Who are your Heroes? 1,000 Years of Denigration
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Summary
If the birth of Christ symbolizes, by Advent Tradition, the Second Coming of Christ, perhaps the whole time period in months from the outset, that is, from the conception of St John the Baptist, all the way through to that same birth of Christ is an image of the whole Divine Plan.
It actually works. Tradition suggests that the eight days of creation (six days of labor, a seventh day of imperfect rest, and an eighth day of resurrection and eternal rest) image the eight great ages of the whole Divine Plan, from the Fall to the New Creation inclusive. Each day has two parts, an evening and a morning (Genesis: "evening came, and morning followed, the first day, evening came, and morning followed, the second day, ..."). Hence 2 parts per 8 days = 8 x 2 = 16 total parts.
Now, Mary conceived in the sixth month of St Elizabeth, so Mary will give birth almost 6 months after St Elizabeth does. St Elizabeth obviously gives birth at the end of nine months. Hence, almost six months after St Elizabeth gives birth to St John is almost 9 + 6 = 15 total months after the conception of St John. That is effectively 15 months. The days of creation had 16 parts, with the 16th part being the Second Coming of Christ. However, Christ comes early, that is, "those days shall be shortened". Hence, really, Christ returns in the midst of the 15th part of the creation days.
So the months of St Elizabeth and Mary can image the parts of the whole divine plan by quantity.
The correlations move from there. By the theology of the parts, there are 9 parts for the Old Testament. Hence, the first nine months of St Elizabeth’s pregnancy are OT ages, St John the Baptist's gestation can image the developing Old Testament, and the birth of St John the Baptist can symbolize the First Coming of Christ, just as St John the Baptist himself is literally a culmination of Old Testament activity and himself also forms the transition from the Old to the First Coming of Christ.
This leaves 6 parts from the First Coming of Christ to the Great Apostasy, inclusive, which is the NT history. It actually works when assume Fatima and most approved Private Revelation is true of a coming age of peace after a possible imminent tribulation.
The first six months of St Elizabeth, she proclaims, "God shall act on my behalf". Similarly, in the first six parts of the OT, which include the Flood, the Confounding at Babel, and the Exodus, God indeed works tremendous and miraculous activity on behalf of His righteous.
Overall, the first three Joyful Mysteries amazingly shew forth the whole Divine Plan. Coincidence?
The Joyful Mysteries as Image of Whole Salvation History
What if the little events of the months of St Elizabeth and Mother Mary's pregnancies and births are a microcosmic analogy of all of human history, that is, of all of God's Plan of Salvation, from the Fall all the way to the end of the world and the New Creation, inclusive?
May sound crazy, but come and see!
A Word about Dispensationalism
Before we get to the Joyful Mysteries analogy, we need a word about Dispensationalism. Now, Several Early Church Fathers see the days of creation as a metaphor for the ages of the recreation of man, or his redemption. It will be necessary to look at this because this creation days analogy will be the basis of our Joyful Mysteries' analogy, the basis from which we will develop it.
To, St Methodius of Olympus and St Augustine, testify that five ages are of the old law.
However, after the OT ages, St Methodius and St Augustine diverse. More specifically, St Augustine basically assigns merely one age to the New Testament, the sixth. For him, the seventh age is eternity, or the Second Coming. On the other hand, St Methodius has one more: is version of the New is as follows: "the sixth is designated to the church, in which she labors to work against heretics, the seventh is the 'Millennium of rest', and the eighth is Eternity."
Now, we have to stop right here: this "millennium of rest" that St Methodius references is a source of contention that we must address for this Joyful Mysteries analogy that is forthcoming.
This "millennium" references a passage from the book of Apocalypse chapter 20. More specifically, starting in Apocalypse chapter 12, the dragon appears in many scenes of apocalypse, here and there, culminating with a beast and false prophet. At the peak, this diabolical trinity, as it were, seduces man into self destruction, in chapter 16. Finally, after some intermissions of chapters 17 and 18, in Apocalypse 19, Christ "descends from heaven", and the beast and false prophet are cast into the fire. The dragon, however, is NOT! He is temporarily "chained in the abyss" for "a thousand years". During this period, Christ "reigns" on "earth" with "resurrected saints". After the "thousand year period", the dragon is let loose along with the resurrection of evil people for a final assault on the good. And then, in the midst of this final attack, the dragon and evil persons are thrown into the fire where the beast and false prophet were, and evil is utterly vanquished. Then, we see the general judgment and New Creation.
Obviously, if we take this at face value, this is problematic for an orthodox Christian: per the Creed, Christ's Second Coming represents the definitive end of human history ("from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead"). It is then that BOTH the just and unjust rise and ALL to the General Judgment and eternal recompense. It is then that the elements are destroyed and remade into the New Creation. We cannot split up the resurrection of men into first the just, and then, after some temporal period of time, the unjust. Christ cannot yet again enter human history within human history. Christ's return is the end of time. It divides history from eternity.
Hence, when the Church sat down to form the New Testament Canon in the early fifth century, though the West was fairly certain that St John indeed wrote the Apocalypse, this passage was called into question.
Luckily, our beloved Doctor, St Augustine, rendered a way to look at it symbolically that enabled the book to enter the canon.
Here, in this interpretation, the Millennium symbolizes the entire Church age, from coming to coming. Christ reigns spiritually through the baptized and the martyrs in heaven, who are in new life. At the end of this general period of evangelization, the release of the devil symbolizes the final assault on the Church with the great apostasy and persecution. Then Christ will come again literally.
Hence, the Fundamentalist position, common to dispensationalism, which takes the Apocalypse 20 literally, also known by them as premillennialism, or Christ returning "before" the "Millennium", is condemned by the Church for the aforementioned reasons just above.
For this reason, at least at first glance, St Methodius' claim of a seventh and then eighth phases after a general age of "labor for the Church" seems spurious.
However, there is an additional view of the Millennium that Augustine suggested that is not condemned by the Church but has fallen by the way side because it suggests a deeper specificity to Church history than is necessarily apparent. Here, there is a "hybrid," (again, never condemned but set aside). In this view, the "Millennium" is a spiritual Sabbath toward the end of the world but before the final apostasy of the very end, provided it is spiritual and not literal--a special reign of Christ figuratively on earth that is peaceful and not confrontational with heresies and persecution and such, like the last 2000 years.
More specifically, I have found that, firstly, the scenes of the dragon, starting in Apocalypse 12, and up to, but not including, the chaining symbolize, in one dimension, can be seen in really easy common sense to be the whole history of the Church up until the intermediate apostasy of our time. The chaining of the dragon can then symbolize "Christ's spiritual victory" over the intermediate apostasy of our current time in history through the massive repentance of the Gentiles and the reunion of Christians (things that are heavily predicted in an abundance of fully approve Private Revelations of Church History). The millennium here is then, again, a hybrid: it is not the entire period of Church history, like Augustine's first solution above, but is this latter-day age of spiritual rest, where the Church has brought humanity, at least temporarily, into a civilization of love (e.g., the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, the Era of Peace). But the millennium is not literal; it is a spiritual reign of Christ, like Augustinianism.
The release of the dragon after the age of peace then symbolizes the great apostasy and final persecution of the Church, so that the destruction of this final rebellion and General Judgment is the Second Coming, all like Augustine.
Interestingly enough, this corroborates what Fatima and most fully approved mystics give: EWTN scholars like Collin Donovan and such have unearthed from an examination of many approved Revelations that, in current times, we are not at the end of the world, though an apostate culture reigns in former Christendom. We await, perhaps quite imminently, a Minor Chastisement--minor compared to the very end of the world--after which will occur an unbelievable reversion of the former Christendom back to the Catholic Gospel, leading to the near total renewal of the whole world. Christians will be reunited to Peter and there will be a substantial period of historical, spiritual peace on earth for a long but indeterminate time.
Then, at some point, the world will get finicky and forget that their secular godlessness almost ended the world, and shall fall into the great apostasy, at which time, the ultimate Antichrist shall arise, the bestial ultimate persecution of the Church, the conversion of the Jews, the Great Tribulation, and of course, the actual, literal Second Coming, which, as we know, brings the end of time as we know it.
With this view in mind, St Methodius’ model can be used, as we shall see.
A word, one will object: "The New Testament period IS the final age. We await no new revelation. 'It is the last hour'."
As far as dispensations hold, that is true. For, in the end, there are but two great ages, or dispensations, the Old and the New. However, already in Augustine’s analogy, sub-ages [five subages] are drawn out of the Old Dispensation. This is obviously not dispensationalism as in our brothers and sisters in error, the Fundamentalists. For, Catholic theology teaches that God has more or less always used the same principles to judge man: charity: He has called all men of all times and places to seek out what truth they can find of Him, or has been given to them, and to seek to remain faithful to it as best as they can by grace, whether they understand grace explicitly or not. Sanctifying grace was and is the ticket, from Eden to the Fire of the New World that will never end, inclusive.
But this obviously doesn’t abrogate the notion that sub-phases of historical activity progress within these dispensations: The Flood is a different world from Babel, which is different from Egypt and the Exodus, which is different from the Exile, which is different from the Maccabbees.
Similarly, the world around the Church has passed through various phases in Her history.
In infancy, she is underground, illegal, wanted dead or alive: misunderstood by a pagan Empire that has not yet substantially.
In the first 700 years after Constantine, much of her world has converted, and she is no longer underground as in pagan Rome. Furthermore, she is not contending as much with pagans as she is contending with various heresies, most of which, in this epoch, question the central mystery of faith, the Nature of God Himself as Triune and Incarnate.
After the first millennium, she then has a terrible rift: half of Christendom rejecting Peter.
In the Middle ages, she is flourishing for a time, despite tribulation here and there: Scholasticism, Sacred Art, the Age of Faith.
In Protestantism, she is now contending with an apocalyptic division of the Father’s children never before seen: The first great rift was wide geographically but minor in nature (Peter, the Filioque), but now, the whole of Apostolic Succession and Tradition has been cast out, and flurries of mutating factions are being tossed and fro by every wave of doctrine, a brute attempt to understand Scripture apart from the Church.
In the Enlightenment and general age of solo Ratio, it was bad enough to contend with myriads of Christians divided over Scripture, but now she is seeing a supernatural death of much of Christendom: for, at least the heretics clung to Scripture, but now, the deists and the rationalists and the other worldly philosophers and thinkers, only accept reason. They have laughed at and scoffed at supernaturally inclined religion by severe disillusionment with religious chaos and bloodshed. They have confined themselves to a general Supreme Being and some natural law, but they will hear of no talk of Divine Intervention, Salvation, or Revelation.
And finally, in our own day, even reason is cast aside, and not even natural religiosity persists: atheism, relativism, materialism: even natural light is extinguished and only darkness is found in the modern European culture and its derivatives.
Similarly, as we have seen, that even though the darkness is back in bold since pagan Rome, we await one final light before history closes into the final darkness: a conditional chastisement and marvelous renewal, a period of spiritual peace. Only after this Sabbath-like, yet imperfect, rest from most serious sin, will the final darkness of apostasy arise again, followed by the end of human history.
In light of these things, we see, quite clearly, that sub-phases of spiritual activity break up the great final age of the New Dispensation, so that it quite probably could be possible to sub-divide the great Church age into a sixth, seventh and eighth "days". Then, we will be able to apply the theology of the days of Creation in such a way that even the NT dispensation has sub-ages, as long as we, again, remember that God still judges by charity in any sub phase of Church history.
The Days of Creation Analogy of All Human History
So now, let us begin to work out the days of creation analogy, using first, St Augustine's model, and then from there, attempt to work out the NT history using St Methodius.
To begin, let us recall that each day of creation has two parts: darkness and light, or evening and morning. Similarly, each age of recreation has two parts: first spiritual darkness, then spiritual light. Now what? Well Augustine is our great friend in On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed:
CHAP. 22.--OF THE SIX AGES OF THE WORLD.
39. "Five ages of the world, accordingly, having been now completed (there has entered the sixth). Of these ages the first is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood. Then the second extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called the father indeed of all nations which should follow the example of his faith, but who at the same time in the way of natural descent from his own flesh was the father of the destined people of the Jews; which people, previous to the entrance of the Gentiles into the Christian faith, was the one people among all the nations of all lands that worshipped the one true God: from which people also Christ the Saviour was decreed to come according to the flesh. For these turning-points of those two ages occupy an eminent place in the ancient books. On the other hand, those of the other three ages are also declared in the Gospel, where the descent of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh is likewise mentioned. For the third age extends from Abraham on to David the king; the fourth from David on to that captivity whereby the people of God passed over into Babylonia; and the fifth from that transmigration down to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. With His coming the sixth age has entered on its process; so that now the spiritual grace, which in previous times was known to a few patriarchs and prophets, may be made manifest to all nations; to the intent that no man should worship God but freely, fondly desiring of Him not the visible rewards of His services and the happiness of this present life, but that eternal life alone in which he is to enjoy God Himself: in order that in this sixth age the mind of man may be renewed after the image of God, even as on the sixth day man was made after the image of God.
That is,
Adam to Noah
Noah to Abraham
Abraham to David
David to Captivity
Captivity to Christ
Each of these partitions can be seen to be lights in our parts of the ages:
Adam: Original Justice
Noah: the light of the Flood
Abraham: Formation of Hebrew People
David: Jews possess Kingdom, have king
Captivity: Jews repent of wickedness in exile and are restored
Christ: Need we say more: Jesus is the ultimate Light of History!
The Phases in between are clearly dark:
The Wickedness before the Flood
The Tower of Babel
Egypt
The Supreme Jewish Apostasy before Captivity
The Maccabee Darkness and OT Tyrant Antiochus
Now we can form the ages of Old. Similar argumentation follows for the New Age:
The Days of Creation Analogy of All Human History
Old Testament
Day 1:
Darkness: Fall
Light: Flood
Day 2:
Darkness: Babel
Light: Confounding of Tongues, Formation of Hebrew People (Abraham)
Day 3:
Darkness: Egypt Enslaves
Light: Exodus, Red Sea, King David
Day 4:
Darkness: Pre-Exile wickedness of Jews
Light: Exile, Repentance, Restoration to Holy Land and Temple
Day 5:
Darkness: OT Antichrist Antiochus, Maccabees
Light: First Coming of Christ
New Testament
Day 6:
Darkness: Pagan Rome Persecutes
Light: Catholic Christendom, Doctrinal Development
Day 7:
Darkness: Intermediate Gentile Secular Apostasy [today]
Light: Sabbath Rest, Our Lady's Age of Peace
Day 8:
Darkness: Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist
Light: Eternal Sabbath, Second Coming of Christ
Now, remember from the introduction that Elizabeth and Mary's pregnancy timeline is almost 15 full months. Recall we will correlate this to the parts of the ages in the creation days. Well, again, each day has two parts -- darkness, then light -- so 8 days X 2 parts per day = 16 total parts. This would make all 16 parts as follows:
Old Testament
1. Darkness: Fall
2. Light: Flood
3. Darkness: Babel
4. Light: Confounding of Tongues, Formation of Hebrew People (Abraham)
5. Darkness: Egypt Enslaves
6. Light: Exodus, Red Sea, King David
7. Darkness: Pre-Exile wickedness of Jews
8. Light: Exile, Repentance, Restoration to Holy Land and Temple
9. Darkness: OT Antichrist Antiochus
10. Light: First Coming of Christ
New Testament
11. Darkness: Pagan Rome Persecutes
12. Light: Catholic Christendom, Doctrinal Development
13. Darkness: Intermediate Gentile Secular Apostasy [today]
14. Light: Minor Chastisement, Gentile Renewal, Our Lady's Age of Peace [future to now]
15. Darkness: Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist [future to now]
16. Light: Second Coming of Christ [future to now]
16 parts, 15 months? Hmm. Why not correlate the months in St Elizabeth's and Our Lady's overlapping pregnancies to the parts of the creation days analogy above, arguing that the months of the pregnancies are in fact an analogical metaphor of all of salvation history! Sound crazy? Just come along for the ride!
Much of this is straightforward when we examine the pivotal points in the pregnancy months with what will be pivotal points in the creation days analogy.
Before we elaborate, here are the main points:
Now for the full elaboration:
St John the Baptist: Image of the Old Testament Development
Firstly, since we know that St John the Baptist is the culmination of Old Testament activity and transitions the Old to the New by heralding the First Coming of Christ, and since St Elizabeth bears St John within her womb, a veritable development or growth, it makes total sense to see St Elizabeth as the image of the Old testament, and the growth of St John in her womb, the process of all OT history, from the fall to the First Coming of Christ, so that the birth of St John The Baptist symbolizes the First Coming of Christ itself.
This is extraordinarily appropriate when we look deeper: How many months is St John developing in the womb of St Elizabeth? Nine! How many subparts of OT history are there before Christ? Nine! For, remember, there are five ages of the Old Law, that is five days of creation, which is 5*2 = 10 parts, darkness or light, but the 10th part is the light of the First Coming of Christ, which makes nine total parts for OT history. Bingo! St John the Baptist is born on the edge of months nine and ten!
Hence, the month ten is the first Coming of Christ, or light.
What about the fact that St Zachariah is struck dumb by Divine Miraculous discipline from the outset, and that St Elizabeth withdraws, saying, “God shall act on my behalf”? And what about the fact that Mary conceives the Christ in the sixth month of St Elizabeth, the seed of the New Kingdom, the fulfillment of David ?
All this is astounding!
Zachariah Doubts and is Restrained, Humanity Falls and is Restrained
Firstly, Zachariah! Zachariah, in the very beginning of the months, DOUBTS the message of the angel, and he is chastised for it--restrained! [He is struck dumb!] Too, man, in the fall, in the beginning of human history, doubts God’s promises of love. God chastises them and restrains them, through the Flood and confounding at Babel!
CCC, paragraph 57
This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel. But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.
So, just as God bound the tongue of Zachariah for his blindness and stubbornness, until the birth of St John, so does God bind the tongue of humanity that it might speak in decipherable unison at Babel, in order to restrain their perverse unity till "the coming of Messiah".
For Zachariah was loosed to praise the Lord at the birth of St John the Baptist. Remember, this birth, in the timeline, symbolizes the first coming of Jesus.
Too, when Jesus comes the first time in history, Babel is recovered--the Gentiles are once again speaking as one in pagan Rome. But behold, only for a moment! (Zachariah first writes the name, then declares it!) For no sooner does Babel recover around the time of Jesus' literal first coming, than that the tongues are rejoined to praise God at Pentecost, ultimately culminating with the conversion of that same pagan Empire into the Gospel with Constantine!
St Elizabeth: God shall act on my Behalf, God acts on behalf of the Righteous
Now, St Elizabeth! St Elizabeth at her conception says "Let me go into seclusion, for the Lord shall act on my behalf," which happens till Mary comes in the sixth month. This would seem to imply that for almost the first six parts of salvation history, God acts mostly on behalf of God’s People. Bingo!
If we look closer at the first six subparts of history, God is indeed doing most of the great work:
Day I:
1. Darkness: Fall
2. Light: Flood
Day II:
3. Darkness: Babel
4. Light: Confounding of Tongues, Formation of Hebrew People (Abraham)
Day III:
5. Darkness: Egypt Enslaves
6. Light: Exodus, Red Sea, King David
See, in day I, or parts one and two, the Flood is a supreme action of God on behalf of Noah.
Similarly, in day II, or part 4, the confounding of tongues at Babel, and the marvelous direct revelations from God to Abraham and his kin, are supreme actions of God on behalf of the just.
Finally, in day III, or part 6, need we say anything about the major miracles of God on behalf of the Hebrews and Moses to lead them out of Egypt! The plagues of locusts, of frogs, of blood, of death of the first born, of the parting of the Red Sea!!! The serpents and manna in the desert!
David's Throne in the Sixth Age, David's Throne to Jesus in the Sixth Month
And the sixth part of history, the third light overall, is it not culminated when the Jews have their promised land and David is their King, the beginning seed of Christ’s ultimate Kingship? And what happened in the sixth month of St Elizabeth, except that Mary conceived the seed of King David’s ultimate rule in Jesus?! “Behold, you shall bear a son, and you shall call his Name Jesus, because He will save His People from their sins. And God shall give him the throne of His father David, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end!”
Note, too that after the sixth part of history, the major miracles like the Flood, Confounding, and Exodus more or less taper off and become rather small. Then, the history of the OT shifts to mainly a prophetic dialogue, one of waiting and watching for Messiah.
Too, the scenes of Elizabeth’s being in the background and of Zachariah’s chastisement give way to a wondrous dialogue of rejoicing at God’s Promises and Mary’s cooperation to assist her beloved cousin till the birth. Indeed, too, the beginning signs of the New Covenant, by the prophets and events, are coming alongside the People of Old to prepare for the First Coming of Christ in the history of parts 7-9.
We have already seen that the OT culminates literally with the birth of St John, who bridges the Old with the New, heralding the First Coming of Christ. Hence, the birth of St John at the very end of nine months and beginning the tenth is, again, the symbol of the First Coming of the Christ.
The New Testament Era and the Second Coming
And!!! Already the church celebrates at the beginning of every liturgical year, that is, Advent, that the birth of Jesus is a type of his Second Coming!!!
Hence, everything fits IF THE FINAL PART OF HUMAN HISTORY COINCIDES WITH THE FINAL MONTH OF THE PREGNANCIES, or when Mary gives birth!
Bingo!
First, we see that technically, the Second Coming by the parts of the days of creation model is part 16. And when does Mary give birth? Within month 15 (from the conception of St John in St Elizabeth), as follows: Mary conceived in month 6 of St Elizabeth. Technically, that is not the end of month six but in it. Hence, St Elizabeth has really been pregnant for five months and a portion of a month when Mary conceives.
Hence, since Mary is five and a portion of a month behind St Elizabeth in conception, she will be five and a portion of a month later in birth!
Now, St Elizabeth gives birth at the very end of month nine. So five months plus a part of a month is,
Five full months: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
Part of a month: 15
So Mary does indeed give birth somewhere within month 15!
Unfortunately, at least at first impression, this leaves us with a discrepancy of one: in the “parts” of Salvation history by the days of creation, Christ returns in part sixteen, NOT fifteen. BUMMER! BUT! WAIT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! DON'T MISS, HISTORY OF THE WORLD, -----PART----TWO!!!!
The seeming discrepancy can be worked out when we look at the deeper theology of the time of the end of the world and Christ’s Second Coming, as follows. Technically , Christ comes early. (“Behold, I come like a thief,” and again, “And if those days had not been shortened, no flesh should be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days have been shortened").
This means the following: if part fifteen of Salvation history (the Great Apostasy and Tribulation, which immediately precedes 16, the Second Coming) was allowed to progress to its natural end, the world would destroy itself. NO FLESH WOULD BE SAVED! Why? Because practically incurable sinful man would first martyr off every last Catholic, and then destroy themselves, since the ultimate fruit of a world that is spiritually dead is eventually physically dead.
We have seen this in the fact that had God not sent something analogous to the Flood in early fallen man, man would have died off: their wickedness was not going to change since man had never had any chastisement in history before to consider as a threat, hence, the selfishness, since it was not going to change except by chastisement, would have lead to human extinction.
But Jesus said He will NOT let that happen at the end.
Hence, Christ actually enters history early, before part 15 completes its natural trend. Hence, Christ technically reenters human history in phase 15! And, Mary gives birth to Christ, the Catholic Advent type of the Second Coming, within month 15 as well! Bingo!
Now, for a mind-blowing corollary to the dethroning of the too-simplistic Augustinianism that we discussed in the beginning of this discourse: To reexamine the NT activity, with month 10 being the First Coming of Jesus as we have seen, New Testament activity for the Church has four phases plus part of a fifth. This agrees with the Mystics Model we saw before, the model that says that there will be a temporary godless age [in fact, the age we now live in], followed by a light of renewal, Our Lady's Reign in men's hearts. Only after these does the real end come:
New Testament
10. Light: First Coming of Christ
(Day VI)
11. Darkness: Pagan Rome Persecutes
12. Light: Catholic Christendom, Doctrinal Development
(Day VII)
13. Darkness: Intermediate Gentile Secular Apostasy [today]
14. Light: Minor Chastisement, Gentile Renewal, Our Lady's Age of Peace [future to now]
(Day VIII)
15. Darkness: Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist [future to now]
Notice, however, this vindicates the Private Revelation scenario, not Augustine. In Augustine’s view, and the Church’s view for so long, although not dogmatic, the age of the Church only has three sub-parts, not five.
11. Darkness: Pagan Rome
12. Light: Main spread of the Gospel, fullness of Gentiles at end
13. Darkness: Great Apostasy, Antichrist, end of the world
If that were true, then Christ should have been born in the thirteenth month, not the fifteenth. Or in other words, conceived in the fourth month, not the sixth.
But, the mystics view is supported through this remarkable, multidimensional Joyful Mysteries’ Analogy: there is an extra day in Church history in the mystics’ view: the minor apostasy (our modern time) and the age of peace (the coming, future Triumph of Our Lady’s Heart for a glorious renewed Catholic civilization before the final apostasy).
This once again shows how Augustinianism must dismiss the eighth day or fuse it with the seventh, and the same for notes. The seventh day is eternity, not the eighth. The seventh and eighth notes of music are the same, for Augustinianism.
In conclusion, as the Church already sees the birth of Christ as a type of the second coming, the notion that other aspects of the first three joyful mysteries shed light on other portions of history is not far-fetched. We have seen that the analogies work perfectly with the Old Testament history and the New Testament if the mystics are right. They also fit perfectly with the rigorous analysis of salvation history we have developed, and the days of creation analogy, and the beast, and music.
What else can we say, but the Scriptures have left us unbelievable meaning of all human history, and that the Church may need to amend Augustine’s view in light of the now evident prophecies of mystics and perfect Scripture analogies!
I am a Catholic revert. I desire to share deeper theology about the Catholic Church that is admittedly speculative but that makes perfect sense from Catholic doctrine and church teaching.
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