1. This is the Catholic Church at the end times.
A Woman in the desert, as St. John described her in his Apocalypse. In an earlier post, quoting the Apocalypse, we described the Catholic Church as a Woman Fleeing to the desert in a place specially prepared by God, to be nourished for a time. And she was with child. This is the personification of the Catholic Church living a way of life, commonly referred to as “The Life in the Desert,” or monastic life. Just before she fled , the Woman was in the city, it seems. Then under attack from the red dragon she flew to the desert.
2. Special interest in this SIGNUM MAGNUM.
Even as early as the 3rd century whenever the question is asked “Where are the Christians,” they were always directed to the desert. The first Christians were described as “building cities in the desert.” Christ was born at the end times and so His Church should look like the Woman in the desert.
But when the Church lost her zeal and her doctrine, she left the desert and returned to the cities. It was just like the Israelites wanting to go back to Egypt. A small fraction of the Catholic Church remained in the desert.
3. The Church begun in the desert, went back to the cities and at the end times, will return to the desert.
The apostles perfected their faith because they saw Christ. Thomas had a problem. He doubted because, at first he did not see Christ but only believed when he saw Christ. After Christ ascended to heaven, men no longer saw him and found it impossible to have perfect faith. A few saints because “Christ manifested, Himself, to them” were able to reach mature faith. The monastic movement was an attempt to recover that experience of seeing God, to be pure in heart so they could see God and reach mature faith. A very difficult goal for most. But at the end times, God will make them reach that goal.
There will be signs that will signal the end times. Most signs are so common and preached by so many, but let us first put them aside. One sign, specifically, concerns and interest us – the woman in the desert.
4. Interest of Pope Benedict XVI
This was of special interest to Pope Benedict XVI as a young priest when he wrote “The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure.” The saints had prophesied about this “Signum Magnum.” It was of great interest to the Franciscans, St. Francis, in fact, mentioned it. And the Franciscans thought they were the sign. St. Bonaventure, as general of the Franciscans, saw it could not be the Franciscans because they deviated slightly away from the characteristics of the Apocalyptic community. Pope Benedict noticed this, too, and so changed his focus in his search for it.
5. How does this community look like? God gives them Infused Knowledge.
The description could be of the whole Catholic Church or of small communities doting the whole world. They will look like this. They will have infused knowledge (knowledge or wisdom given to them by the grace of God) in the tradition of the great Fathers of the Church. Their knowledge will not come from books, lectures, schools but directly from God. A pure gift, just like St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Thomas of Aquinas near the end of his life, or even such laymen as Gilbert K. Chesterton.
6. Poverty.
They live the spirit of poverty. Pope Benedict XVI, in the above mentioned book, specified the poverty of St. Francis of Assisi, which was unique in the history of the Church, because it was identical with the poverty of Christ and the first apostles. Very few saints had imitated it. In this sense, St. Francis had been referred to as “the last Christian.”
7. God would chose completely uneducated people to enhance the infused knowledge as in the days of the apostles. This characteristic is imbued in Franciscan tradition and is the reason St. Francis and his original group were not interested in education.
But this will exclude almost all present day religious order since some degree of educational attainment is required for admission. Would there be a community today, living a monastic life, practicing the poverty of St. Francis (or better still, the poverty of Christ), completely uneducated in the manner of the world (but not in the classical Trivium of the monastic schools), and yet possessed of the knowledge of the Fathers of the Church, providentially cared by God and growing in number?
8. Not with those combination of charcteristics.
Because all religious orders have a means of income, they are all educated (either with some college education ) and certainly with some catechetical or theological training, ignorant of the writings of the Fathers of the Church (Patristic Theology had been scuttled even before Vat. II) and living a watered down Evangelical or monastic life being in and of the world, I would think no religious order would correspond to it.
9. St. Ephraem. The woman, personified by the Blessed Virgin Mary, will know when the end of the world is.
St. Ephraem, the Syrian, had a passionate love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and wrote thousands of poetic lines in her praises. He observed that the Blessed Virgin Mary always knew when Christ was coming. She knew when Christ would come the first time, obviously because the Angel Gabriel announced it to her. She knew when Christ would come after His death. Christ went straight to her after His resurrection to console her. That’s why she did not have to go to the empty tomb with the Magdalene. Christ was with her. And she, and she alone, knows when Christ is coming at the second coming. And she is the personification of the Catholic Church in the desert. The Gospels says that no one knows the time of the second coming. The Gospel did not say……..except My mother who always knew My comings.
10. Many saints knew of this apocalyptic community, the Catholic Church, as she looks like at the end times. St. Francis and St. Bonaventure knew it. Pope Benedict XVI knows it. . . and is quietly looking for it. (Painting above is “St. Bonaventure in Prayer” by Francisco de Zurbaran, 1627.)