is fixed a great Chaos so that they who would desire to pass from here to you cannot nor from there come hither. And he said: Then, father, I beseech you that you would send him to my father's house for I have five brothers, in order that he may testify unto them lest they also come into this place of torments. And Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them! But he said: No, father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead, they will do penance. And he said to him: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if one rise again from the dead. Book of Luke.