SIGNUM MAGNUM-The Church

“Behold a Great Sign appeared in heaven: a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet….and being with child….And behold a great red dragon…And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven… he stood before the woman.”

This is the Introit for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe where it showed that Mary was the woman of the Apocalypse. The feast is describing both an eschatological and ecclesiological phenomenon : the Apocalyptic Woman.

The Catholic Church has many regimes – – different stages in her development from the garden of Paradise until the end of the world. She looks different at every stage. These are often called “types”. We saw her in the Old Testament (in the Chosen People); and in the time of Christ (in the first disciples). But few know her after Pentecost, the beginning of the Church of the Apocalypse.

From Adam and Eve, through the old testament, through the New Testament and Pentecost, this Bride was conceived, established, grows and becomes more beautiful as she matures.

A child growing up with his parents to maturity will always know his parents. But if he hasn’t lived with his parents for many years, he will hardly recognize them. He who is not in the Church will not recognize her in her different regimes.

The Catholic Church has been prepared for the coming of Christ. She received the fullness of Christ during his lifetime; and the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, receiving the power to extend that fullness of Christ throughout the world. Today, the Church looks quite different.

The problem of Evangelization, (already noted by Pope Benedict XVI, first in his circular ” The New Evangelization,” and in his address to the Brazilian Bishops, and repeated in his address to the Curia, and then completed by a memo of the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith on Evangelization), is clear. But many are still unable to point to the true Church. Many parishes, dioceses, and even religious orders are unable to prove their Catholicity.

The Fathers of the Church never hesitated to describe the Woman of the Apocalypse as the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it wasn’t a popular idea. The Woman was always described as the Church, which she was. But Mary wanted to point out in Guadalupe that She was the woman of the Apocalyse, as if saying: “That’s really me and don’t ever doubt that.” In 1531 we have entered into the era of the Apocalypse, “novissimis.”

The steps toward Christian perfection are : repentance, faith, hope then charity. The story of Fatima showed the inability of Christians to repent. Without repentance souls cannot have faith and enter the Church. No repentance, no faith, no Catholics. Both Vatican I and II were working on ecclesiology: what is the Church and how does one enter the Church? Both questions were anwered by “Lumen Gentium” and Chapter 12 of the Apocalypse. The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe where she appeared as “Signum Magnum” is important because it teaches us that in the final regime of the Church on earth, she will have the added characteristic of being Marian. St. Robert Bellarmine mentioned so even before Vatican II. But we need faith to see it. The Church of the Apocalypse is a sight only for true Catholics.