Maria Divine Mercy and the Amazing Retroactive Prophecies

Elvis Presley gets hip with the Mass in 1969's Change of Habit

A couple recent prophecies of Maria Divine Mercy concern how, "in the name of modernity" (July 20, 2013), changes are to be made in the Mass and how crosses are constructed. Here is the first one concerning changes to be made with crosses and other symbols:

"Your churches will see new crosses emerge where the head of the beast will be embedded within them; your altars will see new crosses emerge and will mock me.  Every time you see new and unusual symbols in My Church, look carefully because the beast is arrogant and he flaunts his wickedness, by displaying signs, which honour him."  (Message from July 15, 2013; text bolded in original; see also April 30, 2013)

A second "prophecy", provided by Maria Divine Mercy from a few days after the one cited above, also indicates changes to be made in the Mass:

"You must know that when the Cross of my Son is amended to look different, and when the way in which the Sacrifice of the Mass is adapted in the name of modernity, then you will see the dirsrespect for my Son in which these things are presented."  (July 20, 2013)

First of all, I think it is a bit too convenient that we do not know exactly what the head of the beast is supposed to look like, thus making it anyone's guess whether this or that cross has the head of the beast embedded in it.

New, modernized, and "artful" objects have been finding their way into churches and the liturgy since the '60's.  And, even modernized crosses "amended to look different" have been previously seen, like that of the crozier used by Popes Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, and then for some time by Benedict XVI:

Anti-Catholic (and ultra-traditionalist) theorists have lined up to equate the curved horizontal stylus of this crozier as a perversion of the true cross, and some anti-Catholics have gone so far as to say that the curved stylus is some sort of proof that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon or something (see here, for example).  It is concerning that Maria Divine Mercy's prophecies about the head of the beast being embedded in crosses would be so akin to the warnings of these anti-Catholics.

The fact of the matter is that such modernization of the cross and other symbols has been going on for quite some time, so it is not accurate to imply, as Maria Divine Mercy does, that we are just now supposed to start seeing the "adaptation" of such symbols. Here is a particularly egregious crucifix from St. Gregorius Church in Aachen, Germany:

And, here is an in-your-face, blatantly nontraditional image of Our Lady, which stands above the main entryway to Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles, California:

With regard to Maria Divine Mercy's prophesied changes in the Mass, the way in which the Mass has been celebrated has also been adapted and made "relevant" according to the so-called "spirit of Vatican II" for decades.  

For example, the so-called "Folk Mass" is a vestige which has influenced the modernization of the Mass in the United States since the '60's.

And, more recently, there is this simultaneously hilarious and sad amalgamation of liturgical dancing AND big puppets.  Though this video was taken in 2010, here we see a "prophecy" of Maria Divine Mercy's from 2013 being fulfilled retroactively: "This will be the day when My Holy Mass will be changed beyond recognition" (March 17, 2013):

Finally, here is a photo of part of the ceremony of the blessing of the new altar of Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, which took place on September 2, 2002:

So, Maria Divine Mercy is "prophesying" circumstances which are supposed to just now or soon begin happening, but which we have already been witnessing for the past 40 or so years, and, unfortunately, will likely see here and there for some time.
 

If these sorts of changes had not yet happened, her "prophecies" might mean something, since they would then be actual prophecies. But prophesying something that has already been going on for decades and will likely linger for some time is not really prophesying at all.  It's like prophesying that the sun will come up tomorrow. Since our experiential knowledge tells us that the sun will very likely come up tomorrow, when the sun does rise following our "prophecy" that it would, then our "prophecy's" value in foretelling the future still amounts to nothing, since most everyone's (notwithstanding eternal cave dwellers') experiential knowledge tells us the same thing.

Maria Divine Mercy's prophecies about the changes in the Mass, crosses, and other symbols thus try to fool us into forgetting that these sorts of things have been happening already, and for quite some time. Blindly abandoning ourselves to this sort of collective amnesia can be dangerous. In doing so, we create a foothold in our own individual lives and in the life of the Church which the devil, the "father of lies" (John 8:44), can use to get us to believe all sorts of absurdities.  Because in pushing aside our collective memory built on truth, we negate the knowledge against which we compare new information, thus severely inhibiting our ability to "test all things" and "hold fast to what is good" (1 Thes. 5:21).

In closing, it is worth quoting at length the words of Pope Francis' new encyclical (which are very likely Benedict XVI's own words) about the importance of our collective memory as a Church:

"Persons always live in relationship. We come from others, we belong to others, and our lives are enlarged by our encounter with others. Even our own knowledge and self-awareness are relational; they are linked to others who have gone before us: in the first place, our parents, who gave us our life and our name. Language itself, the words by which we make sense of our lives and the world around us, comes to us from others, preserved in the living memory of others. Self-knowledge is only possible when we share in a greater memory. The same thing holds true for faith, which brings human understanding to its fullness. Faith’s past, that act of Jesus’ love which brought new life to the world, comes down to us through the memory of others — witnesses — and is kept alive in that one remembering subject which is the Church. The Church is a Mother who teaches us to speak the language of faith. Saint John brings this out in his Gospel by closely uniting faith and memory and associating both with the working of the Holy Spirit, who, as Jesus says, "will remind you of all that I have said to you" (Jn 14:26). The love which is the Holy Spirit and which dwells in the Church unites every age and makes us contemporaries of Jesus, thus guiding us along our pilgrimage of faith. "  (Lumen Fidei, n. 38)