3 Days of Darkness

"I watched as the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became as dark as black cloth, and the moon became as red as blood." Revelation 6:12

This is one of those posts that I am hesitant to write. I am not a theologian, and I often feel as though I cannot express properly what I am shown in prayer. If the church were to come out and say what I have written in wrong, then the church is correct and I am wrong.

Throughout the past several years, probably the most repeated phrase I hear in Prayer (other than "be not afraid") is "everything is connected." I believe this phrase to be about how we and the Mystical Body of Christ are connected. But recently, this phrase has become overwhelming and has seemed to imply much more.

A group in our Diocese started doing a Consecration to Mary called "Mary's Mantle." It is a wonderful Consecration, and is based on the 46 stars of the Constellations found on Mary's Mantle.

I have pondered on both how Our Lady has appeared to people on Earth, and how she is described in the Bible. On Earth, she traditionally appears cloaked in stars and riding on clouds. In scripture, she is portrayed as the woman clothed in the sun with the moon at her feet and a crown of twelve stars.

We also know she is in union with the Trinity. All things relationship with God. Daughter of the Father, Spouse of the Spirit and Mother of the Son.

In considering all of this, and knowing that Our Lady is a guiding example for us, I began to see how things throughout creation are connected. How everything is connected. And I began to see how sin affects not only our own souls, but the larger church and even creation itself.

Before the fall, Adam and Eve lived in union with the Will of God; after the fall, sin disrupted this union as they chose their own will. Though they may have thought they still had dominion, in all actuality they had handed it to Satan, and consequently death and suffering entered the world.

Not only was Adam and Eve's union with God disrupted, but the union with everything God created was disrupted. This is because man is the gem of God's creation, created in His own image and likeness. That image is one of love. What happens to creation when man turns from the will of God and chooses something other than true love?

We are told by the church that when we go to confession we not only are forgiven of our own sins, but we are reconciled with the church. What a truth this is. In recognizing too that Eden was the first temple adorned with gems, and facing east, we recognize that the Church herself is the center of the world because all of creation is actually a temple of God. When we sin, it permeates all of it, not just our own soul.

When the human heart gets so sick that it is black with mortal sin, it pollutes all of creation. Collectively, when more hearts are sick with sin, when no one is attempting to reconcile with the church, and when those in authority have turned from God, our black hearts are inviting the demonic into all of creation, expanding outward from within us. The demon's job is to destroy. We tend to see this on a smaller scale, as we see sin permeate a neighborhood. We are seeing it now on a more global level; but what I feel I have been shown is that it permeates all the way through the universe. It makes even our sun sick.

The sun has been a representation to me of God's will. Though it is only a creation and is never to be worshipped, the sun is what gives our planet life. Jesus, the Son, is the Life. It is said that when Saint Rose of Lima received Our Lord in the Eucharist, she felt as if she were receiving the Sun, whose radiance poured out from her. The Sun gives life, as the Son gives life which must be chosen and accepted by us.

But what happens when we reject the Son, when we treat the Eucharist like we treated His Body, taking on all of our sin, on the Cross? 

If the Bride of the church is being purified and entering into our own Passion, then creation itself will look like Christ on the Cross. All of creation, including the sun.

Mary appears in Revelation clothed in the Sun – clothed in God's will. She stands on the moon (reflecting God's will), with a crown of twelve stars  (crowned in God's Glory). In Guadalupe she is wrapped in His glory. This is meant for all of us. She wants us wrapped in God's Glory.

Our universe is totally affected by our sin. The sun itself is sick and causing issues because we largely have handed our domain to Satan and the demonic permeates like a black cloud of oppression. Taking it all the way to the Cross will bring 3 days of darkness. Our sin doing to creation the same thing it did to our creator.

But there's a question that God asks us. When the Son of Man returns will he find any faith on earth? He can spare the destruction we have invited when he finds enough Golden Souls, purging of sin to change the environment to what He intended. We are in communion one way or another. Which direction will we go? All the Saints in heaven, all the souls in purgatory, all of the legion of angels, are at our disposal to help us purge sin, if only we ask.

We have a Father in heaven who loves us so immensely He wants to pour gifts down upon us. But we suffer a Father wound. Our Shepherds don't know how to be protecting Fathers to us. Something God showed me here though is not to levy blame and poison arrows at our Priests because the demonic latches onto our words and carry's them out. Instead we should be intensely in prayer for them calling on the resources God has given to us in His Mother and his Saints and angels. He wants to restore the Blessings of the Father upon us.

You may think this cannot be done, and that you cannot be purged of sin, but the Saints tell us otherwise. Saint Francis was so in union with the will of God it affected everything around him. He could kiss a leper without fear (and without a mask) because he was purging sin from His own soul and walked in the protection of a loving Father that he said yes to. A wolf could listen to a man whose heart beat in unison with God. He could write a prayer about Brother Sun and Sister Moon, not because he worshipped them, but because he recognized as one of the gems of God's creation that his actions affected everything and when he was free of sin he lived in harmony with creation. If we truly want to be protected and to protect others we should confess frequently and be in a state of grace, it protects more than any human means can because it flows from the sanctifying grace of the Sacraments.

If you want to make the world better than it is, stop looking at all the horrible news and start looking inside your own heart. Go to confession often if you can and if you can't make an Act of Contrition. You will begin to feel the joy of the Holy Spirit fill you up.

I sometimes feel as if God gives me a glimpse of what it could be, what it will be. A world filled with love not pride and envy, and the overflowing bounty of his creation, ordered to perfect me and to perfect you, the ones he calls by name and loves beyond measure.

Do not lose hope, surrender all of who you are to God and let him perfect you in Him because you will be amazed at His glory and how He can heal what we have broken.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13