Summary
The OT Kingdom split between North and South, the North being the Schismatics, taking most of the Twelve Tribes. The North was chastised first by the beast Assyria. The South, the true Kingdom, had over a century to repent but did not, so they too went into chastisement under a different but similar beast, Babylon.
In a similar vein, the New Testament Kingdom, the Church, has seen schism between not North and South but East and West. In this case, the East are the schismatic ones and, like the North, have taken most of the Apostolic Sees with them, noting that the Twelve Apostles fulfill the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
100 years ago, the East began to go under an epic horror, atheistic materialism, or communism. The West, for its part, has had this basic century to consider this horror and repent of her own materialism but has not, especially descending into another beast since the late twentieth century, relativistic, hedonistic materialism. Are we next? Already, with health care mandates and gay marriage impositions, it seems we are!
Fatima as Fulfillment: Assyria and Babylon in Old Testament Times, Atheism and Relativism in New Testament Times
It is now some 99 years ago that the prophecy of Russia's horrifically persecutive atheism was sealed with the greatest public miracle since the Resurrection, the incomprehensible spinning and hurling of the sun toward earth at Fatima, witnessed by some 70,000 persons or more, and that was reported by the then secular papers, despite all scoffs today.
In light of this greatest of fully approved Private Revelations in the history of the Church, shall we not consider that the primary subject of this Revelation from the Woman of Women of Heaven, the Spotless and Ever Pure Virgin--this most supreme spiritual and temporal woe to the Church since the days of mass martyrdom under pagan Rome, the horrors of atheistic, totalitarian materialism imposed on most of the greater societies of the Eastern Europe and beyond--is itself something anticipated from Scripture and is in fact foreshadowed by the experience of our beloved elder brothers and sisters in the faith, in the epic chastisements that they faced under, first, in the North, Assyria, and later, in the remnant South, Babylon?
I cannot resist the profound similarities.
To expound, consider first how, in the article, It Shall All be Fulfilled, that it is actually quite reasonable to foresee the greater spiritual history of the Church in the NT era fulfilling the greater spiritual history of the Jews in the OT era.
Moreover, we saw in that article that modern times place us in the same position the Old People of God were in relative to the Old Covenant at the time of the exiles . More specifically, just as Israel and Judah fell more and more away from faithfulness to the Judaic Covenant, and were eventually chastised in their own orders, so we anticipate similar chastisements with the New Covenant equivalents.
But what are the parallels of Israel and Judah, or the North and the South, respectively? Well, in the article, Loaves and Fishes, a Revelation of Sacramental Ecclesiology, we saw that the two greater loaves and fishes stories of the Gospels were images of the two great kingdoms of Christendom, the East and the West, in as much as the Old Covenant had its own derivative schism. More specifically, we saw that just as the North tore itself asunder from the South in the Old Kingdom, taking with it ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, leaving a remnant two behind for the South (who nevertheless retained the true, ultimate kingship despite it being the fraction left), so the Eastern half of Christendom, in the Great Schism just barely into the second Millennium of the Church, tore itself asunder from the West, taking four of the five Apostolic Sees with it (remembering that the Twelve Apostles fulfill the Twelve Tribes), leaving the remnant in the West, the single Apostolic See of Peter, although remembering that just as the true ultimate kingship was retained by the remnant South in the OT, so Peter, the supreme Apostle, retains the ultimate NT kingship as the infallible guardian of the Church, the ultimate king of the Catholic Church.
Profound also, is to consider that, as we might expect, the sooner one is severed from the tree of origin, it goes rotten faster than that actual tree that remains. For, under this very principle, the North fell into sin even quicker than Judah, and so hastened its chastisement first through the Assyrian invasion. Yet, later, the good tree of itself also went sour, and failed to repent in light of its sister’s suffering. Hence did Judah also suffer invasion and exile, namely, under Babylon.
And how does this find its fulfillment in the New Testament? Precisely because, the very prophecies of Fatima have foretold of the epic chastisement of the East, the Christian Kingdoms that were invaded and horrifically persecuted by the great beast that was communism, what Our Lady has called mystically, the errors of Russia, atheistic materialism gone mad with power and hatred, beating down and treading the earth under foot like the fearsome beast of Rome seen in Daniel 7, ferocious and terrifying.
But are we any different? For consider that even as the Jews of the true kingdom, Judah, had around one hundred years or so to consider the fate of their Northern sister who was most painfully disciplined for her sins by a great beast, the kingdom of Assyria, they did not repent . No, they only accelerated their mockery, scoff, and persecution of the prophets, and their unfaithfulness, sin, and idolatry.
It is no wonder, then, that, since there is neither Jew nor Greek, as the greatest Apostle to the Gentiles says, that our fallen nature is not any different. After nearly a century of atrocities under communism that we cannot fathom in the EAST part of the former Christendom , and even after the deliverance of many of these European kingdoms from its vicious oppression, has the WEST repented of its godlessness? By no means. For again, there is neither Jew nor Greek.
Therefore, if Russia and many other nations of the East have gone into the earthly perdition of the beast and false prophet that is ATHEISTIC MATERIALISM, an ideology that says don’t listen to God’s truth nor obey it and live for this world only, how will the West, now almost a hundred years removed from the beginning of this atrocity, flee the wrath of its sister beast and false prophet, RELATIVISTIC MATERIALISM, which is a similar message, just a different cloak, namely, God is whoever you want him to be, so live however you wish, and live for this world only, even as Babylon is just a different geography beast as Assyria! Indeed, it is beginning to happen here, with healthcare mandates, sexual deviances, and atheism being imposed on businesses, organizations, and academics.
Hence, does the apocalypse write, For him who has ears to hear, listen: if you are destined to go into captivity, into it you shall go. Does this mean, if you are predestined for eternal fire, give up? No! It means, rather, at least on one level most likely, that God cannot stop the fallen nature from coming back time and again . For just as Jesus must repeatedly fall under the weight of the cross according to His human nature, not interfering with His Divine Nature (so as to suffer for us in love voluntarily), ultimately to fall a final time in which He can no longer get up, so also must man, because of the weight of Original Sin, constantly fall from grace in Salvation History, since God will not use His Divine Nature to interfere with our freedom, which is wounded from sin, ultimately falling at the end in an incurable fashion, a time when he will, like the body of Jesus, no longer be able to get up.
Hence, it seems “predestined” by fallen nature that our chastisement looms.
But we have this one hope. God is not finished with humanity! For Our Lady Promises that in the end, even WITH the terrible chastisement, that Her Immaculate Heart will triumph! So also, the great suffering of the exile was not the end for the Jews in God’s Plan. For He had mercy on them and brought them back to their Home, rebuilt their temple, and gave them relative peace with the Gentiles until the final crisis of Maccabees.
Similarly, the general private revelation speaks of an unimaginable glory: a SECOND conversion of the world to Catholicism, a glorious restoration in which, much like the Jews, who, as we read in Nehemiah and Ezra, wept tears of repentance after reading the Torah, considering how far they had fallen away from Moses’ covenant, the Gentiles will open the Scriptures and Catechism and weep tears of just how far they had fallen from the grace of the New Covenant.
This will be a truly beautiful time in the history of man, more beautiful than ever shall be on THIS side of the end of time. The only thing that shall exceed it is the world to come, the Everlasting New Creation.
Let us therefore pray for the coming Restoration of Faith, hoping against all hope that God’s Will will begin to be done on earth again as it is in heaven!
Here are the sister articles for reference:
Why will the Jews Convert? A Profound Thesis
Loaves & Fishes: Revelation of Sacramental Ecclesiology