The Apocalypse: an Eternal Dream of What Would Always be in a Fallen World that is to Receive an Incarnation?
Sponsored
Catholic365 is sponsored by
Road to Purity
It was the middle of the night sometime in January 2013. I was awake thinking. Now, by this time in my life, I had come up with unbelievable analogies till now:
All of human history in the days of creation and seven-headed beast . This wasn’t me, it was Tradition: just as there are seven days of creation extended to eight, that is, six days of labor, one of rest, and one of resurrection, or eternal rest, so God's People would labor for six great ages against sin and wickedness, rest imperfectly for one age, and then all men would rise to eternal recompense for the rest that shall never end, even as Jesus rose again never to die on the eighth day of Creation. Several ECFs testify to this. The only part I took in this was to tweak the seventh day to Our Lady's Age of Peace instead of the Fundamentalist's literal reign of Jesus Christ on earth with literal resurrected good people. Other than that, it was all Tradition.
Too, St. Hippolytus had taught that the beast kings of Apocalypse 17 might be ages of sin. It fit perfectly with the days of creation. Augustine and St Methodius had testified that five ages were of the old law. Too, the text of Apocalypse 17 asserted that "five have fallen". The sixth age, said Augustine, was the Church. Too, the last two thousand years has been the Church laboring against heresy and sin to spread the Gospel. The seventh day was an imperfect day of rest. Bingo: Our Lady will soon rest in men's hearts for the age of peace, what will effectively be the rest of humankind this side of the end of time.
And most of the same fully approved private revelations complete the scenario: after the coming Age of Peace, only the Great Apostasy remains, where the world ends into the eternity of the New Creation. Bingo, the eighth day of creation, and the eighth king of the beast, really are the end.
Five loaves, two fish, seven loaves, few fish. Protestants lose five sacraments and retain only two, and schismatics have all seven sacraments but fish a little in uncertainty without Peter.
The theology of the Christ's crucified feet related to the five great sources of truth: on the first foot, the toes fall from right to left, whereas on the other foot, the toes rise from right to left. Too, the five sources of truth, like the five toes, at the same time and of same direction, fall in degree of truth but rise in evidence.
Communism and Relativism perfectly fulfilling the Old Testament Schism and Assyria and Babylon.
The conversion of the Jews through walking the path of the saint, apocalyptically, three phases, and the multitude of occurrences of threes in the Gospels (For three days and three nights, Joseph and Mary look for Jesus, for three great ages of Church history, the Jews look for the Messiah. They finally find Him in the NEW Temple of God, the Church, and all this while, He was about His Father's business, redeeming the Gentiles. Mary Magdalene progressively recognizes Jesus over the course of three questions, the Jews progressively recognize the Christ over three great ages.)
The Two Witnesses as image of the great epochs of Christian disunity and unity.
In light of the self-same Private Revelations, which, again, tell us basically what remains for Church history, the dragon scenes in apocalypse perfectly lay out all Church history theologically.
So now, again, it is the middle of a dark, rainy night. I am awake in bed just pondering one of the central Scriptures that had always eluded me, seemingly insignificant, and yet, as I knew, God many times hides the most significant things in humble, obscure places. I had always wondered about these nine months, and six months. In the sixth month, the Mother of God conceived God. After nine months, St Elizabeth gave birth.
Nine! What is nine? What could it be? It didn't fit with any of my ideas or analogies. There was 7, 8, 5, 2, 7, 5…. There is no nine. And six? What is six? There were six days of labor, but that wouldn't explain the other three to make nine, or, for that matter, the remaining six after St. Elizabeth gave birth. I didn't know what to do with it. Moreover, what are the MONTHS? What does an individual MONTH symbolize?
Now, I don't recall exactly how it came to me, so I will guess. I THINK, first, what happened was for me to consider how many TOTAL months there were from Elizabeth's conception of St. John the Baptist all the way to the Birth of Christ. It was a little tricky. Our Lady conceived WITHIN the sixth month of St. Elizabeth's pregnancy ("And as proof of my witness, the Cousin Elizabeth, who was thought barren in her old age, is now in her SIXTH month with child. For nothing is impossible with God" - St. Gabriel to Mary at the Annunciation, or conception of Jesus). Which means what? Well, if you think carefully, it means that St. Elizabeth had been pregnant for FIVE FULL months and PART of a month when Mary conceived. How much of a part we don't know. So then, if Mary conceives FIVE FULL months and PART of a month after ELIZABETH conceives, then, by the same token, Mary will give BIRTH five full months and a part of a month after St. ELIZABETH gives birth.
Ok, so Mary gives birth five full months and a part of a month after St. Elizabeth does. St. Elizabeth gives birth at the very end of nine months. So the first full month after St. Elizabeth gives birth is month 10. So month 10 is the first of five full months. Let us then count the five full months:
1st full month: 10
2nd full month: 11
3rd full month: 12
4th full month: 13
5th full month: 14
So the 14th month is the fifth full month after St Elizabeth gives birth. This leaves a part of month:
Part of a month: 15
So Mary gives birth WITHIN the 15th total month of the pregnancies.
So I thought to myself, now what do I do? What is 15? Even WORSE than 9! Well, somehow a grace came that would keep me awake for several hours in awe for the rest of the night:
15 is one less than 16, and 16 = 2 x 8, and there are 8 days of creation, and each day has 2 parts, evening and morning, or darkness and light!!!
Will this work? In a few short minutes, I would find out that every single detail of the pregnancy scenes perfectly fit Salvation History, especially by the days of creation model!
The first obvious connection was the solution to the MONTHS: 8 days of creation each have two parts, evening and morning, or spiritual darkness and spiritual light. That is, again 8 x 2 total parts, or 16. For now, we only have 15 months, but just hang loose. If we can work out the fudge factor between 15 and 16, clearly a month is just part of a day of creation, either darkness or light (but not both!
So now we got a month that is a phase of either darkness or light in human history, that is, one part of a day of creation, or great age. My mind was racing, though, as there was a lot to figure out: Again, why is Jesus born in month 15 and not 16, seeing as part 16 in the days of creation is the Second Coming, not 15, which is the Great Apostasy and Tribulation? And wait! Where are we getting all these figures?! Ok, let us roll out the parts from the deeper prerequisite of this article so we know what we are talking about:
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 [future]
Day 8:
Darkness: Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist [future]
Light: Eternal Sabbath, Second Coming of Christ [future]
Now, number the particular parts of either darkness or light from 1 to 16, 2 parts for each of the 8 days:
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]
Ok, so now we understand problem of 15 and 16: The Second Coming, as we can see above, is part 16. So it would seem that Jesus should come back at the very end of month 15, not somewhere IN it. Let us throw that on the backburner for now. Suffice it to say, Tradition and our Advent Liturgical Calendar already teach that the Birth of Our Lord is a type of His SECOND coming. Hence, that the birth of Christ comes toward the very end of 15 months, that we have seen such event as the Second Coming in our analogy is already what we need.
What then, would the beginning of the sequence be, that is, St. Elizabeth's conception of St. John? Clearly, the beginning of human history.
Then, what of the birth of St. John the Baptist? And who IS St. John the Baptist? Well, for one, St. John is born right at the end of nine months and beginning of ten months. What is number 10 above in the ages sequence? THE FIRST COMING OF CHRIST. And yet, this is entirely appropriate: St. John the Baptist CULMINATES Old Testament activity and transitions humanity from Old to New, that is, ushers in the First Coming of Christ. Hence, it is ENTIRELY warranted to view St. John the Baptist developing in his mothers' womb as the Old Testament times building toward the culmination of birth of God into human history the first time.
Some other details are astounding: who might St. Zachariah symbolize? Well, because of doubt, he is miraculously struck dumb, his tongue "tied" until the birth of St. John the Baptist. The heathen nations perfectly fulfill it! Sinful man DOUBTED God's loving offer of fellowship in the Fall. Soon after this, God "tied the tongue" of man at Babel by confounding his language, thereby making it impossible for man to "speak" to his fellow man, even as St. Zachariah could not "speak". Too, the confusion at Babel miraculously restrained man from perverse, worldwide, materialistic utopia until the time of Christ, where it was recovered in the Roman Empire. And AT that very time of the First Coming of Christ, soon afterward , the Gentiles converted and "proclaimed the name of Christ" as their Savior, just as, finally, shortly after the birth of St. John, Zachariah's tongue was loosened and he "proclaimed" the name of his son.
There is more: St. Elizabeth, upon conception, chooses to withdraw into seclusion and declares, "Behold, the Lord shall act on my behalf." This persisted until Mary's visitation in the sixth month.
What might this mean? Well, follow the implications: "the Lord shall act on my behalf". If this is for almost six months, it would seem to imply that God would "act in mighty deeds on behalf of the just" for almost the first six phases of human history.
HE DOES! The first six phases involve SUPREME DIVINE INTERVENTIONS on behalf of the just!
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
That is, the first six phases of human history involve 6/2 = 3 phases of light, and these three phases, as seen above, are SUPREME Divine actions on behalf of the good:
The Flood: Supreme Act of God in all human history!
Babel Confounding: Epic Divine Intervention!
Exodus, Red Sea, Wandering in Desert: Supreme miracles on behalf of God to save Jewish People
Note, too, that just as St. Elizabeth's seclusion ends in the midst of the sixth month as Mary comes to visit, so the great Divine acts of intervention begin to taper off in the sixth phase of human history: King David is smack dab in the middle of phase six. After King David, great miracles taper off and the spotlight of human history now shines on the prophets, which becomes, largely, a time of dialogue and waiting and watching for Messiah, just as when Mary comes, St. Elizabeth's seclusion of "God acting on her behalf" [major miracles] gives way to a dialogue and assistance between St. Elizabeth and Mary, a time of rejoicing and waiting and watching.
The labor pains of Elizabeth can symbolize the martyrdom of the Jews, the supreme trial of Maccabbees, just prior to the first Coming of Christ.
We are almost there: just before the Visitation, at the Annunciation, or midst of month six, the Angel tells Mary that God shall give Her Son the throne of His father David, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Too, we just seen that David is smack dab in the middle of phase six of human history, the seed of Christ's Kingship.
One more: We never settled the 15/16 thing. Why does Jesus supposedly come back IN the 15th month rather than the beginning of the 16th? OK! Well, let us ask ourselves what would happen if Jesus came at the very END of month 15. That would clearly mean allowing month 15 to run its natural course. What would that be? Well, unfortunately, we have seen in previous theology that man is basically incurably wicked at the end. He won't convert even when the consequences of his sins come upon him (see the persons that curse God in the vials of wrath, Apocalypse 16, rather than repent when punishments come). Subsequently, he will persist in his wickedness until the end. And clearly, the end of a world in unrepentant wickedness is death, TOTAL death. BUT JESUS SAID HE WOULD COME EARLY, to SHORTEN THE DAYS FOR THE ELECT, else no flesh would be saved! BINGO! Jesus comes EARLY to stop man from destroying himself. Therefore Jesus INTERRUPTS month 15 at some point, JUST AS JESUS IS BORN SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE 15TH MONTH.
There you have it: EVERY SINGLE DETAIL OF THE JOYFUL PREGNANCY MYSTERIES PERFECTLY SYMBOLIZES ALL HUMAN HISTORY!
I was just stunned in awe of Our Triune God the rest of the night!
Coincidence? You decide! I only know that I am blown away that God would apparently hide, yet another, and even deeper, incredible analogy of human history in between two epic Scriptures (creation days in the beginning of Scripture, beast heads at the end of Scripture), yet with such analogy that is smack dab in the middle of two great heralds itself not great, but little: obscure, holy, humble ladies bearing babes in their womb, in a place no one knows about, nor could imagine is the source of the most important Person to ever exist, the ultimate Judge of all the human race!
For more details, see this:
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.
The Catholic Church shows us that we are all priceless regardless of what anything the world may say about us. We can hold our heads high and know that God loves us no matter what and desires us to be with him forever if we but persevere in love with him unto the end.
To know these things gives me great joy and I am just a poor sinner striving to become holier little by little.
May God bless all writers and readers on this site in all ways, amen!
