The sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ has been gifted to us in the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. They raise us to supernatural life and enable us to live as a royal priesthood of believers. As Jesus said, where I am going you know the way.
Montanism was a 2nd century heresy and sect begun by their leader Montanus. The Montanists believed in a “New Prophecy,” as it was known, centered on the prophetic revelations of its founder. Montanus, and two other female oracles, Prisca and Maximilla, would go into ecstatic visions to reveal “new things” from the Holy Spirit.
Eusebius relays the manner of these new revelations, “and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.”
To the New Prophecy movement, the living gift of the Holy Spirit mediated the Church, not the episcopate, or Scripture and Tradition. It was the spontaneity of the spirit for their unique times. Their heresies are murky and not entirely clear from history. But eventually, the Montanists descended into believing Montanus’ and the priestesses’ prophetic utterances superseded even the Gospel.
Are we witnessing a New Prophecy in our day?
The Synod of Synodality is the Church’s ongoing three-phase dialogue begun in 2021 that will finish in its final phase in October 2024 in order to discern the universal voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to the Church. The Jesuit publication, America Magazine, assures us that, “The Holy Spirit is guiding the process.” Some of the issues they highlight coming from the synodal process concern female ordination, “LGBT issues,” and clericalism. It remains to be seen if these are the ways they are seeking to “enlarge the space of your tent” for the Church.
The late Cardinal Pell before his sudden death in January 2023 penned an article for the Spectator critiquing the Synod, “The Catholic Synod of Bishops is now busy constructing what they think of as ‘God’s dream’ of synodality. Unfortunately this divine dream has developed into a toxic nightmare despite the bishops’ professed good intentions.”
There is possible reason for concern.
Some worry the Synod is democratizing the Church and making majority rule a new structure for discerning Church teaching. There is a basis in truth for this in that the sensus fidelium of the whole body of the Church can reach a universal assent on matters of faith and morals.
However, in a time of great ignorance of the faith and a lack of supernatural belief in the Eucharist and the sacraments, will the sensus fidelium be confused with the zeitgeist of our age? Is the zeitgeist guiding the Synod to soften the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, contraception, a female diaconate, divorce and remarriage, and priestly celibacy? This liberalization is being pushed by certain elements within the Church amidst the festering clerical sex abuse scandals, cover-ups, and the ongoing crackdown on traditional Catholics in restricting the Latin-rite Mass. It’s not exactly the Golden Age of Christendom under Charlemagne.
Only time will tell—and that time may be October 2024—if new Montanists are in our midst, and if they may try to declare a “New Prophecy” overturning the age-old truths of the Church. Do pray for the success of the Synod. Pray that they will adhere to the divinely revealed truths of the Church.
God designed the story of Exodus as a symbolic preview of the Redemption. What if that preview extended to the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ? This is the question posed in this brief inquiry. This book is an inquiry because we do not have a complete answer, and the author seeks to find the truths in Scripture and Tradition that shed light upon this. Exodus does indeed foreshadow the coming of Christ, as written about at length in Burning Bush, Burning Hearts: Exodus as Paradigm of the Gospel. God embedded signs and symbols within Exodus that prefigured the Incarnation, Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, and the New Covenant.
This book, however, seeks to understand solely the typologies of Exodus that prefigure the time of the Apocalypse. Three possible typologies from Exodus are explored in reference to the Apocalypse—the ten plagues upon Egypt, the two witnesses of Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, and the Golden Calf incident. These three dramatic events in Exodus find their ultimate fulfillment in the Book of Revelation with the plagues and bowls of wrath, the return of Enoch and the prophet Elijah, and the false image of Antichrist and the Great Apostasy. This highly unique, speculative theological work links the events of Exodus to the Apocalypse and the writings of Moses to St. John the Apostle. Reading this will give you a glimpse into what has been foretold in Scripture concerning the climactic time of the End of the World.
In a posthumous letter revealed recently, the late Pope Benedict XVI lamented and warned that our times are one of ‘the expanding power of Antichrist.’ History will repeat itself again—this time not just upon Egypt in particular, but in this final epoch, it will be visited universally upon the world in whole.
One overlooked aspect of Our Lady of Fatima is in the final October 1917 apparition is a trifold vision of the three mysteries of the rosary. As most of the tens of thousands of onlookers witnessed the “dancing of the sun,” the three children Lucia, Francisco, and Marta witnessed visions of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. More precisely, Lucia saw a mystical triptych in the sky of the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the rosary. Lucia describes the vision of the first scene of the Joyful Mysteries and the Holy Family:
“We beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands.”
In the next scene, Lucia alone saw the Sorrowful Mysteries represented by Our Lady of Dolors:
“I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done.”
In the final scene, Lucia witnessed the Glorious Mysteries represented by Our Lady of Mt. Carmel:
“and I saw Our Lady once more this time resembling Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.”
The Blessed Virgin Mary had foretold to the shepherd children a month before in September that they would see this threefold vision of mysteries of the rosary: “In October, Our Lord will also come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus, to bless the world.”
Joyful Mysteries
In the first vision of the Joyful Mysteries, Mary and Joseph are present with the Christ Child—the Holy Family. Heaven is emphasizing the dignity of marriage and family life. Family life is one of the central messages of Fatima. Heaven calls us to sanctify marriage and our families. St. Joseph is present as the father figure and husband who blesses the world. This shows the critical importance of the role of fathers and the family as a whole, especially in our age of endemic broken families and absentee fathers.
Sorrowful Mysteries
In the second vision of the Sorrowful Mysteries, Lucia sees Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows. Heaven shows that we must be willing to take up our daily Cross and follow after Christ. This involves daily penance and reparation for our sins and the sins of others. The Blessed Virgin Mary told the shepherd children in the August 13 apparition to: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.” The central message of Fatima is prayer, penance, and reparation for sin in order to save souls.
Glorious Mysteries
In the third and final vision of the Glorious Mysteries, Lucia sees Our Lady of Mt. Carmel—Mary as the Queen of Heaven. Our earthly lives of struggle and death are not the end of us. We have the glorious hope of attaining salvation and the heavenly crown of eternal life. Sister Lucia described Our Lady of Mt. Carmel as emblematic of total consecration to God. As Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Mary came bearing the brown scapular offering it to us to wear it as a sign of our consecration to her Immaculate Heart.
Sister Lucia would later affirm, according to Carmelite priest Fr. Howard Rafferty in an interview on August 15, 1950 that: “The rosary and brown scapular are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other.”
It was not by accident that in each monthly apparition at Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary asked the children to pray the rosary every day. This daily recitation is part of our path to Heaven. In the October apparition, she also described herself as: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.”
Years later, in Pontevedra, Spain on December 10, 1925, Jesus and Mary again appeared to now Sister Lucia. The Blessed Virgin Mary showed Sister Lucia her Immaculate Heart covered with thorns “which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment.” She asked Lucia to make reparation for these offenses by fulfilling the Five First Saturdays devotion. The Blessed Virgin Mary promised her:
“I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess [their sins], receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
This is an amazing promise! October is a time to re-consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary through daily prayer of the mysteries of the rosary, wearing the brown scapular, and making the first Five Saturdays devotion. Heaven deemed these practices of eminent importance for the salvation of souls to have emphasized these truths in one of the most miraculous apparitions in Church history. Surely, these holy practices are beneficial for our salvation.
Our path to Heaven is through prayer, penance, sacrifice, conversion, Confession, and worthily receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. The mysteries of the rosary are our daily help to bring us step-by-step, and bead-by-bead, to our Heavenly home. Our Lady of Fatima promised us.
If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me.
—John 5:46
From Type to Reality
The heart of Exodus is the revelation of the Person of Jesus Christ. Each detail and each event of the story adds a brushstroke to the portrait of the coming Messiah that is taking shape. Hints of Christ are in the Passover, the Tabernacle, the manna, the sacrifices, the water, the fire, and the feasts. Exodus is nothing less than God’s revealed plan of redemption for our salvation.
Exodus is a series of object lessons illustrating the Catholic Church and a catechetical instruction on the Sacraments. It is the archetype for the New Covenant, the blueprint and roadmap, bursting with prefigurements that are fulfilled in Christ and his Church. Exodus is, at its core, a divine love story. It reveals God’s deep abiding love for humanity and the lengths he desired to go to save us. Thus, the story of Exodus begins with God revealing who he is to his people, and continues to the revelation of his intent for us to dwell together with him for all eternity—the marriage of God and humanity.
From Judaism to Catholicism
It all begins with the Jewish people, for as Jesus declares, “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). God sets the Jewish nation apart for his special purpose in salvation history. It is a unique nation with a unique purpose and a unique destiny, and the Christian world is eternally grateful to the Jews, our elder spiritual brothers, for their role in adhering to the Torah and preparing the world for the Messiah. Although Israel failed en masse to recognize the Messiah, God has nevertheless blessed the nations of the world through ancient Judaism.
Judaism and Christianity are, in reality, not two separate religions, but two phases of one religion. They are the old church and the new church, on one linear timeline. Judaism has been fulfilled in and transformed into Catholicism.
In 1938, on the eve of World War II, with the massing of the bloody Nazi war machine and their satanic anti-Semitic designs, Pope Pius XI gave a public address at the Vatican to Belgian pilgrims declaring: “. . . it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ, we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites.”[1] A truer statement has never been made. Jesus was a Jew. Our faith is a Jewish faith in a Jewish man. Our religion is Judaism fulfilled.
The Catholic faith germinated in the seed of Judaism, and the seed of Judaism flowered to full growth in the Catholic Church. St. Augustine expresses this relationship between Judaism and Catholicism in a slightly different way: “the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”[2] The ancient Jewish liturgical practices gave birth to the beauty of the Catholic Church, the Sacraments, and the Mass.
God repeatedly calls each of the liturgical rites in Exodus “a statute forever.” As ancient liturgical and sacrificial Judaism has ceased to exist, a legitimate question is: Was God wrong? No, indeed, these liturgical rites have not been lost, but only transformed. The Mosaic liturgy of ancient Judaism has been carried forward and validly transformed into the liturgy and Sacraments of the greater Catholic Church.[3] Mount Sinai continues on in Mount Zion. The Tabernacle of the wilderness continues on in the tabernacle of each Catholic Church.
The Progressive Revelation of Christ
In the course of salvation history, God progressively reveals himself to Israel, particularly in the revelations to the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This process is accelerated in the Exodus and continues throughout the Old Testament so that for millennia before the Incarnation, God has been preparing Israel and all of humanity for the arrival of his Son. This is indeed the very focus of the whole Old Testament: preparation for the Incarnation. Under the divine influence of the Holy Spirit, Moses writes the inspired story of Exodus and the rest of the Torah. The super-intellect of the Divine Being that guided Moses’ writings embedded within them signs, symbols, foreshadowings, typologies, and prefigurements of the coming of Christ. The Catechism states this plainly: “All the Old Covenant prefigurations find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1223).
Scholars estimate that the Exodus happened somewhere between 1,200 to 1,500 years before the birth of Christ, probably closer to the latter date. This long lead-time of, give or take, a millennium and a half before Christ only adds to the miraculous nature of the prophetic text and speaks all the more clearly to the Torah’s divine origin. How, without divine guidance, could Moses have so accurately predicted Christ in sign and symbol so many years ahead of his life?
Types and Typologies
A hermeneutic[4] of Exodus draws out the “types” and “typologies” embedded in Scripture. Typologies are not prophetic words, but rather, prophetic actions, situations, people, events, and objects: a kind of unspoken prophecy, a symbology that manifests a future reality. These are woven into Scripture in a way that only the omnipotent mind of God could have intended. The typologies of Exodus are rich and bountiful, and along with other prefigurements in the Old Testament, they point to the coming of Jesus Christ. The “type” is the prefigurement, and the “antitype” is the fulfillment. The types in the Old Testament give way to the antitype reality in the New Testament.
Types and typologies were understood well by the Biblical writers of the New Testament and the early Church Fathers, and they are explained throughout the Gospels, the Epistles, and the early Fathers’ writings of Church Tradition. In fact, the exegesis of Scripture based upon typological interpretation has a long and deep history. Typology has been studied for two thousand years in the quest to better understand the mind of God. In other words, this is nothing new! Studying Exodus in light of Catholic Tradition is not a novel idea, but an ancient one. The brilliant St. Paul illuminates the depths of scriptural typologies in his letters, assuring us that “These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:17).
Types and typologies of the Old Testament scriptures are “only a shadow” pointing towards Christ to come. The Catechism echoes St. Paul: “[The Paschal catechesis] is called ‘typological’ because it reveals the newness of Christ on the basis of the ‘figures’ (types), which announce him in the deeds, words, and symbols of the first covenant. By this re-reading in the Spirit of Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled” (CCC, no. 1094). The typological events of Exodus are recorded as an example for us to learn from, as St. Paul clearly discerns: “Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction” (1 Cor. 10:11 DRA). The word for “figure” is actually the Greek word tupos (τύπος) meaning “type.”[5]The typologies of Exodus are a snapshot of all salvation history that prophesies—through symbology—the coming of Christ and the New Covenant. It is the preview of the Redemption.
Exodus as Paradigm for the Gospel
The Exodus is to the Old Testament what the Gospels are to the New Testament. The Torah, the five books of Moses and the Law, is built around the Exodus. It is a paradigmatic text; in fact, it is the paradigm that the whole Old Testament is built upon. But Exodus is paradigmatic for the New Testament as well: the whole Gospel is patterned after the Exodus to such an extent that the Gospel could very aptly be called the “Second Exodus” or the “New Exodus.” If Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium,[6] Exodus is the full-fledged Old Testament Gospel. Moses is the paradigm for the Messiah, the new Moses, who will lead the greater Israel into a new Exodus. The new Exodus will be even more glorious than the original, as the remnant of Israel will be gathered together “from the four corners of the earth” (Isa. 11:12). The type is not abolished or abandoned but fulfilled. Keep in mind, there is a certain escalation that happens from the type to the fulfillment. The Exodus type always gives way to the greater, more glorious, antitype fulfillment in Christ.
Many Jews at the time of Christ lived in fervent anticipation of the imminent arrival of the Messiah. Moses himself writes about the coming Messiah who will lead Israel; as God says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren” (Deut. 18:18). The arrival of St. John the Baptist as the forerunner of Christ, for example, immediately evokes the Exodus, as he is “in the wilderness” (Matt. 3:3) and baptizing at the Jordan River. The original Exodus will be a paradigm for the new Exodus under the Messiah. The Old Covenant will be fulfilled and repeated again, but on a much grander scale, in the New Covenant.
The whole Old Testament points to the Incarnation of God in both explicit prophecies and unspoken typologies. But it is specifically the unspoken symbology of Exodus, pointing always toward Christ, that is the subject of this book.
The First Level: Christological Typology
In order to understand the fulfillment of Exodus in Christ, it is necessary to understand the typological character of the text. There are three essential elements embedded in typologies: Christological, sacramental, and eschatological. The first set of typologies, the Christological, point toward the life of Christ in his First Coming, his Incarnation. These prefigure the life, Passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ in the first century A.D. in Israel, and one of the main themes running through Exodus is the typology of Christ’s First Coming in his historical life of this time and place.
The Second Level: Sacramental Typology
The next level is the typology of the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders. The Israelites’ journey through the desert wilderness is a sacramental journey: each miraculous event in Exodus foreshadows a supernatural Sacrament of the Catholic Church, and thus, the miraculous in the Old Covenant becomes the supernatural in the New Covenant. God telegraphs the coming of the Holy Spirit and the Sacraments by punctuating specific events in Exodus with a miracle or a miraculous appearance. The crossing of the Red Sea, the water from the rock, the manna from Heaven: in all of these, the miraculous type is fulfilled by the supernatural grace of Christ in the Church’s seven Sacraments.
In fact, the seven Sacraments are so implicit in everything that happens in Exodus that Exodus forms a microcosm of the Catholic Church and a blueprint for her Sacraments. Many of the early Church Fathers have noted that reading the typologies of Exodus is a form of catechetical instruction, and the New Testament also treats Exodus as a type of catechesis for the Sacraments. Jesus himself interprets Exodus typologically and sacramentally. In John’s Gospel, for example, he records Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse on how the manna in Exodus is fulfilled by himself as the new Eucharistic bread from Heaven. To study Exodus, therefore, is to understand the importance of the sacramental nature of the Church.
The Third Level: Eschatological Typology
The last critical element of Exodus typologies is the eschatological, or the events concerning the end of the world. Like the other typologies, these point toward Christ; but whereas the Christological typologies point toward the life of Christ in his First Coming, and the sacramental typologies point toward Christ in the Catholic Church and the Sacraments, the eschatological typologies point toward Christ in his Second Coming. The Second Coming typologies have obviously not been fulfilled yet, but they can still be discerned through New Testament writings and prophecies concerning the Parousia and the final things.
As reflections of God’s omnipotent mind, many of the events of Exodus reveal not just one typology, but multiple levels of typological interpretation. So, one event or action or object in Exodus may reflect a single typology, two typologies, or even all three typologies: the First Coming of Christ, the Second Coming of Christ, and the Sacraments.
Christ in Exodus
St. Jerome famously said, “ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ,”[7] and in the case of Exodus, this is most profoundly true. Christ is embedded in all of the events of Exodus, and not only Christ himself, but also the Catholic Church and her seven Sacraments. This union between Christ and the Church should not surprise us. We know that the Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ is one with the Church. As Saul was attacking the early Church, the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in a blinding flash of light, asking, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). Jesus is connected so intimately with the Church that he calls us “me.” The Catholic Church is the on-going presence of Jesus Christ in the world, and Christ is present in a very real way in the priesthood, the faithful, and in the Sacraments of the Church. The merits of Jesus’ life, Passion, death, and Resurrection have been entrusted to the Church, and his sanctifying grace is accessible to all through the Sacraments.
Reliance on God: in Exodus and in the Sacraments
One of the main underlying themes of Exodus is that the Israelites needed to have a radical dependence upon God in order to survive for the forty years of their wilderness journey. They needed these sacramental typologies, as we read them now, to physically survive and reach the Promised Land; in parallel fashion, we need the Sacraments to spirituallysurvive this life and inherit eternal life. The truth is we, too, are on an Exodus journey in the desert wilderness of this world.
The Exodus is thus a metaphor for our own journey. In the Christian era, the sacramental typologies of Exodus have given way to the actual Sacraments themselves of the Church—yet, the lesson remains the same. Just as the Israelites needed the sacramental signs to reach the Promised Land, we need the Sacraments to reach Heaven, and a reading of the sacramental typologies in Exodus reveals the absolute necessity of the Sacraments for our salvation. It is a clarion call to live a holy, set-apart life, close to the Church and close to the Sacraments so that we may remain close to Christ in our spiritual exodus, with the hope of one day reaching the eternal Promised Land of Heaven.
[1] Margherita Marchione, Yours is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997), 53.
[2] St. Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, 2, 73; Cf. Dei Verbum IV, 16.
[3] This includes both the Roman and Eastern Catholic liturgical rites, and the Orthodox Church. However, due to the schism with Rome, Orthodox rites are generally considered illicit for Catholics under normal circumstances according to Canon Law (Canon 844).
J.R.R. Tolkien created a parallel universe. It reimagines the Biblical story of Creation, but with the same tragedy of the Fall, including the fall of the angels, the fall of man, and the epistemological struggle of good and evil.
The Silmarillion is a deeply Christian cosmology, albeit an imaginary one. It explains the mythic truths of Christianity without ever mentioning them explicitly. The same is true, of course, of The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion is the pre-history of The Lord of the Rings. It is Middle Earth’s Book of Genesis, and the Old Testament. The Silmarillion is the Old and the Lord of the Rings is the New, but much like the Hebrew Bible and the Gospel, they are intimately connected. One necessarily leads to the next.
The Silmarillion begins with the beatific vision of Eru, who is called Iluvatar – a type of God the Father. He establishes the original order and harmony of the Tolkien universe. The harmony is created together in Great Music of life. Iluvatar created the Ainur, the Holy Ones, who were the offspring of Iluvatar’s thought and sang music before him. These were a type of the angels that reflect the glory of God, and also the heavenly saints of men to come.
Yet, among the Ainur was Melkor, who had the greatest gifts of power and knowledge. He sought to bring into being things of his own. The discord of Melkor spread over the spread of the harmonious melodies before Iluvatar. The melodies ceased, and Iluvatar pronounced judgment upon Melkor:
“And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.”
And, Iluvatar revealed all things that were in store for future ages of the world to come.
“And they saw with amazement the coming of the Children of Iluvatar, and the habitation that was prepared for them; and they perceived that they themselves in the labor of their music had been busy with the preparation of this dwelling, and yet knew not that it had any purpose beyond its own beauty. For the Children of Iluvatar were conceived by him alone.”
And, Iluvatar made the world, a new thing, called Ea – this, the habitation of the world, the Elves called Arda, that is, the Earth. This is the primordial past of Earth, and of men, the preternatural Eden. But, Melkor, the fallen Lucifer figure, the Middle Earth Satan, sought to dominate the world.
“When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame Melkor coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: ‘This shall be my own kingdom.'” The envy of Melkor led to the battles of Middle Earth, first against the Elves, and later, men too.
Yet, “slowly nonetheless the Earth was fashioned and made firm. And thus was the habitation of the Children of Iluvatar established at the last in Deeps of Time and amidst innumerable stars.”
Melkor, the name Elves dare not speak, they called Morgoth. From Morgoth came all foul and fell things upon the Earth, including the Balrogs, the demon of terrors. The greatest of Morgoth’s servants was a spirit called Sauron, who “after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth, and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.”
This set the stage for the struggle and wars for Middle Earth in this first age at the beginning of days.
This is reminiscent of the Fall of Man in Eden and being cast out of the Garden after Original Sin. Satan the tempter tricked Adam and Eve into disobeyed God, and sin entered the world. Death and destruction followed soon after. So, it is in the world of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
Early in the first age of the world, the Ring of Doom is forged. So too, are the Silmarils, which are the three ancient gems that contain the light of the Trees of Valinor, and the most precious things of the Eldar, forged by Feanor, of the original Children of Iluvatar.
Of course, Melkor lusted for the Simarils, “the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart.” The fallen Elves sent to Middle Earth seek to retain the fire of the radiance of the Edenic home in the West.
The dwarves dwell in Khazad-dum in the latter times called Moria, beyond the Misty Mountains. Moria is, also, Tolkiens inserting the truths and even names of Scripture into his grand tale, as Christ was crucified on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.
Tolkien also introduces “new tidings” to Middle Earth with the arrival of Feanor and Men to Middle Earth. The new tidings are also reminiscent of Scripture, in the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”
(Isaiah 40:9-11)
Elrond and Galadriel, part of the original Eldar of the Elves were there, and the race of Eagles, who were sent forth “to dwell in the crags of the North, and to keep watch upon Morgoth.” Galadriel is a type of the Virgin Mary helping guide and protect Middle Earth from the enmity of Morgoth and Sauron and the forces of evil.
Lembas is another type. It is the Elven waybread, “a wafer of white wax shaped as a single flower of Telperion.” It was holy to the Eldar, “for the Eldar had never before allowed Men to use this waybread, and seldom did so again.” Lembas helped them through their journey, “and he took also the lembas of Melian to strengthen them in the wild.” It was their manna from Heaven, as the Israelites on their journey and Exodus through the desert wilderness wandering of forty years, and as King David wrote in the psalms, “Man ate the bread of Angels.” (Psalm 77:25) And so, now too, in the new and greater dispensation, man again eats the bread of angels, or in our case, Catholics consume the Body and Blood, and Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the most Holy Eucharist.
Elves, and even Men, set sail on ships to the West, into the eternity of their immortal shores: “gazing from afar upon the light of the Silmaril, and it was very great. Then Earendil, first of living Men, landed on the immortal shores.” “In those days there was a great building of ships upon the shores of the Western Sea; and thence in many a fleet the Eldar set sail into the West, and came never back to the lands of the weeping and of war.” Those who take the shores to the immortal shores of the West break the circular cycles of life and death, and arrive, alas, into the peace of eternity.
Men fell quickly under the power and sway of Morgoth, or that is, Satan. “It is said by the Eldar that Men came into the world in the time of the Shadow of Morgoth, and they fell swiftly under his dominion.”
It is under this dark dominion that Sauron wielded the One Ring of power and of doom. In that, Saruon the Deceiver forged Nine Rings to ensnare the kings of Men. These became the Ring Wraiths, the Nazgul haunting Middle Earth in service to Sauron and the One Ring.
And Melkor and Sauron set up a new religion to worship the Darkness. Yet, there remained “a remnant of the Faithful,” who refused to bow down to the Darkness. Leading the remnant of the Faithful was the King of Numenor, and his sons including Isildur.
“The days are dark, and there is no hope for Men, for the Faithful are few.” Such was the situation that Men found themselves in the darkness of Middle Earth under Morgoth and Sauron. It was in these dark times that the spirit of Sauron took on a new form:
“There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.” Sauron forged the One Ring of Power in the Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow. And, Sauron destroyed the land of Men in Numenor and burned the White Tree.
Yet, the exiles of Numenor established themselves in the realm of Gondor, and Sauron prepared himself for a great war against the Eldar and Men of the West. By way of necessity, there was established a great alliance between Elves and Men.
During the last siege “Sauron himself came forth; and he wrestled with Gil-galad and Elendil, and they both were slain, and the sword of Elendil broke under him as he fell. But Sauron also was thrown down, and with the hilt-shard of Narsil Isildur cut the Ruling Ring from the hand of Sauron and took it for his own. Then Sauron was for that time vanquished, and he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and his in waste places; and he took no visible shape again for many long years.”
Yet, the Ring betrayed Isildur and the Ring was lost to history for a time. “For the blood of the Numenoreans became mingled with that of other men, and their power and wisdom diminished, and their life-span was shortened, and the watch upon Mordor slumbered.”
It was in this diminished state that Sauron was allowed to return again in the third age of Men. “But the Dominion of Men was preparing and all things were changing, until at last the Dark Lord arose in Mirkwood again.”
It was in these dire times that the Lords of the West sent messengers – in reality, a type of the prophets of Old – back to Middle Earth to contest the power of Sauron, and “if he should arise again, and to move Elves and Men and all living things of good will to valiant deeds.” Chief among the messengers was Mithrandir, who the Men of the North called Gandalf. And, Elrond prophesied to Gandalf, “Nonetheless I forebode that the One will yet be found, and then war will arise again, and in that war this Age will be ended.”
These are the wars and rumors of wars of the Antichrist, and the siege of Christendom and every faithful remnant of Christian.
Yet, in this dark hour, arose the return of the King, the Heir of Isildur, Aragorn, the son of Arathorn, in the line of Elendil, tall in stature, part of the ancient heroes of old of Men, Elf friends to the Eldar.
However, it was the small in stature, a Halfling, Frodo the Hobbit, who would carry the burden of destroying the One Ring of Power. The smallest and humblest of creatures would take the evil ring into the Fires of Mount Doom for its ultimate destruction.
Christ and the Return of the King will ultimately destroy the power of Satan forever casting him back into the pit of fire from whence he came. The humble and the faithful will thence rest forevermore in the Kingdom Come in peaceful bliss.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away.”
Pope Pius XII called Dietrich von Hildebrand the “20th century Doctor of the Church.” Dietrich von Hildebrand was a fierce anti-Nazi crusader. Hitler and Himmler despised him and sought to have him assassinated. Dietrich managed to evade the Nazis and ultimately flee to America where he taught philosophy at Fordham University. Von Hildebrand voiced his greatest concerns, however, over the remainder of his life fighting against the Modernist heresy in the Church, especially after the Second Vatican Council.
His thought was crystallized in his famous 1967 book “Trojan Horse in the City of God.” Von Hildebrand expressed his reason of profound lament in writing the book:
“This book has been written out of a deep sorrow at witnessing the emergence of false prophets within the City of God.”
The book was written in 1967 just after the close of the Vatican Council II. It was then that the Latin Mass Liturgy was transformed into the modern Mass. Von Hildebrand’s ire, however, was directed not at Vatican Council II, which favored the Latin Mass, but at the false prophets of Modernism who sought to undermine the 2,000 year tradition of the Church.
Von Hildebrand attacked the “grave errors widespread among progressive Catholics.” These are what are rotting the Church out from the inside. Progressive Catholics would rather the Church adopt the spirit of the age than convert the spirit of the age to the Church. This is heresy.
And what are the Modernist heresies?
According to von Hildebrand, they are naturalism, secularism, scientism, relativism, evolutionism, atheism, amoralism, indifferentism, Marxism, and Communism. These are the cancers eating away at modern man, and have even seeped into the Body of Christ, eating away at doctrine, tradition, the sacraments, and the liturgy. Particularly, materialism and science fetishism, Von Hildebrand called “the cancer of our epoch.”
These are much like the ancient heresies that the Church has had to fight continuously to subdue in her past:
Gnosticism (1st century) – humans are divine souls trapped in material bodies
Docetism (2nd century) – denying Christ’s human body
Arianism (4th century) – denying the divinity of Christ
Pelagianism (5th century) – denying original sin and the need for Christ’s grace
Nestorianism (5th century) – denying the divine nature of Christ
Monophystism (5th century) – denying the human nature of Christ
Monothelitism (7th century) – denying the two wills of Christ
Iconoclasm (8th century) – belief that icons are idols and must be destroyed
Albegensianism (12th century) – denying the creation by God; a form of Gnosticism where the world was created by Satan.
Protestantism (16th century) – denying the Church, the priesthood, the sacraments, Tradition, and advocating sola scriptura (scripture alone), sola fides (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone)
The 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries have been a whole new breed of heresies altogether, and a summation of all the previous heresies combined. It is the summation of all worldly historical heresies at our footsteps. In our day, Darwinsim, Marxism, Freudianism, Scientism, Secularism, Easternism, Mohammadism, atheism, occultism are pervasive everywhere as well. As Von Hildebrand suggests:
“Like a besieged city, the Church is surrounded by the errors and dangers of our time.”
The teachings of the false prophets are everywhere. Von Hildebrand left his most vehement attack against Teilhard de Chardin who he dubbed succinctly “a false prophet,” who preached a “theology fiction.” Eternity concerns the individual and the individual is not absorbed into the common consciousness of an impersonal force for eternity. This is a new age Chardin heresy blended with eastern mysticism.
Christianity is concerned with the individual. It is incompatible with the generic impersonalism of New Age movements as well as the collective of the Communists. These are anathema! He declares, ” Supernatural truths deserve vigorous defense.”
Von Hildebrand counsels strongly that, “The Church is advised therefore to be wise and concern herself with surviving in a Communist world.”
The modern man and the modern world seeks to depersonalize each human being created in the image of God. This is false. This is heresy.
Materialism and Communism are fundamentally totalitarian in nature. They seek to depersonalize each person. It is the cult of depersonalization! The progressive left and Socialists are fundamentally anti-humanitarian in their outlooks. There can be no reconciliation between Communists and Catholics. What does Christ have to do with Satan?
Secularization is apostasy from Christ. Christ’s truths are eternal and do not change. The miraculous cannot be stripped from the Gospels. Revitalization will focus on the supernatural spirit of Christ.
It is at this point in the 21st century that we find ourselves. Even Von Hildebrand might have been shocked in the 1960s how quickly we have rushed down the Gerasene cliff like mad swine drowning under the water. Welcome to Sodom and Gomorrah 2021.
In 1917, it seems the woman crushing the head of the serpent and the serpent lying in wait of her heel played out in real time.
The Mother of God came to Portugal in 1917 just as the seed of the serpent was unleashed in Mother Russia.
MARCH-APRIL: In March 1917, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne, and Lenin returned from exile in Switzerland in April. Lenin came back to Russia to solidify the Bolshevik Revolution that was exploding across the country. The errors of Russia were happening in real time. The Russian monarchy was falling quickly and the Communists were taking over the country.
MAY: It was at the very same time that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared from Heaven to three simple peasant children in Fatima. She came to warn the world about “the errors of Russia.” Mary first appeared to Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta on May 13, 1917.
JUNE-JULY: In July, there was a failed uprising in Russia against the Communists, as the Mother of God appeared again to the children showing them a glimpse of hell.
AUGUST: In August, Russia continued its descent. While on August 13th, the Blessed Virgin Mary again appeared to the shepherd children in Portugal telling them,
“Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them.”
In September, there was a failed coup, again, in attempt to stop the Russian Revolution. While on September 13th the vision of the Mother of God came to the shepherd children urging them to pray the Rosary daily and to prepare for a miracle the next month.
Finally, in October 1917, the Bolsheviks took over control of the government of Russia. It was the red “October Revolution.” Socialism and Communism had arrived upon the world scene. At this very same time, the Blessed Virgin Mary came in her final dramatic appearance at Fatima on October 13, 1917 with the “Miracle of the Sun.” The battle between the woman and the serpent, heaven and hell, was revealed plainly for all to see.
In this last visit of the Mother of God she imparted the message that “I am the Lady of the Rosary.” She continued, “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore, because He is already so much offended.” To sin is to offend God, which leads one’s soul to hell. The Miracle of the Sun, too, was perhaps an augur of a great chastisement upon the world if we did not repent and change our ways. It was a great miracle and blessing but also a warning.
In retrospect, the Blessed Virgin Mary came down from heaven just as the scourge of Socialism and Communism was unleashed upon the world. This was not a coincidence. Mary came to warn the world of the errors of Russia and their Communist doctrine.
And, what were the errors of Russia? Atheistic materialism. An authoritarian state of centralized government. Suppression of God and religion. Destroy tradition and re-write history. Decriminalization of abortion. Attack the family and enactment of no-fault divorces. Radical sex education. Restriction of freedoms. Silencing of dissent. False imprisonment, and the mass killing of millions of people.
The errors of Russia sprang primarily from the writings of Karl Marx, whose ideology is a perverse screed, some may say satanic, that dehumanizes the person and deifies the state. A human being endowed with a soul and the image of his Creator is reduced to a mere material creature, a “worker” for the state. That’s enslavement, not freedom or utopia. Mary came down to warn us not to follow his errors.
Militaristic Marxism came in a more insidious form, too, in Cultural Marxism. This came out of the Frankfurt School in Germany, and entered into the education system primarily as a way to undermine the Western history. It went mainstream as Critical Theory. Their main efforts have been to critique and deconstruct Western Civilization, along with the Bible and the Church. Critical theory deconstruction has now gone viral in America and in the West. The battles we are fighting now with “cancel culture” sprang from the roots of Russia’s errors.
As the Blessed Virgin Mary came to stop the spread of the errors of Russia and Communism, what did she ask us, as the faithful, to do? Pray the Rosary daily. Receive the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. Fast and offer spiritual sacrifices. Wear the brown scapular. Do the First Five Saturdays Devotion in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Then, there is also the question of the worldwide consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary done by the Pope and all the Bishops.
Our Lady of Fatima is just as relevant today in 2021, if not more so, as she was in 1917. We are a world plunged into the errors of Russia. This is perhaps related to the Third Secret of Fatima that was likely was only partially revealed. Our Lady’s probable commentary on the third vision, like in the first two parts, has never been disclosed. Thus, most likely the Third Secret has yet to be fulfilled and it probably involves the errors of Russia spread throughout the world. The battle between Our Lady and the serpent continues to rage on in America and the West, but as Our Lady of Fatima declared, “But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light.” (Mt. 17:2)
“and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.” (Rev. 1:16)
In this Easter season, the mystery of the Resurrection remains ever before us. Christ rose bodily from the dead. In other words, a human being overcame death! This is the Good News we should be shouting from the rooftops. This is why Christianity is unique. Of course, Christ was not just human. He was, and is, fully God. Christ was the forerunner in a bodily resurrection, the first fruit, so that we may one day, on the last day, also rise bodily for all eternity. St. Paul tells us, “And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22) As all humanity inherited sin and death from Adam, now all humanity can rise to eternal life – either for good or for woe.
That moment of Christ’s Resurrection, perhaps, was caught like in a photographic snapshot in time. The Shroud of Turin may very well be that imprint of the Resurrection, although the Church has not ruled definitively on its authenticity. La Stampa, the Vatican Insider site, reported in 2011 on an ENEA (the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) report that researched the Shroud to try to understand the processes of its creation. It has already been scientifically established that the Shroud was not created with paint, as some medieval forgery. Rather, scientific studies have shown the image of the Shroud was imprinted with a light source of intense radiation. In fact, the ENEA report states that “34 thousand billion watts” of VUV (Vacuum Ultraviolet light) was needed to make the image on the Shroud. That’s 34,000,000,000,000 watts of ultraviolet light energy! Since “the most powerful available [laser excimers] on the market come to several billion watts,” this is something not doable even by modern science, much less a Michelangelo of the Middle Ages.
The 21st century world of physics blushes. Our technological era is a time when we hardly believe the supernatural could intrude upon the empirical data-driven world of modern science. Yet, here we are. Occasionally, we do witness the miraculous – where the ethereal divine mysteries poke a hole through the veil of materialism, and its scrupulous pieties.
In 2006, in Assiut, Egypt, a backwater of the Nile, divine mysteries again burst into the seemingly natural and the mundane. It was during this time frame that a number of miraculous occurrences happened throughout Egypt. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared throughout Egypt in Zeitoun (as I wrote about here), in Watan, in Assiut, perhaps retracing, in the twenty-first century, the steps of the Holy Family’s first century sojourn into Egypt. Assiut is traditionally the southern most point that the Holy Family reached in their flight from Herod’s onslaught against the innocence.
On Wednesday March 29, 2006, there was a purported miraculous event that we can consider for our discernment. An Orthodox Christian congregation was praying at St. Michael’s Coptic Church in Assiut. During the liturgy, a miraculous light came upon the tray of the Eucharist so that “all they could see was light.” The worshipers inside the Church receiving the Eucharist saw and felt the light as well. One of the worshipers present at receiving Communion said, “all she could see is light in the tray and light in the hands of Abouna [i.e., the priest] whilst he gave her the body of Christ to partake of. As she partook of this light, she event felt as if she was chewing light!” The Eucharist had turned to a bright unfathomable light, and while partaking of the Eucharist the communicants felt as if they were eating light! These miraculous occurrences were supported by other miraculous events of onlookers seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary, flashes of white light, and appearances of divine doves.
The focus on light hearkens back to Scripture. The Gospel speaks of Jesus revealing his divinity repeatedly in a state of intense light. We see that at the Transfiguration, in the Resurrection, on the Road to Damascus, and in Revelation. Christ appears in an overwhelming burst of light of his glorified state. It is the glorified Christ, in perhaps that 34 trillion watts of radiation, that resurrects from the dead and imprints the Shroud. And, it is in that same light, that we receive in the Holy Eucharist. We, too, are eating the resurrected Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist. As Jesus explained the real presence to the dumbfounded Apostles, the Eucharistic manna is not the dead flesh of a corpse, but his very “spirit and life.” (Jn. 6:63) We receive the grace and power of the light of the resurrected God-man. It is for this reason that Christ tells us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (Jn. 6:53) The flesh and the blood of the resurrected Son of God raises us to eternal life.
This necessitates that we approach each Eucharist in willful contrition and reverence. Faith and the Sacraments are our hope of eternal life. As I detailed in my book Burning Bush, Burning Hearts: Exodus as Paradigm of the Gospel, Christ is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament and all of the Feasts of Exodus. The last and great Feast of the Jews is the Festival of Tabernacles. This is the great celebration of the Pouring of the Water and the Festival of Light. Jesus proclaims that he is the fulfillment of the living-water that is poured out for the forgiveness of sins through the water of Baptism and the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit. Jesus also proclaims himself the Light of the World, in fulfillment of the Ceremony of Light. Jesus is the Light of the World, and upon occasion, we are given a direct glimpse of his divine Light.
We still find these truths, even some 2,000 years later, as “the Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (Jn. 1:5) The Shroud and the Light of the Eucharist in Assiut confirm this. At each Mass, we are being transformed (2 Cor. 3:18) by Christ’s divine Light into his likeness, one Eucharist at a time.
January 6th is the traditional Feast Day of the Epiphany celebrating the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his revelation to the Gentile world (i.e., the three Magi), and the twelve days of Christmas. Technically, the Feast was celebrated this year on Sunday January 3rd in order to foster greater participation, yet the 6th as the traditional and official date remains. Epiphany comes from the Greek epiphaneia meaning manifestation or appearance. The Epiphany, then, is the celebration of the appearance, or the manifestation, of Christ born into the flesh. St. Paul uses the word epiphaneia in regard to the Incarnation: “and now has manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim. 1:10) Epiphaneia is also applied several times in reference to the Second Coming of Christ, for example: “And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming.” (2 Thess. 2:8) Jesus appears in his first epiphaneia in his First Coming in the Incarnation, and will appear again in his second epiphaneia in his Second Coming.
God originally manifests himself in the Old Testament with his appearing, or epiphaneia, at Mount Sinai to establish the Mosaic Covenant with the Israelites. This original manifestation of Yahweh at Mount Sinai is his Theophany to the world. In Exodus, Moses describes the scene at Mount Sinai: “Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.” (Ex. 24:17) The “appearance” (the Hebrew word umareh) at Mount Sinai can be linked exegetically to the epiphaneia of the Incarnation, and ultimately, to the Second Coming.
Certain despotic rulers have through out history tried to usurp the divine epiphaneia for themselves. The Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes claimed divinity for himself with the name (Epiphanes) “God Manifest.” He reigned in the second century B.C. and subjected Israel to tyrannical rule. In 167 B.C., he ended the daily whole burnt offering in the Temple, sacrificed a pig on the Temple altar, and erected a statue to the Greek god Zeus. This is considered a fulfillment to the desolating abomination foretold by the prophet Daniel that he “shall take away the continual burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.” (Dan. 11:31) Many consider him to be a forerunner and prefigurement to the Antichrist. It was the Maccabean Revolt led by Judah Maccabee who ultimately overthrew the tyrannical king and his forces. A reading of the conclusion of the successful Maccabean Revolt states that they “were greatly gladdened by God’s manifestation.” (2 Macc. 15:27) The Septuagint calls the term “God’s manifestation” by the Greek word, again, epiphaneia. The epiphaneia of God ultimately trumped the false-epiphaneia of a corrupt ruler.
Now, we enter the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ in January 2021. The world, much like at the time of Christ, and at the time of the Maccabees, is in crisis. We are still encumbered under the weight of the Chinese COVID-19 virus and pandemic. The national lockdowns in the United States led to a series of disastrous novelties in the election system, namely, greatly expanded usage of mail-in ballots. These provisions have been severely abused and misused under this pretext by the Democratic Party leadership to fraudulently steal the presidential election by targeting swing states (i.e., PA, GA, WI, MI, AZ, NV, NM). The proof is nearly indisputable now. (See the Georgia State Farm Arena security video for “Exhibit A”). Perhaps Providentially, the contested election is coming to a head on the traditional Feast Day of the Epiphany, January 6th. This is the day specified Constitutionally for the counting of Electoral votes by Congress. The question, then, becomes will the Vice President and Congress accept the fraudulent Biden Electoral votes from the swing states, or will they object to, challenge, and reject them? What, or who, has the Constitutional powers to do so?
There are many more questions than good answers at the moment. No one knows exactly how this will play out on January 6th, or up to, or even through, the Inauguration date of January 20th. One thing that may happen is that it only takes one Representative and one Senator to object to a slate of Electors from a contested state and that will spark a two-hour debate in Congress per each objection. Congress will be allowed to air, presumably, on national television, and over the internet for the whole world to see, all, or at least, some of the evidence of voter fraud perpetrated in this election. This fraud will be shown potentially to the whole world. Or, in other words, there may be an “epiphany” regarding what really happened on November 3, 2020 and beyond. There likely will not be an Epiphany (with a capital “E”) of God made manifest, like at Mount Sinai or in the Incarnation, but there may very well be an epiphany (“a revealing”) of the electoral theft that was perpetrated.
As thousands upon thousands of “Magabees” gather in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, it will become increasingly evident which direction this country’s future is headed. Will the Constitution and the rule of law prevail, or will the stealing of an election and a fraudulent President be allowed to stand? Will it be the Great Awakening or the Great Socialist Reset? Pray. Pray, because this is a both temporal and a spiritual struggle, as St. Paul warned us:
“For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12)
In humble recognition of the Savior’s Epiphany, pray very much that God will also have mercy upon the United States and that his divine grace will manifest (epiphaneia) among us.
What if Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, and the Sacraments were all encoded within the Exodus?
My newly published book, Burning Bush, Burning Hearts: Exodus as Paradigm of the Gospel, examines this very question. The book offers in-depth commentary on the underlying symbolism hidden within the story of Exodus that points directly to the Catholic faith.
Much has been written on the many scriptural prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the coming of the Messiah. These are well-known. However, much less attention has been given to the prophetic symbolism embedded in the Old Testament that points to the coming of Christ in unspoken signs and symbols. My book focuses specifically on these unspoken prophecies—the divinely inspired symbols embedded with people, places, things, and miraculous occurrences. These unspoken prophecies are the typologies hidden within Exodus.
The whole story of the Exodus is a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. It is interwoven with signs and symbols for the New Covenant. The Apostles and the early Church Fathers refer to this symbology in the Old Testament as “types” and “figures.” This typology is most pronounced in Exodus. The typologies in Exodus are so central that they reveal quite explicitly, through symbology, the coming of the Messiah and his sacrificial mission. If Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, then, Exodus is the full-fledged Old Testament Gospel. The Exodus predicts the Gospel so strikingly that it could very aptly be called “The New Exodus” or “The Second Exodus.”
The signs and symbols of Exodus offer a preview of the coming Redemption. The Exodus was the preview of the Incarnation. The types of the Old Testament gave way to the reality of Christ, the Church, and the Sacraments. These types can be seen in the main characters of Exodus, in Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua. They can be seen in the main events of Exodus: the Passover lamb, the crossing of the Red Sea, the theophany on Mount Sinai. The types can be seen in the miraculous objects too: the manna from Heaven, the water from the rock, the column of cloud and the pillar of fire, the bronze serpent on the pole, the Tabernacle. The typologies can be seen as well in the individual sacrifices, such as the daily whole burnt offering, the Yahweh and Azazel goats, and the red heifer. They can be seen in the appointed times of the Jewish feasts as well. All was type and symbol. The Exodus is filled to the brim with typological prophecies of Christ.
The truth is these typologies are found throughout the Bible and the writings of the early Church Fathers. St. John the Baptist knew these typologies well, as he exclaims in the presence of Jesus: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) St. Paul, and the rest of the Apostles, knew these typologies as well too, as he states matter-of-factly: “These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:17). In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul goes into this in more detail:
“I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:1-4)
He is proclaiming the typologies of Exodus as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and the Sacraments. The Israelites passed through the Red Sea guided by the column of cloud and the pillar of fire. As the Fathers explain, the Red Sea is a type of a baptismal font. The Israelites go down into the waters of Baptism in crossing the sea and reemerge from the other side. The Holy Spirit as the cloud and the fire blesses the waters of the Sea. Pharaoh and the Egyptian soldiers are a type for sin. As they chase the Israelites through the Sea, the waters fall back down upon them, drowning and wiping them away. The water of Baptism similarly wipes away Original Sin and all of our sins, just as the Egyptians are washed away from the Israelites. Similar expositions can be made of the manna from Heaven and the water from the rock to the Eucharist and the Holy Spirit.
My book attempts to plumb the depths of these many varied instances in Exodus and their foreshadowing of the reality to come. Christ is the new Moses and the new Joshua leading us in this new Exodus. The Israelites were freed from slavery and oppression under Pharaoh. The Cross of Christ similarly frees us from the slavery of sin and death. Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses as a type of redeemer of his people. Just as Moses is the redeemer of his people the Israelites, so too, is Christ is the true Redeemer of all people through the Church. Moses is the singular person who offers atonement for the Israelites as the forerunner to Christ, who is the one Mediator between God and humanity.
The typologies of Exodus point towards Christ’s First Coming in his Incarnation. They point also towards the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church. Finally, the typologies of Exodus point towards Christ’s Second Coming and the end of the world. My book tries to offer insights into each of these occurrences through the symbols found in Exodus. The typologies of Exodus are our blueprint and roadmap. They reveal to us how we are to live our lives, in our own Exodus, in the desert wilderness of this world, in order that we may enter into the Promised Land of Heaven.
