After the antichrist

I pointed out some time ago that the overthrow of the antichrist and the end of the world are not necessarily simultaneous events.  Commenting on 1 Thess. 5:3, St Thomas remarks that impious men may in the future feel themselves to be in peace and security, “when they see that the world is not immediately consummated after the death of the antichrist, as they had expected” (IV Sent. 48, 1, 4, 1 ad 1).

In fact, that there will be some interval between the two things appears to be directly revealed, given Dan. 12: 11-12:

From the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waits and comes unto a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days (Dan. 12:11-12).

That interval of forty-five days suggests Lent.  If day 1290 were Ash Wednesday, day 1335 would be Holy Saturday (that doesn’t mean that day 1335 is the Second Coming; it could just be the end of a mopping-up operation.)

I wonder if some of the words of our Lady at La Salette could be relevant here:

Twenty-five years of plentiful harvests will make them forget that the sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this earth.

This suggests a relatively short period of spiritual abundance after the victory, eventually leading to complacency and the end.

St Irenaeus may have interpreted too literally the teaching which he received from the priests who had heard St John, but it certainly looks from Apocalypse 18-20 that there is some great restoration within history after the overthrow of the false prophet.

The elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard to these times, and say: ‘The days will come, in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.’ In like manner, that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear should have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that all other fruit-bearing trees, and seeds and grass, would produce in similar proportions; and that all animals feeding on the productions of the earth, should become peaceful and harmonious among each other, and be in perfect subjection to man.

And these things are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp, in his fourth book; for there were five books compiled by him. And he says in addition, Now these things are credible to believers. And he says that, when the traitor Judas did not give credit to them, and put the question, ‘How then can things about to bring forth so abundantly be wrought by the Lord?,’ the Lord declared, ‘They who shall come to these shall see’  (St Irenaeus, ‘Against heresies’, V.33).

 

One thousand three hundred and thirty five days

I was musing yesterday on the fact that a time, times and half a time, more or less, had passed since the election of the present pope, and wondering whether this might be the basis for a blog-post, when I received an e-mail not dissimilar in theme, but more precise and more heartening:

Lightning again struck St. Peter’s Basilica today, October 7th, in a massive storm around 9:20 a.m., on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary:

http://aleteia.org/2016/10/07/lightning-strikes-dome-of-peters-basilica-on-feast-of-our-lady-of-the-rosary/

Lightning strikes dome of St. Peter’s Basilica on Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary aleteia.org

The first time in recent history that lightning struck there, as you’ll remember, was February 11, 2013, which was another Feast of Our Lady, and the very day Pope Benedict announced his imminent abdication.

Today is the 1335th day following the first lightning strike. That is a prophetic biblical number. It symbolizes relief or victory after a period of patience and perseverance: “Blessed is the man who has patience and perseveres unto one thousand, three hundred and thirty-five days” (Daniel 12: 12). Could this strike from the heavens at the Vatican Basilica on this Feast-Day be a symbolic indication that the great weapon of the Holy Rosary will be Our Lady’s ‘sword’ to combat and vanquish the subtle doctrinal evil and confusion that has increasingly afflicted the Church from the very top down, following Benedict’s fateful decision to relinquish his God-given office?

As at Lepanto, 445 years ago today, this number 1335 could also symbolize another victory eventually to be won by Our Lady of the Rosary over the new Islamic threat to Europe – the tattered remains of Christendom! – presented by the unassimilable Muslim masses now invading that continent as “refugees”. For the great year of Our Lady of the Rosary, 1917, when she appeared under that title at Fatima (a name with strong Muslim resonance), was the 1335th year on the Muslim calendar, which begins with 622 A.D., the year of the Hegira, the ‘Flight of the Prophet’ to Medina. (The traditional Muslim lunar calendar has only 354 days.) So the coins of the Ottoman Empire of 1917 bear the date “1335”. That was also the year in which the Muslims lost control of the Holy City of Jerusalem for the first time since the Crusades. The conquering Christian British forces under General Edmund Allenby marched into the Old City through the ancient Jaffa Gate on December 11, 1917.