Fr. Campbell, “Hold fast the testimony of Jesus” (Apoc.12:17)
Our
Lord Jesus Christ was sent into this world by God, the Father, to
prepare the way to Heaven for us. As we see in the Gospel for the Third
Sunday of Lent, He had competition. Our Lord was in a constant struggle
with His adversary, the devil, and with the devil’s seed, the
unbelieving Pharisees and those who plotted His death upon the Cross.
This struggle was already foretold in the Book of Genesis, the very
first book of the Bible. Jesus was the Redeemer promised Adam and Eve
after their fall from grace and their expulsion from Paradise. At that
time God said to the serpent (the devil):
“I
will put enmities between thee and the Woman, between thy seed and her
seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel”
(Gn.3:15).
The
prophecy was fulfilled in the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son, Jesus
Christ. The seed of the serpent would be in constant conflict with the
Woman, Mary, and her Son, Jesus Christ, and with all of “the children of
promise” (Gal.4:28). We see this literally fulfilled as Jesus cast’s
out a devil, and he is accused by His adversaries of casting out devils
by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of devils. This conflict would
result in the conviction of Our Lord by the Sanhedrin, and His suffering
and death on the Cross. But it was not to end there. In fact, it will
not end until Judgment Day, when the devil and his seed will be cast
into Hell forever.
The
Bible describes this conflict as between a Woman and her Seed. Mary
stands as the Woman, the Church at its beginning, and she is at war with
the serpent along with her Son, Jesus Christ. In the words of Fr. Hugo
Rahner:
“Thus
we find ourselves at the heart of the early Church’s teaching about Our
Lady and the Church. This is the fundamental doctrine, that Mary is a
type or symbol of the Church, and therefore everything we find in the
Gospel about Mary can be understood in a proper biblical sense of the
mystery of the Church” (Hugo Rahner, Our Lady and the Church, Logos paperback, 1965, p.11).
“It
is this return to the heart of Mary that we need today, so that our
love for the Church as Mother may grow together with our love of the
Mother of Jesus. Then we can begin to understand once more how the early
Christians loved their Mother even to the death, because they loved
Mary in the Church, and in both they loved Christ” (p.10).
St. Paul called us the children of promise:
“Now
we, brethren, are the children of promise, as Isaac was. But as then he
who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born
according to the spirit, so also is it now… Therefore, brethren, we are
not children of a slave-girl, but of the free woman – in virtue of the
freedom wherewith Christ has made us free” (Gal.4:28,29;31).
Like
Agar, the slave-girl, Eve brought forth her children unto slavery. But
Mary brings forth her children unto freedom, first of all her Divine
Son, Jesus Christ, and then the rest of her children, the “children of
promise”. Mary and the Church are indivisible.
The
devil in his fury continues to pursue the Woman, the Church, but Our
Lady, Mary, is no longer vulnerable in any way to his attacks, as we
read in the Apocalypse:
“And
the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bring forth, that
when she had brought forth he might devour her son. And she brought
forth a male child, who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and
her child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled
into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that there
they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and sixty days… And the
dragon was angered at the woman, and went away to wage war with the rest
of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God, and hold fast the
testimony of Jesus” (Apoc.12:4b-6;17).
Does
the Church still “hold fast the testimony of Jesus”? Yes, absolutely!
The True Church hands on, unchanged, the same teachings, the same
truths, which the Apostles and true Catholics of all time have believed.
But the Vatican II “church” has departed in alarming ways from the
original Faith of the Church, and has fallen into heresy and apostasy.
Our Lord warned us about the great falling away from the faith:
“When the Son of Man comes, will he find, do you think, faith on the earth?” (Lk.18:8).
St. Paul also spoke of the great apostasy to come in the end times:
“Let no one deceive you in any way, for the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first…” (2Thess.3).
In
the meantime, “Francis” Bergoglio does his best to destroy what little
is left of the true faith. There are no warnings about sin from Francis.
With smiles and warm embraces he greets his sodomite friends, in
keeping with his famous line, “Who am I to judge?” But he wasn’t slow to
judge Donald Trump, saying that he wasn’t even a Christian because he
wanted walls and not open borders. And even though there are other
alternatives, he invoked the principle of the lesser of two evils to
justify the use of contraceptive devices when there is danger of being
infected with the Zika virus. But it can’t be done. The list goes on and
on.
But in the words of Joshua, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land:
“Now,
therefore, fear the Lord and serve him completely and sincerely… If it
does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve…
As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord”
(Jos.24:14a,15a;15c).
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