Two Sundays ago, we read the beautiful Gospel that shows the parallel healing and resuscitation: the healing of the woman who had had hemorrhaging for 12 years and the resurrection of the 12 year-old girl. I had always heard these Scriptures for many years now, even into these many years that I have been pondering Apocalypse and Salvation History in general, but it had never occurred to me that there would be an incredible spiritual meaning to this text, that is, until now! What, then, if scene is a proto expression of the Two Witnesses discourse? May sound crazy, but it is entirely appropo. Come along and see.
The Two Females, the Old and New Peoples of God
To begin, obviously, there are two females, one old, one young: the hemorrhaging woman and the 12 year old girl. Well, firstly, God’s People are female, because they receive from God into their inner being truth and grace, just as a woman receives a man into her body. Relatively speaking, though there is only One People of God at any one time, and in particular, the Church is the true People of God now, there is an alternative beloved People who, in the New Covenant, are separated from Christ but will accept him at the end, the Jews. Too, the Jews are older, since they entered covenant with God some three ages before the Christ came, who inaugurated the Church.
Hence, the hemorrhaging woman is the Jews, and the girl is the developing Church. A parallel development is also suggested since they both traverse the same period of time, 12 years; that is, at the time that the woman encounters Jesus, she has been internally bleeding for 12 years, and the girl, at this time, is 12 years old. 12 is the fullness, as it were. Hence, a certain sense of an epic event that brings fullness would be meant here.
But first, to probe this circumstance of one older than the other, where in Scripture have we seen older and younger personages?
THE PRODIGAL SON!
The event is a parable about the Jews and the Gentiles. by some Fathers. Which one is the prodigal son? Okay, well, each son represents a People that are born into the Kingdom of God. The Jewish people were born into God's Family first through Abraham so they are older. The Gentiles are not born into God's family until many centuries later with the coming of Jesus, and so are younger.
So then obviously, the older son is the Jews and the younger son is the Gentiles
The Son Takes His Inheritance and Squanders It
So the younger son grows up in the father's household and works for him beside the Jewish people. At some point in Christian history, the Gentiles, or younger son, will tell the father go to hell: give us what is coming to us.
Effectively the beginning of the first Rebellion against God in Church history was when a great portion of humanity radically rejected Church authority. This was Protestantism. This began the Gentiles journeying father and farther away from God until they were in a far away land of secular apostasy.
So God gave the Gentiles what was coming to them, what was left;
Scripture
Reason
Creation
As the son journeyed into the immediate land away from the father, he squandered Scripture by confounding it. Then he entered the intermediate land away from the father and squandered Reason by confounding it. Finally, he reached the farthest land and all he had left was the creation. So he has been squandering the creation for about a century:
Godless materialism:
Pleasures
Possessions
Egotistical accomplishments
That is, when he reaches the final stage, the far away land, all he has is creation, or godless materialism. Hedonistic and godless materialism is now the default culture of most 1st and recovering 2nd world societies. Humanity is exhausting their attempt to fulfill themselves by self-same mere materialism: pleasures, possessions, and egotistical accomplishments
The Famine, the Minor Chastisement
We are about to exhaust the goods of the creation because the consequences of materialism and superficiality are catching up with us. At this time in our history, society is becoming bored. It is saturated with entertainment, but it is not satisfying. Too, the consequences of living only for pleasures, possessions and accomplishments is catching up to the world :things are going wrong: sexual and life sins are bringing broken homes, communities and cities; population decline crisis; devaluation of life, abortion, and euthanasia. Terrorism continues to rise. Because of greed and living outside of one’s means, and the failed attempts at socialism, many nations debts are at breaking point. A near total global collapse of economy could easily occur in a matter of years before a decade: the artificial means to hold it up cannot persist forever. Ideological poling of nations and communities is threatening violence and civil strife, much like what prepared for Rwanda, which Our Lady of Kibeho warned could happen anywhere in the world if men did not return to God.
Consequently, enmity with God only eventually breeds enmity between men. This is the chastisement, the famine of the parable. In other words, humanity will be reduced to great suffering and discomfort.
The Repentance of the Son, the Renewal of the Gentiles
In their misery, they will cry out to God and ask for forgiveness. And the father will forgive them and take them home. Our Lady will triumph in men’s hearts nearly universally in the world and bring great celebration.
The Jealousy of the Jews
Now, to follow, I’m not trying to say anything negative that I cannot help here, and just bear with me, as it will become beautiful. What we can say is that at this midway point in the parable, just as the older son is jealous of his younger brother’s reconciliation with the Father, so the Jewish people are in a certain sense jealous , yet recognizing the some goodness of the Gentiles.
How? Let us probe the parable. The older son cannot recognize the younger son as his ‘brother”, but he is able to admit that the younger son is a ‘son’ of their father. Let me explain what that could mean. Obviously, Christians and Jews are brothers of one another now in this time of history. In much of the past, they were like enemies, not merely spiritually, but even, sadly, physically. But after the holocaust, the vast majority of Christians love the Jews, and despite our differences we embrace one another. For example, what I see in the Jewish people, at least the ones that are not very much against Christians, is that whereas they do not recognize Jesus as Messiah, they look upon him as someone who might help them find the Messiah, just as St Mary Magdalene, in the second question of Jesus, says, “She perceived He was possibly the gardener and said, ‘Sir, if you know where they have taken Him, then please tell me in order that I may go and anoint Him.’” . This is kind of how Jewish people now largely regard Christians as righteous Gentiles. In this way, the Jews recognize that the Gentiles are also from God but we do not have the fullness of relationship yet. We simply cannot be the fullness of brothers.
The Father’s Plea to His Eldest Son
The incredible thing is this,:to complete the parable. The father does not condemn the older son but only pleads with him in love. The heavenly father absolutely does not condemn the Jewish people simply because they do not recognize His Son yet. He loves them with an ineffable love. He loves all people. He has not forgotten his older son, and what He says to the older son is so beautiful, we cannot fathom it.
“My son, everything that I have is yours.”
And it means this :
At the end of the world, effectively after this coming age of peace, the younger son will walk out on the Father forever. Public Revelation tells us what will happen at the end of the world. The Gentiles will radically and irrevocably spit in the face of God and go back to their godless materialism, as a near whole. In other words, all Gentile Nations will be in apostasy. Not one Gentile nation will, as a whole, love God.
But! Finally, the Jewish people will see in full, so that God may be all in all. The Jews will be the only nation on earth that will embrace the Christ and believe in the Son nearly as a whole. In this way, everything that the Father has will be given to the Jewish people, that is, the Gospel, in truth, and grace. That is, they will inherit the whole Gospel, sparing a remnant of Gentiles.
The Prodigal Son’s Lesson is Definitive, Final
Now, note that the Father implies that this great reconciliation is the last lesson for the younger son; if he should leave again; he has no further claim on the Father. My theology on the issues discussed in the following articles supports this reality:
How Many Apostasies will there be?
The Dove with the Olive Branch and the Peace that Our Lady will Bring
The Unforgivable Apostasy
The argument from the first article is that Salvation History for the Church really can have only two possibilities spiritually:
One apostasy, that is, an unforgivable apostasy after the general period of evangelism with no learning lesson; or
Two apostasies, that is, a singular learning lesson apostasy and then an unforgivable apostasy.
There is no room for scenarios of more than one leaning-lesson godless apostasies. This is because, firstly, God is not arbitrary. Yes, it may be true that we can go to confession countless times, even for mortal sins. But, here, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we simply aren’t looking at a mere serious sin. We are speaking of a monumental, life learning lesson. The son is making an epic midlife choice, experiencing both the high of a supreme hedonistic and worldly experience, followed by an epic low of radical humiliation and poverty. And then, incomprehensibly, being restored with seemingly senseless and absurd compassion from the very man he completely insulted without measure. From this, we have to ask, if the son walks again and tells the father off, where do we go from here? It would be nothing short of a practically unforgivable spit in the face.
To build on this, from the second article, the reality of a world that is shown apocalyptically the terrible consequences of having materialistic power but no God and religion, and then, being shown a subsequent, incomparable, and extraordinary mercy on a worldwide scale, going on to experience the best of both worlds, faith and science reconciled, and this, fully vindicating God’s Revelation in the Church in all facets, faith and morals, what more can be said of a world that spits in the face of even all this and goes back to the worldly power with no God or religion and, if that were not enough, claims that what held the world in peace for that long age that had the best of both worlds, was merely the powers of this world, that it had nothing to do with the so-called powers of the next world?
For, what shall we say? Shall the world after our apostasy once again traverse the pyramid of God’s sources of truth, like our first age of the Church so far? That is , shall she once again challenge God as Triune and Incarnate, culminating with Islam? Shall the East once again say off to hell with the Supreme Apostolic Successor? Shall the General Bishops become heavily wicked and cause the radical rejection thereof? Shall the world reject Scripture that the heretics confounded, and in its place accept only and confound Reason, leading to an age of anti-Ratio, or apostasy? How many times must the world go through this logical cycle before enough is enough? If not merely once, then why not ad infinitum? Hence, when God vindicates the whole of Divine Revelation, a subsequent rejection is historically unforgivable, that is, an apocalyptic Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit [attributing to the powers of this world (science, affluence) the casting out of the prince of this world (the chaining of the dragon, or the era of peace, when man does not murder man, as in the image of the murderer from the beginning)].
Hence, once again, the lesson experienced by the younger son is irrevocable. And, again, think about it. The prodigal son is not just committing a mortal sin. The prodigal son is making a radical and supreme horror upon the man that loves him infinitely. The CCC speaks like this of the angels’ rebellion. There are no defects in the Father’s love, but the nature of the demons’ sin was so radical and depraved and complete, that it rendered the sin unforgivable. Too, Our Lord told St Faustina regarding why the demons weren’t forgiven like Adam and Eve, “Because they knew too much.
Our modern world does not know as much. It knows some but not all. The Gospel has been scandalized by incomparable blood, division, and hatred. A man looking from the outside in can really only see a Catholic Church, and Christianity in general, and even religion in general, that is filled with sin and horror, and that, though he is mistaken, thinks that all these have given the world is controversy and wars and other great sins.
The world has never seen the full fruits of the Gospel. It has never seen an epic, worldwide horror that opens up the false veil of the dragon’s light to see the darknesses for what they are. Once that happens, we have seen the world will go back to the Father. And the Father, can we believe it, will give the world a respite, a seventh-day Sabbath, with the best of both worlds.
Then the world will see the full fruits of the Gospel. For, after they will have seen the hard way, like a famine of feeding pigs, that the Church is right on all things they contested, they will then see that WHEN the doctrines ARE followed in the world, there is wonderful peace, even a reconciled beauty with science, which benefits humanity in the truest sense when it is used by reason and principles of natural law and the Gospel.
Hence, as they say in Hebrews 6:
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen[c] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
A fitting passage not merely for an individual Jewish convert, which is the object of this Hebrews 6, but for the world after God gives it all He can short of the age to come, no?
Hence, unfortunately, this is what will happen toward the end of the coming Triumph of our Lady,
the age of peace. Humanity will forget that their world almost ended. They will get antsy, fidgety, hungry for action. And herein is this: when wars and other troubles start to set in, will they really have an excuse that they don't know why there were wars? Or that the consequence of shirking God is war?
So this is kind of how we can now see a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as the Antichrist descends on the scene. Antichrist will propose our modern solution, the solution that the world will have already seen apocalyptically fail in our day: materialistic power without God. The Catholic Church will call him on it. The Antichrist’s response will clearly be an unforgivable sin historically: firstly, he will say that the reason the world almost ended in our day, is because humanity got in a rut. It had nothing to do with the lack of God and his truth, or his grace. And as for the age of peace, the Antichrist will say, as we have just discussed, that the ONLY reason there was peace in the age of peace was because of the science and the affluence. But science and affluence are the powers of this world. And peace is a condition where man does not kill man, does not murder man. So murder is restrained, murder is cast out of the world. And the murderer from the beginning is the devil. And the devil is the prince of this world. And hence, what the Antichrist will in effect be saying is that the PRINCE of this world was cast out, was chained or bound, by the POWERS of the prince of this world.
“But some said, ‘he casts out devils by the power of devils.”
“But whoever Blasphemes the Holy Spirit, shall NEVER be forgiven, neither in this age, nor the age to come”
The Younger Son Leaves Again, the Older Son is Reconciles
Here, we project the ultimate end of the parable based on our theology.
This second apostasy, then, is, again, when the younger son leaves the second time, never to return. Note, he has no claim on the Father. He has exhausted everything. He has learned his singular apocalyptic lesson. All he can have is the Creation, which is common to all men anyway, remembering that this is all he had in the far away land. Hence, his destiny is the same: he will squander the creation in selfishness, just like the world will in the great apostasy with materialism. But when the famine inevitably comes, like before in our time, this time, there is no reconciliation.
Now, as a guess with extrapolation, we can imagine that as the music dies down, the older son becomes curious. In fact, when it completely ends, he enters the house. The older son comes to his Father, “Why is there no celebration?” The grieving father, with a heavy sigh and tears, saith to his estranged son, “Thy brother has left again.”
“Father, I am troubled.”
“Tell me, son, what doth trouble you
“Father, when I told you that I had always obeyed your commands, and that I had never disobeyed you, and that you never threw a party for me, you did not rebuke me. I was wounded and angry, and my jealousy blinded me to my own sins.”
“Speak freely to Me, My beloved son.”
“Father, I now remember that I am no different than my beloved little brother. Until now, my anger blinded me to the fact that when I was young, I too rebelled. I went away in search of the lot of pleasures. I exhausted my lusts and found myself wanting. And I told myself that I, too, were unworthy of you, but I had to try. And when I returned, you loved me and forgave me also.”
“Tell me, son, how you remember this.”
“Yes, Father, like my younger brother, I grew up in discipline. My brother had Rome, and I had Egypt. Both of us Thou delivered by Your mighty hand. You gave my little brother the prophets of New ,the Church, and Her Bishops. You gave me the prophets. These developed their truths unto us, illumining us. And each of us, in our own right grudgingly came along with desolations. And I, like thy brother, eventually went far away in unfaithfulness. The younger brother went from supernatural heretics, to worldly heretics, to pure apostasy, as you know. I progressively hated the prophets until I was completelywicked.
“Your little brother, had a famine, the chastisement, and you reconciled him. There was celebration in the age of peace. And I had the exile, into Babylon. And even while were so far off, we began to cry out for mercy, and you heard us, even when we were far away, even when we were in Babylon. And in that very exile, the prophets showed us compassion and gave us hope, And hope we were given. We came home to that house which is our Land. And the Temple was rebuilt for celebration.
“Thy younger brother, too, even while he wallowed in a disturbed conscience, was shown mercy by the Church. The Church, in its spirit of Vatican II, did not look down on sinful humanity with a cold judgmentalism but with a kind heart, building up their hope that if they could be turn back to God an ounce, the Lord could do the rest.
“Now, Father, I see that I am no better than my younger brother. I see now that there is neither Jew nor Greek, only man. For, the same tendency to fall down and get up, to sin, and to be redeemed, is present in all men, and all nations, regardless of race, tongue, or even timing in Thy Plan, I see, now, Father, that the same process of spiritual maturation was present in us, as it was in the younger ones
“Beloved, Father, I now ask you to forgive me and allow me to be Thy son again.”
“My beloved Son, you have always been mine, and I will always love you with all My Being forever. Come now enter the joy of thy Master!”
It is written, “Many who are first, shall be last ,and many who are last shall be first!”
So then, the FIRST to receive ANY Divine Revelation from God shall be the LAST to receive it in FULL, and the LAST to receive ANY Divine Revelation from God, shall be the FIRST to receive it in FULL!