+
My
Dear Soul,
you are
welcome
to
The Epistemologic
Works
+ + +
“Pilate
therefore went into the
hall again,
and called Jesus, and said to him:
‘Art thou the king
of the Jews?’
Jesus answered:
‘Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it
thee
of me?’
Pilate answered:
‘Am I a Jew? Thy
own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered
thee up to me: what hast
thou done?’
Jesus answered:
‘My kingdom is not
of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my
servants would
certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the
Jews: but now my kingdom
is not from hence.’
Pilate therefore
said to him:
‘Art thou a king
then?’
Jesus answered:
‘Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born,
and for this came
I into the world; that I should
give testimony to the truth. Every
one that is of the
truth, heareth my voice.’
Pilate saith to him:
‘What is
truth?’”
(John 18:33-38b
DRC,
emphases &
punctuation added)
+ + +
My dear visitor,
the Truth is that which is real. It is
God Who makes
something real, creating All That Exists out
of nothing.
(Genesis 1:1, Psalm 101:26 [102:25], 2 Machabees 7:28)
He does this
through His Word, the God-Man, Christ Jesus. (John
1:1-3,
Colossians 1:16-17) Jesus is the Truth, as well as the Way
& the
Life. (John 14:6) His Body is the Church. (Ephesians
1:22-23,
Colossians 1:18-19)
And this Church,
which is the House of God, is the Pillar
& Foundation
of His Truth. (1 Timothy 3:15) Without this Truth, no
man can be
saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11) A man joins himself to God’s
Church Body by
Baptism (Romans 6:3-4, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, Galatians
3:27) and
remains in this Body, the Church, by professing His Truth
(Mark 16:15-16,
Galatians 3:26, 1 Timothy 4:16), which is upheld
by this
same Church & House of His. (1 Timothy 3:15)
This Church
cannot be beaten since Jesus assured His disciples
that Hell
cannot win against It. (Matthew 16:18) The Devil being Hell’s
ruler and a
liar from the beginning (John 8:44), then Jesus’ Church cannot
fail to
uphold His Truth or else the lies of the Devil & Hell would overcome
God in His
Body. This would mean that Jesus’ Church is not the
Pillar &
Foundation of
the Truth (1 Timothy 3:15), and it would mean, also,
that Jesus
is not the Way, the Truth & the Life. (John 14:6)
Yet God cannot lie
(Romans 3:4, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18),
and He said
His Church cannot fail. (Matthew 16:18) Hence, Jesus’
disciple, Peter,
is indeed The Rock upon which He builds His Church (the
meaning of
‘peter’, the nickname Jesus chose for him --- Matthew 16:18, John
1:42), His
Representative on earth and first visible head of His Body, the
Church. To
Peter & his successors, the popes, is given Supreme Power
to defend
Jesus’ Truth INFALLIBLY. (Matthew 16:19)
No man can save
his soul apart from
Jesus’
Church Body, the House of God, or without
submission to
this Church’s rightful leaders, especially a legitimate
pope. (Matthew
18:15-17, Romans 13:1-5, Hebrews 13:7, 17)
This Church
is Roman Catholic, and none other!
+ + +
WARNING:
This
website proves what I have
said above.
You aren’t all-knowing or always-right,
my dear
reader, so you can’t know that it doesn’t without
reading everything on
this website closely & carefully,
using your
God-given brain fully. My
precious soul,
I beg you,
do so!
+ + +
I dedicate this
site to the Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary,
Crusher of the
Serpent’s Head and Vanquisher of All Heresies
& False
Religions, Mediatrix of All Her Son’s Graces
& Co-
Redemptress of His Body,
the Roman Catholic Church.
Those who do not
honor God’s Mother cannot
hope to be
honored by Her Son,
Jesus Christ!
+ + + + + + + + +
Mary
Exalted
A NOTE TO THE
READER: The series of quotations from the Bible that follow below, each
quotation in turn trailed by in-depth commentary, is the first half of a small
book entitled Mary Exalted that champions the Queenship
of the Blessed Virgin Mary over Highest Heaven and the Celestial Prerogatives
that She has been given by God, as well as defends Her Ancient Veneration by
members of the Roman Catholic Church. It is intended for those who might call
themselves ‘christian’ or ‘born
again’ or ‘followers of jesus’ ---
i.e., Protestant --- utilizing the words of Sacred Scripture and simple good
sense to uphold Her Privileges in the face of their prejudices and contrary
assumptions. It is also intended for real Catholics who are eager to defend
themselves against the wicked lies of God’s enemies toward His
Son’s Precious Mother, although, of course, my dear soul, you’re
invited to read it despite not falling into these categories. However, those
who practice some other form of religion (or no religion at all) may wish to
browse the Questions & Answers or Straight & Simple sections of this
website instead. The writings there will require less familiarity with a
subject prior to launching into detailed exposition about it.
+ + + 1. The Crushing of
the Serpent + + +
“And the Lord God said to the serpent:
‘Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all
cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt
thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy
life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and
her seed: she shall crush thy
head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her
heel.’” (Genesis 3:14-15 DRC, emphases & punctuation added)
Comment
on Genesis 3:14-15:
Basing themselves upon the Masoretic
Text of the Old Testament, Protestant and other modern scholars pretend that
“she shall crush thy head” in Genesis 3:15c should read
“he shall crush thy head,” instead. Yet the oldest
surviving manuscript of the Masoretic (a record of
Jewish scriptures in Hebrew) comes from the 9th century A.D.,
while the oldest extant manuscripts of Catholicism’s Latin versions,
which uphold “she shall crush thy head,” come from
the 4th century or earlier. Moreover, St. Jerome,
the translator of the Old Testament in the Church’s Latin Vulgate version
of the Bible --- not to mention a staunch supporter of reliance on the ancient
Hebrew text of the Jews for his translation, contrary to the
pro-Latin & pro-Greek sentiment of his fellow Catholics from that era ---
upheld “she shall crush thy head…” This is
particularly telling given that we today consider documents in our hands from
his time, circa A.D. 400, to be among our most valuable links to the
authentic biblical text. Whereas Jerome, who actually lived all the way
back then and had scholarly access to even older Hebrew & Greek
manuscripts, was perfectly positioned to correct this reading of “she shall
crush thy head” were it false. Nor do the Dead Sea Scrolls
change our conclusion. Thought to have been written during the first two
centuries before Christ, eighteen, and possibly twenty-one, of their
approximately 813 manuscripts contain the text of Genesis. However, each of
these is fragmentary (literally, nothing but little random fragments of the
ancient text as a whole) and none of them, apparently, contain the 15th verse
of chapter 3.
The simple truth is this: most of the Jews remained
unconverted to the Catholic Faith during the first few centuries after Christ.
This majority despised the Virgin Mary and refused to acknowledge that at least
some of their ancient manuscripts of Genesis preserved a prophecy from the very
beginning, hidden in plain sight, of the magnificent woman to come who, by
perfectly obeying the Will of God regarding His Divine Son, would, by His
Power, undo the terrible evil that St. Eve had done, thereby crushing
the Serpent’s Head. Rather than admit that they were wrong to reject
Jesus and slander His Mother, they preferred to abandon an otherwise laudable
loyalty to scriptural purity and purposely ignore ancient testimony that
this text in Genesis 3 spoke of a woman. An admission that would then
lead to the Roman Catholic Church since, logically speaking, all roads of
evidence, history & scripture converge upon the Faith of
Catholic Rome, their Messias & His disciples
having established this religion and none other. Protestants happily follow
suit --- covertly when it comes to Jesus’ Kingship (for although they
call Him ‘lord’, they do not in the manmade ideas of their heresy
truly obey Him as Lord), overtly when it pertains to
Mary’s Queenship (since, unconverted to Her
Son’s Catholic Body, they openly mock Her
God-Given Heavenly Splendor & Royal Prerogatives).
2. An Old Testament Woman
+ + + Prefigures the Serpent’s Bane + + +
“And behold, he came out of
Comment
on Ruth 2:4-5a, d, 3:9b-11:
Just as the Old Testament often foreshadowed Jesus
in various persons & events, so the book of Ruth is one of many instances
where the Blessed Virgin Mary herself is prefigured. St. Ruth’s
very name means ‘friend’, and she was indeed not only a dear friend
to her mother-in-law, Noemi (or
‘Naomi’, as Protestants and others will usually spell it nowadays),
but was a beloved friend especially to the One True Most High God of the
Israelites, obeying all of His Commandments and His One True Religion of the
Old Covenant. Too, the man who became her husband, Booz,
was an older man, as his remark that Ruth “has not followed young men
either poor or rich” reveals. (Ruth 3:10d) Likewise St. Joseph,
the spouse of Mary. He was older than her and did not wed Mary for the
sake of lust or offspring, but out of obedience to God & His priests,
who chose him to look after Mary when she, at fourteen, exceeded the age
allowed by the law for a girl living within the
He was as well a close relation to Mary’s
family, preserving Jesus’ legal lineage & Davidic ancestry by keeping
His Mother within her royal tribe of Juda. Known
to everyone in the region as “a virtuous woman”
(Ruth 3:11e), Mary had taken a vow of perpetual chastity --- that
is to say, a vow to be a nun, which is why she had lived as a child within the
confines of the Temple --- thereby setting the stage to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt the miraculous nature of Jesus’ Divine Conception
within Her Virginal Womb. There being no convents at this time in
+ + + 3. Some Very
Crucial Words About Mary + + +
“And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God
into a city of
4. These Words Simply Explained:
+ + + Mary’s Reply Proves Her Perpetual Virginity + + +
Comment
on Luke 1:26-56:
The Blessed Virgin Mary was of the royal
“house of David”, Her Divine Son being given “the throne of
David his father” and a “kingdom” of which
“there shall be no end.” (Luke 1:27b, 32b-c) And what does that
make the mother of a king? A queen, of course! Even to this
day the mother of a reigning monarch in
Furthermore, Catholics have always called the
Virgin Mary by the title of ‘Blessed’ for a very simple
reason --- because she is. Look at the verses above from St.
Luke’s Gospel very closely. I have carefully highlighted the relevant
parts. What does St. Gabriel the
Nor did the Blessed Virgin Mary prefer to follow
after “young men either poor or rich”, but devoted herself entirely
to the God of the One True Faith of the Old Covenant in the good works of
prayer, virtue & other pious deeds. Notice, too, how Mary responded to
Gabriel after being told that she would bear the Son of God --- God Himself ---
within her womb: “How shall this be done, because I
know not man?” (Luke 1:34b-c) And yet, she having been espoused to
St. Joseph, as both Matthew 1:18 & Luke 1:27 tell us, prior to
the Angel Gabriel’s message --- and thus due very soon to consummate
this marriage by having intimate relations with Joseph, as worldly minds would
like to think --- then how could any intelligent person in Mary’s
situation fail to understand the archangel to be talking about her having a
child by means of normal marital relations in the very
near future with her bridegroom, Joseph?
Certainly the Blessed Virgin Mary was highly
intelligent, as her magnificent response to St. Elizabeth’s greeting
proves. (Luke 1:46-55) Consequently, her question (“How shall this be
done, because I know not man?”) to St. Gabriel makes no rational
sense… unless, of course, what Roman Catholics have said about
her is true: that she really had taken a vow of perpetual
chastity and hence really was morally perplexed ---
wondering how she could obey God’s Commandments by keeping her vow of
chastity to Him, on the one hand, while, simultaneously, not failing to keep
His prophetic word spoken to her through the Angel Gabriel about bearing a son,
on the other hand.
5. These Words Simply Explained:
+ + + Too, Zachary Clinches Mary’s Vow of Virginity + + +
This is further demonstrated by Gabriel’s
reaction to her question. For when earlier God sent Gabriel to the priest,
Zachary, Elizabeth’s husband, to tell him about St. John the
Baptist’s impending birth --- something astonishing to hear, considering
Zachary & Elizabeth’s old age and their complete childlessness up
until that moment --- Zachary demanded additional evidence, as if having a
gloriously fearful archangel appear to you in person was not evidence enough!
“And Zachary said to the angel: ‘Whereby shall I know this? For I
am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.’” (Luke 1:18 DRC,
punctuation added) And how did Gabriel respond? Did he kowtow to
Zachary’s wishes for further proof? “And the angel answering,
said to him: ‘I am Gabriel, who stand before God: and am sent to speak to
thee, and to bring thee these good tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not
be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall come to
pass, because thou hast not believed my words, which shall
be fulfilled in their time.’” (Luke 1:19-20 DRC, emphases &
punctuation added)
Now contrast this to St. Gabriel’s reaction
to the Blessed Virgin Mary’s morally necessary question of how she
would bear a son when she is not to be intimate with a man: “The Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall
overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall
be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath
conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is
called barren: because no word shall be impossible with God.”
(Luke 1:35-37) No punishment, no reproach. Merely an answer to her very
sensible and very devout query… how shall I bear a child when I am a
nun, having made a vow of chastity to God forever?
But if this doesn’t make the distinction
between Zachary’s sinful unbelief and Mary’s moral consternation
--- she wishing to humbly believe in Gabriel’s words whilst not
disobeying her vow --- clear enough to the skeptical reader, we hear again the
words of St. Elizabeth to Queen Mary when the two met a little later:
“And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those
things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.” (Luke
1:45) So indeed Mary had believed the words of God spoken to
her through St. Gabriel the
Echoing again her predecessor, Ruth, who called
herself “thy handmaid” in rejoinder to Mary’s
ancestor, Booz. (Ruth 3:9d DRC, emphasis
added) For a handmaid is but a servant, and the humblest of all women. Which
humility is why God honored Mary more highly than any of His other creatures,
placing Himself in Her Womb and thus made Her the Mother of His Son, and
thereby justified the words of the Holy Ghost spoken prophetically through Her
about Her own self: “Because he hath regarded the humility of his
handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call
me blessed. Because he that is mighty, hath done great
things to me; and holy is his name. And his mercy is from generation unto
generations, to them that fear him. He hath shewed might
in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath
put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.”
(Luke 1:48-52)
Other evidences from Sacred Scripture exist, too,
proving Queen Mary’s perpetual virginity; but this one point alone all by
itself at the very least is enough to galvanize the Protestant, or other
ridiculer of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is of truly good will, to take
Catholicism seriously and look into it further.
+ + + 6. The
Incredible Example of Judith + + +
“And Judith was alone in the chamber. But Holofernes lay on his bed, fast asleep, being
exceedingly drunk. And Judith spoke to her maid to stand without before the
chamber, and to watch: and Judith stood before the bed praying with tears, and
the motion of her lips in silence, saying: ‘Strengthen me, O Lord
God of Israel, and in this hour look on the works of my hands, that
as thou hast promised, thou mayest raise
up Jerusalem thy city: and
that I may bring to pass that which I have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by
thee.’ And when she had said this, she went to the pillar that
was at his bed’s head, and loosed his sword that hung tied upon it. And
when she had drawn it out, she took him by the hair of his head, and said:
‘Strengthen me, O Lord God, at this hour.’ And she
struck twice upon his neck, and cut
off his head, and took off his canopy from the pillars, and rolled away
his headless body. And after a while she went out, and delivered the
head of Holofernes to her maid, and bade
her put it into her wallet. And they two went out according to their custom, as
it were to prayer, and they passed the camp, and having compassed the valley,
they came to the gate of the city. And Judith from afar off cried to the
watchmen upon the walls: ‘Open the gates for God is with us, who
hath shewn his power in
7. The Poison of the Reptile’s Head Is
+ + + Unbelief in God’s One & Only Religion + + +
Comment
on Judith 13:3-31:
Protestants reject the book of Judith, having
expunged it from their bibles when they left the Catholic Church in the 1500s.
The cleverer among them cite various reasons --- such as neither Jews before
Jesus nor earliest Christians universally accepting it as canonical --- but
what it really boils down to is this: that the book says the heroine,
Judith, did plainly Catholic things, living the life of an ascetic nun
after the death of her husband. (Judith 8:4-6) This the first Protestants
could not endure. Hence, they rid themselves of the book lest in the
course of reading their own bibles they would recognize themselves as condemned
for having destroyed holy convents, broken sacred monastic vows and mocked the
lives of good monks & nuns.
Meanwhile, St. Judith is the most marvelous
foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary --- who was also a chaste nun --- in all of
Sacred Scripture. The arrogant, wicked & pagan Assyrians had besieged
It was at this point that God raised up a
holy woman, Judith, in their midst. Boldly traipsing into the Assyrian camp,
she went to their general, Holofernes, and he,
amazed at her indescribable beauty as well as by her wonderful intelligence,
fooled himself into thinking he could win her affections and that she would
turn against her own people. Thus began his downfall, for he drank himself into
a stupor one night shortly thereafter, having allowed only Judith to be present
with him in his luxurious tent, and she then used his own sword to smite him:
“And she struck twice upon his neck, and cut off his head,
and took off his canopy from the pillars, and rolled away his headless
body.” (Judith 13:10)
And what does this remind us of? The prophetic
words of God to the wicked serpent in the
Yet what was the poison of Holofernes’
headship? Judith tells us, “The God of Israel, to whom thou gavest testimony, that he revengeth himself
of his enemies, he hath cut off the head of all the unbelievers this
night by my hand.” (Judith 13:27b-c) In other words, the thing which
threatened --- the poison in Holofernes,
backed by his huge pagan army --- was unbelief in the
One True God of the Israelites and in His One True Religion that they
practiced. Indeed, the peril of Holofernes’
particular poison were his boasts against God & His Religion. He
bragged loudly how the gods of no other nation had been able to defeat the
Assyrian army; so, too, railed he, would God & His Religion be powerless to
stand against him. In short, he both lied about God and about God’s
Religion… and then expected everyone around him to believe what he
said! That the Israelites did not believe him, and would not
capitulate, he resented. Enraged, he besieged one of their cities.
+ + + 8. Holy Chastity
and the So-Called ‘Brothers’ of Jesus + + +
Into this viper’s den Judith walked
unscathed. “But as the same Lord liveth,
his angel hath been my keeper both going hence, and abiding there, and
returning from thence hither: and the Lord hath not suffered me his
handmaid to be defiled, but hath brought me back to you without
pollution of sin, rejoicing for his victory, for my escape, and for
your deliverance.” (Judith 13:20) Likewise, Queen Mary entered the
viper’s den of this fallen world unscathed by its poison, by
its Pollution of Original Sin. Kept immaculate at her conception by the
Power of God from any stain due to St. Adam’s ancient rebellion, she also
cooperated with God’s graces in such a fashion that never did she
commit any act of sin at any point during her earthly life. This includes the lust
of fornication. For although God --- knowing the weakness of human flesh ---
tolerates pleasure of the body to a certain degree within the bounds of a
Catholic marriage, He demands a higher level of holiness from anyone who
dares to approach Him more intimately, as God’s instructions to St.
Moses make manifest:
“…The Lord said to him: ‘Lo, now
will I come to thee in the darkness of a cloud, that the people may hear me
speaking to thee, and may believe thee for ever… And let them be ready
against the third day: for on the third day the Lord will come down in the
sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt appoint certain limits to the people round about, and
thou shalt say to them: “Take heed you go not
up into the mount, and that ye touch not the borders thereof: every one
that toucheth the mount dying he shall
die…”’ And Moses came down from the mount to the people, and
sanctified them. And when they had washed their garments, he said to them:
‘Be ready against the third day, and come not near your wives.’”
(Exodus 19:9a-d, 11-12, 14-15 DRC, emphasis & punctuation added)
The conclusion is stark. Marital relations since
the Fall of Adam are tainted, almost invariably, by the wickedness of carnal
lust --- a carnal lust that causes the one lusting, gripped as the flesh so
often is in the heat of too strong a passion, to care little whether the person
lusted for is one’s spouse or not, or whether it is one’s spouse
who gratifies this passion or not. Hence why God required the
Israelites not even to touch their wives for three days prior to His descent
upon the mountain in their sight to speak to them personally with an audible
voice from out of the cloud. And this carnal lust the Blessed Virgin
Mary eschewed from earliest age, taking, as do all nuns, the vow of
chastity so that she might never be intimate with a man and instead be
intimate with God… and God alone. In fine, she strove to be perfect
in all her ways, free from carnal lusts. Which in turn is why she vowed
perpetual chastity, having never bore children with
Nor are the handful of verses in the
Gospels mentioning Jesus’ brothers & sisters proof to the contrary.
Ancient Jews and other Semite peoples considered all close relatives --- such
as cousins or uncles or nieces --- to be ‘brothers’ in the
metaphorical sense of an extended family. Evidence for this is found elsewhere
in the Bible. For instance, we read how “…it came to pass at that
time, that Amraphel king of Sennar, and Arioch king
of Pontus, and Chodorlahomor king of
the Elamites, and Thadal king
of nations, made war… And they took all the substance of the Sodomites,
and Gomorrhites, and all their victuals, and went
their way: and Lot also, the son of Abram’s brother, who
dwelt in
There are other evidences in Sacred Scripture of
Jesus’ ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ being actually His
cousins, and so forth, through Mary’s side of the family. That is to say,
through Mary’s siblings. But, again, this one example at the very least
is enough to galvanize the Protestant, or other ridiculer of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, of truly good will into taking Catholicism seriously and examining the
Church of Rome far more closely.
9. Catholics Magnify God
+ + + Through Their Praise of Mary! + + +
In the meantime, we note how Judith’s fellow
citizens exclaimed over her amazing deed: “The Lord hath blessed thee
by his power, because by thee he hath brought our enemies to nought.” (Judith 13:22b) And the leader of the
people, Ozias, declared: “Blessed art
thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all
women upon the earth.” (Judith 13:23b-d) As well, Achior the God-fearing Ammonite “fell down at
her feet, and reverenced her, and said: ‘Blessed art
thou by thy God in every tabernacle of Jacob, for in every nation which
shall hear thy name, the God of
Moreover, Achior asserts
that “in every nation which shall hear thy name, the God of
Thereby allowing us to see that, while Judith
received the praise & reverence of Israel on that wonderful day when the
head of their enemy, the Assyrians, was struck down by her hand --- the God of
Israel nonetheless “magnified on occasion of thee”, asAchior put it to her (Judith 13:31c) --- in the
same way have Roman Catholics the world over praised & reverenced the
Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary “in every nation” which has heard of her
name, the Creator of All That Exists being in this way, by His Own Good Will
& Pleasure, “magnified on occasion” because of her and
in the mighty deeds that He does by His Strength working through her.
(Judith 13:31b, c) Again, as St. Judith’s compatriots said to her, “The
Lord hath blessed thee by his power, because by thee he
hath brought our enemies to nought.”
(Judith 13:22b) And, again, as Ozias the
leader of the Israelites said to Judith, too: “Blessed art thou, O
daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the
earth. Blessed be the Lord who made
heaven and earth, who hath directed thee to the cutting off the head
of the prince of our enemies. Because he hath so magnified
thy name this day, that thy praise shall not depart out
of the mouth of men who shall be mindful of the power of the Lord
for ever, for that thou hast not spared thy life, by reason of the
distress and tribulation of thy people, but hast prevented our ruin in the
presence of our God.” (Judith 13:23b-25)
And so we also see how, in magnifying the Name
of Queen Mary so very highly, good Roman Catholics actually magnify the
Name of the Triune God & Creator of All That Exists even more
highly by far, being mindful of His Great Power & Mighty Strength
at work through the Blessed Virgin Mary in order to exalt her, the
humblest of all women or human beings ever to have lived, she who considered
God more highly in everything she did than anyone else ever has, to the praise,
glory, worship, honor & renown of His Divine Name in His One & Only
Roman Catholic Religion, world without end. Amen.
+ + + 10. So Scarlet
the Blood, How Secure the House + + +
“And they said to her: ‘…when we come into the
land, this scarlet cord be a sign, and thou tie it in the
window, by which thou hast let us down: and gather together thy father
and mother, and brethren and all
thy kindred into thy house. Whosoever shall go out of the door
of thy house, his blood shall be
upon his own head, and we shall be quit. But the blood of all
that shall be with thee in the house, shall light upon our head, if any man
touch them.’”
(Josue --- spelled as ‘Joshua’ by
Protestants --- 2:17a, 18-19 DRC, emphases & punctuation added)
Comment
on Josue 2:17a, 18-19:
The reputation of the True God & His True
Religion had preceded the Israelites, the pagan Chanaanites of
ancient Palestine increasingly frightened as the Jews came nearer and nearer
from out of the desert east of the Jordan River. The inhabitants of Jericho
were the first of these heathens to face the Israelites west of the Jordan, and
the Jews sent two spies into the area to scope things out before they
attacked. While there, they lodged at a house owned by Rahab, who kept them from being discovered by some Chanaanite soldiers. She had heard about the God
of the Israelites and thirsted for His One True Religion. A prostitute by trade
(Josue 2:1, Hebrews 11:31, James 2:25), she
later reformed her life completely and joined the God-fearing Jews as one of
them. (Josue 6:23, 25) Meanwhile, in return for
her protection, she begged the spies to spare her family when
And so in this way Rahab became
not only a member of the Old Testament Church and, by marrying Salmon, the
mother of Booz (who married Ruth, see
Matthew 1:5) and thus the ancestor of Mary & Jesus, but was also, in
her newfound holiness, a foreshadowing of the Blessed Virgin Mother and
demonstrated the latter’s crucial role in Salvation. For Jesus would
not have been born as a man of Mary if Mary had not obediently consented to
Gabriel’s Divine Message, and by acquiescing --- “Behold the
handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”
(Luke 1:38b-c DRC) --- she brought forth, together with the Power of the
Almighty Maker, the Flesh & Blood of the Man Who Is God, Whose Sacrifice of
His Flesh and Shedding of His Blood enables similarly obedient human beings to
save their souls.
This is the significance of the “scarlet
cord” tied in the window of her house as “a sign” to spare
the lives of those within. (Josue 2:18b) For
what is the color ‘scarlet’? Red. And what is the color
of human blood when exposed to the air? Again --- red. And Whose Blood
was shed for the remission of sins? Jesus Christ, Who is God and the
Son of Mary. It was the spilling of Jesus’ Blood, the same blood
that ran through the veins of His Mother, which allows men to have Hope of
Salvation. Yet how is this hope secured? By staying in the house:
“…and gather together thy father and mother, and brethren and all
thy kindred into thy house. Whosoever shall go out of the door of
thy house, his blood shall be upon his own head, and we shall be quit.
But the blood of all that shall be with thee in the house, shall
light upon our head, if any man touch them.” (Josue 2:18e-19)
And what is the significance of this
“house”? (Josue 2:18e, 19a &
c) Simple. Jesus’ Body is the Church, as Sacred Scripture tells
us (e.g., Colossians 1:18 & Ephesians 1:22-23), which in turn is
“the house of God,” as the Bible also informs us
(1 Timothy 3:15b DRC, emphasis added), whose members join to His Body in
Baptism. (for instance, Galatians 3:27 & 1 Corinthians 12:13) And who gave
birth to Jesus? The Blessed Virgin Mary. Ergo, she in a very
real sense is the Mother of the Church since she is the Mother of the
One Whose Body is the Church. And can anyone save himself
apart from membership in this Church, apart from belonging to Jesus’
Body? Can anyone despise Jesus’ Mother, she who is the Very Source of
the Flesh of His Body, and still hope that Jesus will
spare him from the Flames of Hell and include him in the number of those who
belong to His Body, the Church & House of God?
+ + + 11. An
Apocalyptic Vision + + +
“And the four and twenty ancients, who sit on their seats in
the sight of God, fell on their faces and adored God, saying:
‘We give thee thanks, O
Lord God Almighty, who art, and who wast, and
who art to come: because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and thou
hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time
of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest render
reward to thy servants the prophets and the saints, and to them that fear thy
name, little and great, and shouldest destroy
them who have corrupted the earth.’ And the
+ + + 12. To Rule All
Nations with a Rod of Iron + + +
Comment
on Apocalypse 11:16-12:1, 5-17:
Now we come to the heart of understanding the
Blessed Virgin Mary as revealed to us in Sacred Scripture. For we have
called her a queen, and indeed she is. In the quote above we see
“a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve
stars…” (Apocalypse 12:1b-d) Obviously, a woman wearing
a crown is a queen. And no ordinary queen, for
what sovereign upon earth ever wore a diadem consisting of twelve stars?
This is a mistress above all others --- truly, a heavenly queen!
Yet who is this fantastic woman? Christians of old
often allegorized, saying she was the Church with the twelve stars being the
twelve apostles who founded her firmly in Christ & His Teachings. There is
much truth in this assertion; however, a more literal interpretation is even
closer to the mark. For what do we learn about this woman in the next few
verses? That she was “with
child,” and, having “delivered… she brought forth a man
child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was
taken up to God, and to his throne.”
(Apocalypse 12:2a, 4d-5 DRC, emphases added) And who is this “man
child”?
That he is “to rule all nations with an iron
rod” is a big clue. For what single man since Nemrod once
reigned over the entire human race shortly after the Great Flood --- and this
before human beings had gained much in population or dispersed to all parts of
the earth like God had told them to do --- has ever ruled “all nations with
an iron rod”? No one. Whereas we read of Jesus Christ, spoken of
prophetically in the Bible: “The Lord hath said to me:
‘Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me,
and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost
ends of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt
rule them with a rod of iron, and shalt
break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” (Psalm 2:7-9
DRC, emphases & punctuation added) Plainly, this is Jesus, the Son
of the Almighty God --- God Himself --- who is spoken about, and to this
passage in the Psalms is what
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white
horse; and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true,
and with justice doth he judge and fight… And he was clothed with a
garment sprinkled with blood; and his name is called, THE WORD OF GOD…
And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp two
edged sword; that with it he may strike the nations. And he
shall rule them with a rod of iron…” (Apocalypse 19:11, 13,
15a-c DRC, emphases added) Sound familiar? Does this not betoken Jesus Christ?
For as
And which woman, out of all women ever to exist,
became Jesus’ Mother, who is it that gave him through birth His Flesh
upon this earth? Precisely --- the Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary. Consequently,
Mary must be the “woman clothed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet, and on her head a
crown of twelve stars…” since Mary is the only
woman to have been “with child,” and then “brought
forth a man child” who would some day “rule all
nations with an iron rod…” (Apocalypse 12:1b-d, 2a, 5a-b)
13. The Inaccessible Light of the
+ + + Origin of All Goodness & Truth + + +
There is no way to get around this. No matter how
fair it might be to allegorize the woman in this passage into a metaphor of the
Church, it is also just as equally fair & logical & justifiable --- and
even more so --- to take the passage literally as
talking about the Blessed Virgin Mary. How so? Because there is no
other woman who literally fulfills the criteria of the woman
described in the passage! Mary alone of all women to
have graced the realm of human existence fits this
description. Period. Ergo why Catholics call Her the Queen of Highest Heaven:
because Her Divine Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, is the King of Highest Heaven, Who
delights in obeying the Fourth Commandment by honoring His Mother Mary as the Queen
Mother of His Kingdom; and also because the Holy Ghost through St.
John in his Apocalypse reveals to us “a great sign… in
heaven” which then turns out, upon a simple, sensible & literal
examination of its description of “a woman clothed with
the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars…”, to fit Jesus’ Blessed Mother ---
and no one else --- to a tee. (Apocalypse 12:1a, b-d)
This is one of the reasons, too, why Roman
Catholics say that the Virgin Mary is immaculate, i.e., perfect and
without sin, right from the moment of her conception. For what does John inform
us about her? That she is “clothed with the sun…”
(Apocalypse 12:1b) And what is the significance of this? Well, have you ever
tried to look at the sun? It’s impossible, isn’t it? At least
with the eyes of a physical human body on this earth. The sun is simply
too bright. It will blind us. Yet what does brightness have to do with
anything? We read elsewhere in Sacred Scripture that God is “the Father
of lights…” (James 1:17d DRC, emphasis added) And
that His Son, Who is God as well, is “the true light,
which enlighteneth every man that cometh
into this world.” (John 1:9 DRC, emphasis added) Moreover,
Indeed, when Paul, called Saul during his earlier
life, was confronted by a vision of Jesus right before he converted to the True
Faith --- and Whom he had persecuted by hounding those who were a part of
Jesus’ Body, His Church --- we read that “as he went on his
journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus; and suddenly a
light from heaven shined round about him. And falling on the ground, he
heard a voice saying to him: ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me?’ Who said: ‘Who art thou, Lord?’ And he: ‘I
am Jesus whom
thou persecutest…’ And Saul arose
from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. But
they leading him by the hands, brought him to
And Jesus the Light said regarding Himself,
“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not
in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John
8:12b-d DRC, emphases added) Too, “As long as I am in the world, I am
the light of the world.” (John 9:5 DRC, emphasis
added) So Jesus is like the sun --- yet even greater than the sun and able to
blind us by His Brightness. He is as well the Light of the World and the Light
of Life. But what is this Light of His, really? The light of the sun allows us
to see and enables life to exist upon the earth. What, therefore, distinguishes
Jesus’ Supernatural Light from the sun’s natural light --- what
is it that Jesus’ Light allows us to see, what kind of Life is it that
Jesus’ Light enables to exist?
Jesus informs us, “And this is the judgment:
because the light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were
evil. For every one that doth evil hateth the
light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not
be reproved. But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his
works may be made manifest, because they are done in God.”
(John 3:19-21 DRC, emphases added) And as Jesus told St. Paul when He converted
Paul from the relative darkness of his Old Covenant Religion into the
superseding light of Jesus’ New Covenant Religion, sending him forth to
the nations in order “to open their eyes, that they may be converted from
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that
they may receive forgiveness of sins, and a lot among the
saints, by the faith that is in me.” (Acts 26:18
DRC, emphases added)
The Light of Jesus, then, in contrast to the merely
material light of the sun, is goodness & truth, whereas the Darkness
of the Devil is evil & falsehood. Or, to be more precise, the
Light of Jesus Christ is the Goodness & Truth of God’s True
Religion, whereas the Darkness of the Devil is the Evil & Falsehood of Any False
Religion. That is to say, good works are good, but they are no ultimate good
unless they are worked within the One That Is Truly Good, with the Religious
Faith That God Commands Us To Believe & Obey, the dogmas of this faith
being exactly what Jesus came to the earth to teach the human
race to profess & do in great detail and with absolute certainty. Hence,
the person who does evil can also do good at other times, yet, for
him, his goodness is ultimately no good if not grounded in the origin of goodness.
And God, Who is all-good and all-true, being the Very Source of All Goodness
& Truth, is the “Father of lights” and “inhabiteth light inaccessible” because He is the
Most Holy, Good & Truthful of All, being the Uncreated Creator of All That
Exists, being the “Lord God Almighty, who art, and who wast, and who art to come…” and the One Who
Spoke Light Into Being when He said at the beginning, “Be light
made.” (James 1:17d, 1 Timothy 6:16b, Apocalypse 11:17b-c &
Genesis 1:3b DRC, emphasis added)
+ + + 14. Dressed to
Shine + + +
Likewise, those who are His. Being His
children and imitators of His Goodness and thus well-instructed members of His
Son’s Body, which is the Church that came to be called Catholic before
the first century was even half over, they are those about whom Jesus says,
“Then shall the just shine as the sun, in the kingdom of
their Father.” (Matthew 13:43a-b DRC, emphasis added) And about whom the
prophet, St. Daniel, says, “But they that are learned shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament: and they that instruct many to
justice, as stars for all eternity.” (Daniel 12:3 DRC,
emphases added) In addition, Solomon tells us, “The just shall shine,
and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds.”
(Wisdom 3:7 DRC, emphases added) In other words, God shares His Glory
with those who are His, with those who obediently practice His One True
Religion and hence do their good works rooted in Him by being
rooted in His Son’s One & Only Body, which is the
As a result, it should surprise no one that Queen
Mary --- who was the holiest and most obedient member of Jesus’ Body for
all time throughout the entire world --- is “clothed with the sun” in Heaven. (Apocalypse 12:1b)
Such radiant splendor is nothing less than what Jesus Himself displayed of His
own normally hidden glory prior to returning to Heaven, when He was changed
right in front of the eyes of His disciples, Ss. Peter, James & John, upon
the mountain: “And he was transfigured before them. And his face
did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as
snow.” (Matthew 17:2 DRC, emphases added) Another gospel adds:
“And his garments became shining and exceeding white as snow,
so as no fuller upon earth can make white.” (Mark 9:2 DRC,
emphasis added) And yet another adds: “And whilst he prayed, the shape of
his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and
glittering.” (Luke 9:29 DRC, emphasis added)
The point is, the Blessed Virgin Mary is “clothed with the sun” because she
is superlatively holy & obedient like Her Regal Son, having borne the King
of Glory & Light of the World --- He Whose Face, when transfigured,
“did shine as the sun”
--- within her very womb. (Apocalypse 12:1b & Matthew 17:2b DRC, emphasis
added) Note, too, how she is merely “clothed with the
sun,” while it is the very “face” of Her Son Himself
that “did shine as the sun…” (Apocalypse 12:1b & Matthew
17:2b DRC, emphases added) This is because she shines not with
her own glory, as if it emanates ultimately from her own self, but with the
Glory of Her Son, Who is God, and Who thus shines His Glory through her
in order to both honor her for her holiness and honor Himself for being the
Source of All Such Holiness. And she is superlatively obedient & holy,
exceeded by no one except Her Regally Divine Son, because God in His Sovereign
Counsel chose her out of all creatures from the beginning of the world, having
foreknown her, and bestowed upon her the prevenient graces
necessary for her to be preserved from any stain of sin, even from that
iniquity which every human soul otherwise suffers via their corrupted flesh
from Adam after His Fall in the Garden of Paradise, being the Original Sin that
humanity in St. Adam, their ancient father, first committed.
It is these prevenient graces,
and Mary’s faultless cooperation with such graces, which merited her the
privilege in God’s Sight of bearing the Second Person of God Almighty
within her womb, that kept her sinless from the start of her existence
and throughout her life, that raised her bodily into Heaven after her life was
finished here on the earth, and that grants her a Crown of Monarchy in Highest
Heaven for the Rest of Eternity as the Queen Mother, God delighting in honoring
her who delighted in honoring Him like no other person ever did whilst alive on
earth.
+ + + 15. The Eve of
Mary (Or, Eve’s Second Chance) + + +
What’s more, we find in examining this
passage from St. John’s Apocalypse that Queen Mary is not only the Mother
of God, having borne the Almighty Son of God within Her Womb, but that she is
the mother of all those who bear His Testimony, too! In other words, she is the
mother of all real Christians. “And the dragon was
angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest
of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of
Jesus Christ.” (Apocalypse 12:17)
For who are those “who keep the commandments
of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ…”?
(Apocalypse 12:17c-d) Christians, obviously. And what does the Holy
Ghost through John call these Christians? He calls them “the rest
of her seed,” ‘seed’ here being the
old-fashioned word used in reference to human beings for the children or descendants of
a particular person. (Apocalypse 12:17b) Which only makes sense. For
what have we already seen, from the previous commentary, is the Body of
Jesus? The Church. (Colossians 1:18 & Ephesians 1:22-23, for
instance) And how are people made members of this Church Body,
becoming a part of Jesus? Through Baptism. (e.g., Galatians 3:27 & 1
Corinthians 12:13) And from whom was Jesus born, who is it that gave birth to
His Divine Person and Most Sacred Body? The Blessed Virgin Mary. Consequently,
in a very real sense, Mary is the mother not just of Jesus, Who is God, but
of the rest of His Body, too, of those members of His Body, the
Church, who are baptized into Him and profess all of His Teachings and all of
His Commandments.
This woman, then --- who we cannot intelligently
argue is literally anyone else other than the Blessed Virgin Mary --- is
the mother of everyone who both obeys the commandments
of God and holds to the testimony of Jesus Christ. Indeed, Christians being
those who are “born again” (John 3:3, 5 & 7 & 1
Peter 1:23 DRC, emphasis added) in Jesus Christ, Her Son, and so become “new creatures”
(2 Corinthians 5:17 & Galatians 6:15 DRC, emphasis added) in God’s
Sight, then Queen Mary is the Mother of the Human Race of the New Creation.
For just as the First Eve was the Queen Mother of the Human
Race of the Old Creation before she fell into the first sin
and lost her hitherto unsullied crown, so Mary is the Last Eve
--- the Second Eve --- in conjunction with her Son,
Jesus, Who is the Second Adam, i.e., the “last Adam…”
(1 Corinthians 15:45 DRC, emphasis added) And just as Eve’s body was not
created simultaneous with Adam’s body but was taken out of Adam after he
was created, so Jesus’ Body was not formed simultaneous with Mary’s
body but was taken out of Mary after she was
formed. For as Satan had the Sin of Adam enter the world through
Eve, the First Woman of the Old Creation, so God had
the Grace of Jesus enter the world through Mary, the First
Woman of the New Creation. That is to say, since by woman sin first
entered into the world, then by woman sin is first cast out of the world. It is
God’s Will, making His Son’s Birth dependent upon the humble
consent of a woman. A consent & cooperation that is vital since, short of a
man’s blood coursing through His Veins --- and Royal Blood
at that --- He could not very well have shed what He did not have! Hence, just
as Eve with the wicked sanction of Adam’s Kingly Authority enabled Sin
& Death to enter this world, so, too, does Mary with the holy sanction of
Jesus’ Kingly Authority enable Grace & Life to enter the same.
+ + + 16. Moon
Which, by the way, is why Mary stands with “the
moon under her feet…” (Apocalypse 12:1c) For not only is
the earth’s moon poetically ‘feminine’ in relation to a
‘masculine’ sun --- for instance, where the prophet says
“…the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the
moon shall not shine with her light…” (Isaias 13:10c-d DRC, emphases added, see also Ecclesiasticus 43:1-9), thereby showing us that Queen
Mary, the female, is to the heavens like the moon just
as Her Son, King Jesus, the male, is to the same like the sun,
the latter’s glory reflected in the former and hence, so to speak,
shining through it when the latter is not even to be seen in
the sky --- but the moon is the highest point of the earth anywhere to be
found. How so?
Consider. Is there any other orb in the heavens ---
what moderns now call ‘outer space’ or simply ‘space’
--- so intimately connected to the earth, in such a way that the earth is the
dominant mass? No, there is not. Astronomers tell us that the moon is the
earth’s one & only natural ‘satellite’ and that all other
denizens of the celestial realm, except for the sun, are too far away to have
anything other than an incidental or passing effect upon the earth. Whereas, in
contrast, earth & moon together constitute one single system locked in a
so-called ‘gravitational’ embrace. Nevertheless… and this is
the key thing to remember… the moon is much smaller than, and thus subservient
to, the earth. Or to put it another way: the center of mass of
the earth-moon system is far, far, far closer to the earth than it is to the
moon. It is, as a matter of fact, approximately 1000 miles beneath the
surface of the earth wherever the moon might be directly overhead. In
the most literal sense of the words, then, the moon is truly a part of this
earth. It is like our highest mountain, higher than
Consequently, what is the significance of
+ + + 17. Snake
Killer + + +
Because know that, before Satan fell from Heaven, he
was the greatest of all angels. Hence why the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe
portrays him like a cherub, the angels being, as Jesus infers, “the children of
God…” (Luke 20:36 DRC, emphasis added) Children,
however, that, in the original infancy of their creation,
were totally innocent & thoroughly guileless concerning the things of
sin. Hence why angels are often portrayed as babes in paintings of them --- for
babies are the most innocent of human creatures. Yet this innocence Satan lost
due to his rebellion against God. “Thou a cherub stretched
out, and protecting, and I set thee in the holy
There you have it. Satan, the Devil, is “the
prince of the power of this air…” (Ephesians 2:2b DRC,
emphasis added) Ergo the significance of Our Lady of Guadalupe standing upon
the head of a cherub with feathered wings, since
Satan in the preternaturalness of his airy, angelic being can roam throughout
this world like a swift, farsighted bird in flight. Ergo, too, the significance
that Queen Mary stands upon the head of this fallen cherub whose wings are the
colors of the ancient Aztec’s pagan god, Quetzelcoatl, the
Feathered Serpent. Because Satan is the Serpent that
tempted Eve in the Garden of Paradise at the beginning in
ancient times. As John informs us, “And that great dragon was cast
out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan,
who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast
unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” (Apocalypse
12:9, emphases added) And being angelic & spiritual in nature, not bound by
the restrictions of a merely physical existence, he is able to
‘fly’, as it were, through the atmosphere of our earth, overseeing
the war of his fellow fallen angels, demons, against the souls of men.
The Central American Indians of the early 1500s
understood this. They knew that their Feathered Serpent was beaten, overcome by
the Woman Who Bore The God-Man Jesus Within Her Womb that the Spanish
monks had told them about. Heretofore, most of the Indians had ignored them,
scorning the religion of their conquerors. These Franciscan & Dominican
missionaries had labored hard with very little to show for their efforts…
until the Blessed Virgin Mary manifested Her God-Given Strength, crushing the
head of their pagan god and inviting them into the maternal embrace of Her
Loving Arms. What before could not be achieved for all the excellent preaching
& charitable deeds in the world by the good monks from Catholic Spain
during the course of a dozen years, Queen Mary accomplished, via a miracle that
took less than a second, in a mere matter of months.
+ + + 18. Every
Moonth an Agony + + +
Notwithstanding, “the moon under her
feet…” means something more as well. (Apocalypse 12:1c) For what do
we think of when we think of the moon? Right. Its phases. That
is to say, the moon goes through regular waxings & wanings, sometimes revealing to us all of her face,
sometimes none of her face, and sometimes in-between. This is why, for example,
Queen Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe stands upon a crescent moon;
the crescent is what the moon looks like just before, or right after, the moon
has finished being ‘new’ or dark in the sky, no light of the sun
reflecting to us on earth from its surface. And how long does this periodic
waxing & waning take, how much time passes between one new moon and another
new moon, or between one full moon and the next full moon? Twenty-nine-and-a-half
days. This is nearly a whole month. Indeed, the term ‘month’
derives from the word ‘moon’ in ancient times… a ‘moonth’. And what on earth, apart from the
tides of the ocean, is more closely linked to the moon than anything else?
Correct --- the menstruation of a woman. The term, ‘menstruation’,
in fact, comes from the Latin word, ‘mensis’,
meaning ‘month’. And what is the nature of this monthly period?
It is a time of suffering & bleeding for a
woman. Truly, it is the result of God’s Curse upon Eve --- after He had
cursed the Serpent and before He had cursed Adam, the man --- for her rebellion
against God’s Commandment which He had given to her via Adam, her
husband, not to eat of the fruit from the Tree at the center of the
This curse, though, the Blessed Virgin Mary
did not suffer. For since she, in particular, of all women,
was not tainted by the stain of sin from the moment of conception, then she, of
all women since the transgression of Eve, did not need to suffer the curse laid
upon all women in general. Therefore, while the rest of Eve’s daughters
have endured the pain every month which correlates with the cycles of the moon,
Mary did not. Nor did she suffer birth pangs. The Miracle of
Jesus’ Divine Conception, void of any carnal pleasure on Mary’s
part, was mirrored in the Miracle of His Nativity, bereft of any carnal agony
that His Mother should bear. For just as the bodily senses were not gratified
and the usual physical means not utilized at His entrance into Her Womb, so the
bodily senses were not agonized and the usual physical means not utilized at
His exit from the same. In both cases supernatural means of conception
& birth were used, and this is yet another reason
+ + + 19. Truly, But
Not Literally + + +
But, of course, particularly agile opponents will
cite an earlier part of the passage from John’s Apocalypse, where it says
that the woman “being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was
in pain to be delivered.” (Apocalypse 12:2 DRC) How can this be referring
to the Virgin Mary, they chortle gleefully, when the Catholic Church tells us
Mary was without sin and hence free from the curse of a mother’s birth
pangs?
Yet what do we see from another passage of Sacred
Scripture? We read, “O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken
me? …O my God, I shall cry by day, and thou wilt not hear…”
(Psalm 21:2a-b, 3a-b DRC) In Protestant bibles these verses are called Psalm
22:1a-b & 2a-b instead of 21:2a-b & 3a-b. Nevertheless, Protestants as
well as Catholics recognize how this psalm more than any other
foretold the horrible sufferings of Jesus upon the Cross. For instance, the
Study Edition of the New Open Bible, a famous instructional translation for
conservative Protestants put out by Thomas Nelson Publishers in
Now, consider. Both Protestants & Catholics can
agree that Psalm 21 (or Psalm 22, as Protestants would have it) speaks truly about
Jesus. All the same, were we to take the words of Jesus literally ---
“O my God… why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 21:2a-b DRC,
see also Mark 15:34e) --- then we are trapped in a conundrum that
seems impossible to escape. Because Jesus is God,
right? Right. And yet Jesus --- God --- says upon the
cross, “My God… why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark
15:34e DRC, emphasis added), echoing the very words of the prophetic Psalm 21:2a-b.
So how could God say He has forsaken Himself? How in the
world is this possible when He is with Himself upon the Cross as
He hangs there dying?
It’s really quite simple. For although Psalm
21 speaks about Jesus truly, it doesn’t then mean that every thing
it says about Jesus --- and that Jesus Himself quoted upon the Cross --- is to
be taken literally. God cannot literally forsake Himself. Jesus did not,
and could not, stop being God as He died upon the
Cross. Nor can God fail to be omnipresent. As St. David observes regarding God
in another psalm, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I
flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I
descend into hell, thou art present. If I take wings early in the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: even there also
shall thy hand lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm
138:7-10 DRC, emphases & punctuation added) Consequently, God cannot literally
forsake Himself. Jesus was still fully God as well as fully Man upon
the Cross, and God is everywhere present in creation no matter where
one might be.
This is the reason neither the first quote from the
psalm (“O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me?”)
nor the second quote (“O my God, I shall cry by day, and thou wilt not
hear…”) can be taken literally. (Psalm 21:2a-b, 3a-b DRC) It is
impossible, because God cannot possibly stop being Himself or stop hearing
Himself. Rather, we must take the quotes as an allegory for something spiritual.
Accordingly, the Person of God the Father rejected the Person of God the Son
since His Son, Jesus, took upon Himself the wickedness of sinners. The word
‘God’, therefore, is used here in these verses metaphorically to
mean the First Person of the Triune Godhead. Furthermore, God unable to endure
any sin within His Manifest Presence (we are reminded of how no man on this
earth can see God Face-to-face and live due to a man’s sins in this
world, as Exodus 33:20 & Hebrews 12:14 inform us), then God the Father
ceased to manifest His Presence to God the Son’s Human Nature. Wherefore Christ ---
Who had never been without His Father’s Beloved Presence for all of eternity and
was One With Him in a way that no human being can even imagine ---
suffered a misery of infinite magnitude. We can only guess at the depth
of His Agony. For those who have felt such heartbreak that they have despaired
of ever knowing happiness again, left only with a wish to end their existence
upon the earth, this sense of merely human hopelessness gives us a tiny taste
of something akin, perhaps, to what He as the Eternal Word of God suffered
during His excruciating torment upon the Cross.
+ + + 20. Original Sin
Is Genetic + + +
At any rate, we now understand why Mary “cried
travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered.” (Apocalypse
12:2b-c DRC) The Bible speaks truly in this passage, but it cannot
be speaking literally --- as in actual pangs of a physical child birth
--- or else the Blessed Virgin Mary had sin. But if she had sin, then Jesus had
sin, too!
Think about it. Original Sin is the Sin of Adam,
that first sin that the human race committed in the person of their ancient
father, whom God made lord of the whole earth. In that first sin all of
creation fell, men now condemned to die and the rest of God’s creatures
suffering the penalty of death, too. Prior to this, the world was a very
different place. The consequences being physical, though,
then Original Sin cannot be something derived from the soul. It stains the
soul, just like blackberry juice will stain the shirt upon which it falls, but
the Sin of Adam cannot be transmitted hereditarily from soul to soul as
if souls breed like the bodies that they inhabit. They do not. God
creates each individual human’s soul anew, specially for the
body that it is to inhabit as soon as the body is able to receive it. As a
result, we see that Original Sin --- whatever it is exactly, physically
speaking --- must be something that derives from the body. Which
is as much as to say, Original Sin being hereditary, then the body transmits
Adam’s Sin from one generation to the next.
Nowadays we call this hereditary transmission
‘genetic’. I.e., something carried from generation to generation
through one’s genes. These genes are located in our cells. Every cell has
them; every cell transmits them. They provide the pattern of our bodies.
Without them, physical life as we know it is unthinkable. And these genes are
located on the chromosomes of the cells, of which human beings have forty-six
altogether. What’s more, and so far as we know, these chromosomes of
genetic material are all that is carried from one generation to the next. That
is to say, nothing more of real & intrinsic significance is transmitted,
physically speaking, from the bodies of the parents to the body of the child.
The genes are it. For while a mother’s milk may contribute
substantially to the growth of her child’s infant body, it does not, like
the genes, essentially direct and therefore determine the
design of that child’s body. Consequently, whatever exactly
Original Sin is, it must be associated with the genes ---
or else it’s transmission could not be physical, and a
person’s parents could not be the ones transmitting it. But this is not
an option since the Sin of Adam is indeed a transmission of bodily nature.
Ergo, the genes on the chromosomes must transmit it.
Which only makes sense, really. After all, did
not God design creation to be as it is? Did He not design our
bodies for a specific purpose? No one not under the sway of new-fangled macroevolutionary teaching or old-fashioned paganism can
disagree. And how is this purpose for our bodies carried from generation
to generation if not via physical means from parent to child?
Hence, knowing that the genes transmit physically the pattern of our bodies
from one generation to the next, and knowing that the design of our bodies was
in some way deformed from the perfection that they formerly
possessed prior to Adam’s Fall in the Garden of Paradise so as to admit
injury & mortality where before there was none, then Original Sin must
be a deformity now ‘programmed’ into the genetic material of our
cells somewhere upon the chromosomes. Which is where it gets
interesting…
+ + + 21. The Y
Chromosome Connection + + +
Because there is a genetic difference
between men & women. All human beings have 46 chromosomes total in
their cells. But only one of those 46 chromosomes of genetic material is
what makes a man a man, apparently. Or, to put it another way, there is no
reason for a man to be masculine, physically speaking, except for the design
encoded on that 46th chromosome, called the ‘Y’
chromosome due to its unique shape. Whereas for a woman, all 46
chromosomes look roughly the same --- all 46 are shaped like an
‘X’.
Now, continue to ponder. Some people have said
that only men transmit Original Sin to their children, that women
have nothing to do with it. Thus, say they, Queen Mary could not have transmitted
Original Sin to King Jesus, Her Son. For Protestants who think a bit deeply,
this is a nifty way of avoiding the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. To
wit, the infallibly-defined dogma of the Roman Catholic Church that the Blessed
Ever-Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of Original Sin upon her soul,
the poison of Adam’s Sin having never been allowed, by God’s
Sovereign Will, to deform her holy flesh. Hence the term
‘immaculate’ in Immaculate Conception since
‘immaculate’ means perfect and Mary was preserved perfect from sin
right from the moment of her conception within her mother’s womb. The
well-instructed Catholic will tell you that Original Sin was prevented from
transmitting to Jesus’ Body since Mary, His Mother, had no Sin of Adam to
transmit from her flesh. Whereas clever Protestants who accept the Doctrine of
Original Sin (many deny it today, some of them even oblivious to its existence)
get around the problem by saying Mary had Original Sin but, being a woman, that
she couldn’t pass it on to the Flesh of Her Divine Son, Jesus.
The problem is, this explanation doesn’t
make any genetic sense. Because the only difference, in genetic terms, between
men & women is one chromosome: the Y chromosome. Thus, if men are
the only ones to transmit the deformity of Original Sin --- whether to a
daughter or to a son --- then women could not physically inherit
the Sin of Adam. Could not, as in it is physically impossible.
Remember, the sole difference between men & women, genetically speaking, is
the Y chromosome. Short of this particular collection of genes, men would be,
apparently, indistinguishable from women. Which is why, were men the only
transmitters of Original Sin, then they must carry it upon the Y
chromosome, the only thing that genetically distinguishes them from women.
Otherwise, why can’t women transmit it, too? After all, both men
& women contribute a set of 23 chromosomes apiece to the child that they
bear. Which in turn is why men cannot be the sole transmitters
of Adam’s Sin since a daughter never receives a Y chromosome
from her father, who is the only one who could give it to her, and hence
could never have Original Sin were this theory correct. Or
is there any sane & honest person who would dare to say that, of all people
on earth, only women are without sin?
Granted that unlikely prospect (and it is an
infallible teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that both men and women
receive the poison of Original Sin, Jesus & Mary alone excluded), we must
then face the empirical fact… both men and women transmit the Sin
of Adam, the poison of Original Sin is not restricted to a man’s Y
chromosome. Bringing us back to the topic of Mary’s Immaculate
Conception. Because if she did have the stain of Original Sin upon her
soul (and may God pardon me for even suggesting the thought, as if it were a
plausible hypothesis), then how did the Divinely Perfect Jesus avoid the
stain of Adam’s Sin upon His Sinless Soul?
22. And Thus Why Mary
+ + + Had to Be Conceived Immaculately + + +
Ponder it carefully. Jesus is God and therefore
perfect, as almost any studious Protestant of a conservative theology will
admit. So how could He, the Perfect God-Man, foster the deformity of Original
Sin within His Holy Flesh, how could His Sinless Soul bear the stain of this
ugly & soul-killing iniquity upon its own exquisite spotlessness?
The very notion is inconceivable.
Literally --- Jesus could not be conceived in Original Sin.
Ergo, Mary could not have transmitted Original Sin to Him.
Ergo, Mary herself could not have had Original Sin and she
was perfect from the moment of her own conception, just as most Catholics have
said since the beginning of Christianity in the first century A.D., and just as
every real & well-instructed Catholic has always said since the Triune God,
by His Divine Authority, allowed a pope to define this doctrine infallibly in
1854.
Of course, extremely stubborn Protestants can get a
little bit more clever and ask why, if God by a divine miracle
prevented the Blessed Virgin Mary from acquiring the poison of Original Sin
from her parents, couldn’t God then by a divine miracle do the same with
Jesus in the Womb of Mary at His Conception as well? That is to say, why did it
have to start with Mary? Why did the transmission of Original Sin get cut off
at her beginning? Why not with Jesus at His Conception instead?
The answer is pretty plain. Aside from the fact
that it’s revolting to think of the Almighty Creator of the Universe, Who
is without any sin, residing in most intimate contact with an imperfect
creature via this woman’s womb, utterly dependent upon her, bodily
speaking, in every way during His Holy Infancy, it also poses an insoluble
dilemma. Viz., how can God be His Own Savior, He Who is without
sin and needs saving from no one?
Again, think it through carefully. Protestants love
to impugn Catholics for the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception by, amongst
other complaints, asking how it is Mary would say about herself to St.
Elizabeth, her cousin, the following: “My soul doth magnify the Lord. And
my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
(Luke 1:46b-47 DRC) How could she say this, scoff they, when she is
immaculately conceived --- without any sin --- and yet have called God her
“Saviour”? (Luke 1:47 DRC) From what was
she being saved? What sin had condemned her that she would need God to forgive
her, thereby saving her soul from the torments of Hell?
The rejoinder is obvious, but we will spell it out
clearly for those who are not familiar with Catholic Theology and willing to
learn. Because the Church of Rome has never said that Queen Mary
was perfect by her own efforts. That is to say, she did not create
herself and she did not choose, by her own power, to make herself
without the stain of Original Sin. No, this was by the Sovereign Choice &
Omnipotent Act of God Almighty Himself. He is the
One Who made her perfect to begin with, He it is Who
kept her immaculate from the first moment of her conception. And He did this by
His Grace. Specifically, by applying the graces that He later won upon the
Cross, but which were applied to her preveniently --- before the
actual accomplishment of His Sacrifice upon the Cross --- to the Virgin Mary at
Her Conception, allowing her to be immaculate from the start. He is
All-Powerful and He is All-Sovereign; He can certainly do this should He so
choose. And He did so choose, since Jesus was conceived without sin and
He could not have avoided the threat of transmission of Original Sin
from His Mother were she not herself free from the stain of Adam’s
Iniquity.
Bringing us to the clincher. For how could God
have preveniently applied His Own Grace to
His Own Self to save Himself from the stain of Original Sin in
Mary’s Womb when, in fact, God is, both by logical definition and by
innate nature, utterly & perfectly holy and hence
needs no saving from anyone or anything, least of all from
the stain of sin?
Protestants don’t want to believe in the
Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Nonetheless, if they’re going to use this
dogma to attack the dogma by posing an alternative application of the principle
involved, then, to mix metaphors, they’re going to have to face the music
and swallow their own medicine --- because you can’t have it
both ways. Admit that Mary is immaculate, and you handily solve the problem
of how Christ was conceived in Mary’s Womb without inheriting Original
Sin. When asked how this is possible, considering that Mary acknowledged God as
her “Saviour” and hence needed some sort
of rescue from the threat of sin, Catholics respond easily by pointing out that
Mary still needed the prevenient graces of
God to miraculously protect her from the transmission of Adam’s Sin from
her parents. (Luke 1:47 DRC) Consequently, God really was her Savior
whilst she truly was Immaculate. On the other hand, admit the possibility that
God miraculously & preveniently kept
Jesus from inheriting Original Sin from His Mother in Her Womb at His
Conception, and you fly right into a net from which you can never escape. Accordingly,
the question of how it is God could be His Own Savior, He Who by
concrete, eternal reality and inexorable definition needs no saving from
anything, least of all sin. And yet this is what an immaculate conception
on His part would require, were we to insist on it… that He, Perfection
Itself & the Uncreated Creator, would both need to be
and could be His Own Savior, He Who cannot suffer the stain of
sin somehow suffering the threat of a certain & damning Original Sin were
He to incarnate Himself within the womb of a woman who would then transmit to
Him, in His Flesh, the Sin of Adam were He not to apply His own graces preveniently to Himself! Ludicrously, God Himself
would be thrown into the position of having to say about Himself, as did Queen
Mary, “My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in
God my Saviour.” (Luke 1:46b-47
DRC) The Omnipotent wouldn’t be Omnipotent, the Creator merely another
pitiful creature who needs saving…
23. The “All Have Sinned” Protest Rebutted: Contrary to
+ + + Modern Bias, a Soul Always Can Choose Not to Sin + + +
The Protestant or other ridiculer of the Virgin
Mary is better advised to accept the obvious: that the Immaculate Conception is
after all the only sensible solution, the only reasonable way to explain what
cannot otherwise be satisfactorily explained. Indeed, there is really but one
more major objection that Protestants can rationally fling at Catholicism
regarding the Immaculate Conception. The old
‘St.-Paul-in-Romans’ protest. For he says --- and I quote ---
“all have sinned, and do need the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23 DRC)
Other passages in Sacred Scripture say something similar.
Aha, grouse haters of Catholicism. The Bible
says everyone has sinned. This includes Mary, too! Therefore,
she must not have been immaculately conceived. Meanwhile, they
are totally clueless that Catholics themselves wrestled with this verse, and
several other meticulous considerations, for centuries before defining the
Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the middle of the 1800s. In short,
anything Protestants or other critics can dish out, Roman Catholics have
already dished out at themselves while they tackled all of the typical
objections to Her Immaculate Conception prior to the Papacy
taking an infallible stand at the end of it. And what did Catholics figure out?
Precisely what we have already stated --- that
Queen Mary was not perfect solely by her own efforts.
Rather, God made her perfect at her beginning. That is to
say, left to fallen nature and the transmission of Original Sin, then Mary,
too, would have been subject to Adam’s Sin were it not for the
intervention of God to apply the graces to Mary that He won upon the Cross by
the shedding of His Blood for the remission of sins. The difference
is, all other human beings may have their sins remitted after their
conception. Indeed, after their birth under normal
circumstances. Whereas Mary alone, of all persons, had grace applied to her
even before she could contract sin. To wit, at the moment
of her conception.
The distinction is not semantic. To say she was
perfect from the first moment of her conception necessarily means that she was
free from stain of sin at all points during her life, even at her
beginning. Meanwhile, to say that a person is made perfect after one’s
conception is to say that, at first, one was conceived in sin, and then, only
after this start mired in sin, is one washed clean from the sin that has
already stained the soul. Both situations require the intervention of a Savior.
Nevertheless, the former intervention (perfect from the beginning) keeps from
happening what would certainly occur, due to the normal course of things in a
fallen world, were this intervention never applied.
The catch is, the vast majority of Protestants ---
and most people in general --- don’t think anyone can be without sin.
“Nobody’s perfect” is a common refrain we hear at one time or
another from just about everybody’s mouth. Meant to sound tolerant &
forgiving, it is, in fact, quite intolerant & unforgiving when pushed to
the extreme. Truly, as used by most people, it is usually a lame excuse not to
be better than we are. Or, put bluntly, to do less than we can.
Hence, when confronted by testimony or evidence that someone really is doing,
or has done, better than we are --- as much as one can ---
we are seized with fear & indignation. Fear, because we’re afraid of
God punishing us for our sins. And indignation, because in comparison with
someone who is more industrious, who exercises free will to do better than we
are, mightn’t God be angrier with those of us who are morally lazy? Hence
why Protestants latch onto biblical statements about everyone
sinning. “Everybody’s in the same boat,”
think they. “Nobody’s better. If God’s gonna punish me, then He’s gotta punish everybody. But if He’s gonna let them go free, then He’s gotta let me off the hook, too!”
That in a nutshell is what Protestants think. I
know, because I used to be one. They may not think it explicitly, just like
I’ve stated it above, but they think it essentially, deep in their heart
of hearts. That’s why the Blessed Virgin Mary’s sinlessness offends them. Because
it condemns them for their moral turpitude. We may
not be able to be perfect from the first moment of our conceptions like her ---
that depends on the special act of God on her behalf --- but we certainly can,
by the Grace of God given freely to everyone who asks for His Help and
who strives doggedly without falling into despair, become perfect from some
moment after our conceptions onward. I.e., from some moment in the
not-too-distant future after we’ve begged the graces from God to become
perfect as He commands. I mean, did not Jesus say to His disciples, “Be
you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect…”?
(Matthew 5:48 DRC, emphases added) Does God tell us to do what cannot be done?
Did He not give us autonomy, freedom of will to do as we choose? Do we not have
minds, capable of knowing what it is that He’s told us to do? How, then, can
we pretend that it’s inconceivable to freely choose to obey God in all
things whatsoever? Indeed,
So, then, this is really what bugs Protestants and
others of a worldly mind. The Immaculate Conception is not impossible,
as if God somehow couldn’t do it or would never choose to do it that way
for Mary. No, it’s entirely possible for an All-Powerful &
All-Sovereign Creator to do as He sees fit in this matter. It’s just that
we don’t want to believe it… because it offends
us.
24. The “All Have Sinned” Protest Rebutted: Romans 3:23
+ + + Cannot Mean That Every Human Chooses to Sin + + +
And so such people cling to verses like Romans 3:23
where Paul informs us that all have sinned. “This has gotta mean Mary,” they declare with an air of
papal infallibility, as if incapable of misinterpretation. “Nobody gets
off the hook here. Everybody’s a sinner from start to finish. Sin, sin,
sin, sin --- that’s all we do! God knows it. And yet He still
loves us. Although, when I stop to wonder about it, I can’t imagine
how.”
Indeed. How is it the Sinless God can
love a sinner? Although, when you think about it, what we really mean to
say is, “How can the Creator Who Hates Sin love
the creature who loves to sin?” It’s
not the sinning in & of itself that makes the sinner utterly hateful, but
his love of the sinning that makes him totally repugnant. That
is to say, if a person loves sinning with no reticence or remorse --- and
either knows better or ought to know better than to do what he’s doing
--- then that person is just as hateful & repugnant to God as is the degree
to which the sin itself, that the sinner commits, is hateful & repugnant to
Him. Sinners are therefore condemned by their attachment to sin, and forgiven
by their repudiation of the same.
Yet Original Sin is a unique case. For what man
ever chose to be attached to Adam’s Sin? Except for Adam & Eve
themselves, no one ever has, since no one can choose what one is not yet around
to be able to choose. All human beings after Adam & Eve sinned, sinned in
them corporately, as it were, without any individual choice in the
matter. We are born with the Sin of Adam, attached to it short of any
free will in the matter. Notwithstanding, does the baby only a day old
commit any actual sin --- i.e., a sin by act and not
just by origin? Of course not. Ergo, should that baby die
washed free of the stain of Original Sin (and the Catholic Church tells us that
this can only occur in the Water of Baptism), then that child is perfect
in God’s Sight. He has no sin, whether original or actual. Hence,
whatever Paul meant by saying all have sinned, he cannot
have intended it to be understood as though everyone sins by his own choice
until the day that he dies. Or do Protestants accuse a dead baby of having
sinned like a full-grown adult, at his own little infantile choice?
Likewise the Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary. She was
perfect in God’s Sight. She had no sin, whether original or actual. And
if the Holy Ghost by St. Paul’s hand cannot have
meant to include dead babies in his ‘all have sinned’ statement, as
if they have committed actual sins by their own free choice, then how is it we
are to understand --- automatically and without thinking very carefully about
it --- the Holy Ghost by the hand of St. Paul to have meant to include Mary in
his ‘all have sinned’ assertion, too?
Do you see? Protestants think they have an airtight
case here, but they don’t. Simple good sense reveals the opposite. Not
only that, but what about Jesus? Wasn’t He a man? Surely He
was God. Any conservative Protestant admits that. Yet He was fully human,
too, as they will also acknowledge. Consequently, when Paul talks about
‘all’ having sinned, what are we to think about Jesus? Has He (and
may God not hold it against me for saying this) sinned, too? Surely
not. Yet wasn’t Paul talking about all of the children of
Adam, isn’t Jesus included in this number by being a
descendant, in His Human Nature, of the first man, Adam, who resided in the
Garden with God? Certainly He is, as Luke 3:23-38 shows us!
Plainly, Protestants cannot be
interpreting
+ + + 25. The Real
Meaning of Mary’s “Travailing in Birth” + + +
So what can
What is this spiritual meaning?
That Mary, being the Mother of God --- which
includes God’s Body, the Church --- is hence the Mother of all
those who have joined themselves to God & His Body by joining
themselves to His Church. Indeed, it is in this way that we see how many early
Christians could interpret the woman of Apocalypse 12 to be the Church. For do
we not perceive how Queen Mary is, practically speaking, nearly identical to
Her Son’s Body, the Church? Truly. Therefore, in giving birth
to Jesus (in which she suffered no pains of childbirth due to her immaculate
state), she has given birth --- or does actually give birth even now, as it
were --- to each of those who are a part of Jesus’ Body, who are
joined to Him by membership in His Church. Yet we can get even more exact.
For, really, spiritual birth is only the death of a real Christian (read: Roman
Catholic) in the state of grace. Once this is accomplished, the man is
certainly in Heaven. He may have time to undergo in Purgatory where the temporal debt
(as opposed to eternal debt) of his sins that is left unpaid
is expiated, but he has nothing left remaining to everlastingly impede him from
seeing God Face-to-face in Heaven… it’s just a matter of a little
more time.
As a result, just as the Blessed Virgin Mary
“travailed” watching the tribulation of Her Son as He suffered and
died at the hands of His persecutors, so she is “in pain to be
delivered” having watched Her spiritual children mired in sins or suffering
at the hands of persecutors as they uphold the Roman Catholic Testimony of Her
Son. (Apocalypse 12:2b, c DRC) Her maternal agony is spiritual,
not physical. It is of the heart, not of the flesh. And as
any wise man knows who has suffered both physically and spiritually, while
physical pain may be excruciating & intense, it is spiritual
pain --- agony of the soul and of the heart --- that is the worse.
As a matter of fact, when physical pain gets ‘too much’ for
someone, it is really the spiritual pain that the physical torment is causing
that is the most horrible burden to bear --- not the physical suffering itself.
This is how great saints of the Catholic Church could be in the most hideous of
bodily agonies, suffering torment of the senses unimaginable to most of us, and
yet be in ecstasy of soul, happier than we can fathom. It’s not that the
pain itself is pleasurable, but that its purpose & result is so very joyous
when suffered correctly. This is what elevated their souls beyond the lot of
mortal men unto God in the highest degree.
It is the same with Mary. She suffered to see Her
One & Only Son go through His Agony on earth. In this was fulfilled the
prophecy of St. Simeon the Priest to her at the
+ + + 26. War Between
the Woman and the Dragon + + +
This is the War Between Her and The
Dragon. This is the battle that is fought by Satan & his hosts with Mary
& her children. (Apocalypse 12:17) This is the Woman crushing the
Serpent’s Head. (Genesis 3:15) And
is it not curious how we begin in Genesis with the Serpent deceiving a woman,
only to be told, via God’s Curse, how a Woman shall crush the
Serpent’s Head, and then, at the end of the Bible in the Apocalypse,
to see the thing accomplished, a Woman fighting against the Satanic
Serpent? To wit, the war between “that great dragon… that
old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan…” and
“…the woman, who brought forth the man child…”
(Apocalypse 12:9a-c, 13b-c DRC, emphasis added) For it is by her
children’s words and through their many good deeds that she prevails,
they honoring their Heavenly Mother in the face of an unbelieving world. For just
as Jesus must “keep the commandments of God,” one of which is to
honor father & mother (Apocalypse 12:17c, see also Exodus 20:12) --- and
Mary is His Mother --- so those who “have the
testimony of Jesus Christ” must also “keep the commandments of
God” if they would uphold “the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
(Apocalypse 12:17d, c, d DRC) Hence, they as well must honor His Mother ---
who is their Mother, too, by virtue of the testimony of her Son, Jesus
--- that Woman who is “a great sign… in heaven…”
(Apocalypse 12:1a)
Leaving us one last thing to examine in the
Apocalypse for now. Because how did we begin this latest quote from the
Bible? What verse comes right before the “great sign… in
heaven…” (Apocalypse 12:1a ) in perfect narrative
sequence with it, that we quoted with everything else? It is this:
“And the
Anyone who knows something about the
A question then begs to be asked. For why did John,
and why did the Holy Ghost through John, choose to mention this about the
Temple of God right before launching into the words
about the Celestial Woman? Because he says, and we quote again:
“And the
Then, not missing a beat (for chapter divisions
were an innovation of the 2ndmillennium and not something that the
original authors of the various books of the Bible employed as they were
writing Sacred Scripture back in the 1st century A.D or
earlier), he goes on to say in the very next verse in perfect sequence without
skipping a line:
“And a great sign appeared
in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars…”
(Apocalypse 12:1 DRC, emphases added)
+ + + 27. The
The import is clear --- the Virgin Mary is
the Ark of God’s Testament in His New
Covenant Church. We repeat: the
Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary is the
“Now of the things which we have spoken, this
is the sum: we have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the
throne of majesty in the heavens, a minister of the holies, and
of the true tabernacle, which the Lord hath pitched, and not man.
For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices… Who
serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. As
it was answered to Moses, when he was to finish the tabernacle:
‘See,’ saith he, ‘that thou make
all things according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount.’ But now he hath
obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is a mediator of a better
testament, which is established on better promises. For if that former
had been faultless, there should not indeed a place have been sought for a
second. For finding fault with them, he saith:
‘Behold, the days shall come,’ saith the
Lord: ‘and I will perfect unto the house of Israel, and unto the house
of Juda, a new testament: not
according to the testament which I made to their fathers, on the day when I
took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt: because they
continued not in my testament: and I regarded them not,’ saith the Lord. ‘For this is the testament which I
will make to the house of
This, then, is why St. Simeon the Priest prophesied
to the Blessed Virgin Mary, as she brought Her Son, the Word of God, to be
presented to God on the fortieth day after His Birth at the
“And thy own soul a sword shall pierce,
that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.”
(Luke 2:35 DRC, emphases added)
For she, the Ark of the New Testament who had borne
the Word of God within Her Womb, brought forth this Holy Word to the Temple of
God, wherein once laid the Ark of the Old Testament which had borne the Word of
God within Its Womb, in the Holy of Holies and place of the Divine Oracle.
This
+ + + 28. Heavenly Queenship of the Marian Ark + + +
As Solomon remarked concerning God, inspired by the
Holy Ghost in his public prayer at the dedication of the Temple he had built
for God’s Old Covenant Church in Jerusalem: “…for thou
only knowest the hearts of
the children of men…” (2Paralipomenon --- called ‘2
Chronicles’ by Protestants --- 6:30e DRC, emphasis added)
If, then, Simeon could prophesy, inspired by the
same Holy Ghost, to Mary that her “own soul a sword shall pierce, that,
out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed…” (Luke
2:35 DRC), how is it Mary’s suffering is involved in
revealing these thoughts from men’s hearts when God alone knows
the hearts of human beings? Unless, of course, it is just like
Catholics have said --- that God has placed His Authority in her hands. The
Divine Offspring they hold in common (for God the Son is just as much the Son
of Mary as He is the Son of the Father) is the King, and
she, His Mother, is the Queen. Of all God’s creatures, no
one is greater than she. Only God exceeds her in power & glory,
a power & glory that He shares with her more than with anyone else. This is
plain to see, for no greater honor could be given to anyone than
to bear the Person of God Almighty within your womb… to impart to
Him your flesh, with your blood running through
His Veins.
Should this Ark of Testimony offend you or cause
you to mock her, then the sword does indeed pierce Queen Mary’s Sorrowful
& Immaculate Heart and your heart is indeed one of many out of which
thoughts are revealed --- ugly thoughts, irreligious thoughts and thoughts of
blasphemy. What son worth his salt allows another to mock or attack his mother
with impunity? What king who expects his kingdom to endure permits others to
savage, mutilate or ridicule his queen? King Jesus has given to His Mother,
Queen Mary, everything that a Creator possibly could give to one of His
creatures, even unto the half of His Kingdom. He has placed “on her head
a crown of twelve stars…” (Apocalypse 12:1d, emphasis added)
And where are stars to be found? In Heaven. Which is why she
is the “great sign” which “appeared in heaven…”
(Apocalypse 12:1a, emphasis added)
Do you see?
The
Blessed Virgin Mary is a Heavenly Queen.
It is only Protestant or other worldly minds that find this shocking, reprehensible
or ridiculous. God Himself found it to be so marvelous that He
decreed it to be so, telling her through His messenger, St. Gabriel the
Archangel, “…the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou
among women.” (Luke 1:28d-e DRC, emphasis added) This blessing
extends to her being given such powers & magnificence that she
exceeds even Lucifer at his unrivalled angelic height before he
fell into sin and became known as the Devil. And it is to her that God gives
the privilege --- and the strength --- to crush his poisonous mouth. “And
the dragon was angry against the woman…” (Apocalypse 12:17a
DRC) To which the Woman --- Mary --- responds, “Strengthen me, O
Lord God of Israel, and in this hour look on the works of my hands, that as
thou hast promised, thou mayest raise up
Jerusalem thy city: and that I may bring to pass that which I
have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by thee.”
(Judith 13:7 DRC, emphases added) And as Solomon also remarked in his long
& marvelous prayer at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, “Now
therefore arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou and the ark
of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God, put on salvation, and thy
saints rejoice in good things.” (2 Paralipomenon 6:41
DRC, emphasis added) The
“I
will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she
shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in
wait for her heel.” (Genesis 3:15 DRC, emphasis added)
Wage war against the Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary, my
dear soul, and the wicked thoughts of your most blasphemous heart are very much
revealed to the Woman who crushes your master’s arrogant head. The King,
Her Son, also takes notice of this blasphemy. Do not imitate the river whose
waters end up buried in the earth, lifeless & dead: “And the serpent
cast out of his mouth after the woman, water as it were a river; that he might
cause her to be carried away by the river. And the earth opened her mouth, and
swallowed up the river, which the dragon cast out of his mouth.”
(Apocalypse 12:15-16 DRC) It is merely the Devil using you, his tool, to fight
his battles. And need I add that Satan loses?
+
+ +
The passages & commentaries above are the first half of a long
article, Mary Exalted. I will post the latter half of the article as
soon as I can. It is the forerunner of a much longer work called She Crushes
the Serpent’s Head, which I intend to publish --- Heaven-willing ---
in the next five years.
+
+ +
Pilate’s
query met:
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