Who Is She Who Cometh Forth As The Morning Rising?
Terrible As An Army In Battle Array!
Over the years, Protestants have inquired why Our Lady is so seldom mentioned in Scripture, particularly in the Acts of the Apostles. Both St Alphonsus Liguori and St Louis Marie De Montfort postulate that the reason was that Our Lady, being so exalted by God, would have been worshipped by the early Christians as a goddess. If this answer sounds lame, considering the marvelous works of the Holy Ghost at that time, that is because it is. The Apostles had a much more fundamental, and practical reason, for not mentioning Our Lady.
The astute reader might notice that most of the personalities in the gospels are not named. A notable exception is the daughter of Jairus, whose raising from the dead is described in all three of the "synoptic" Gospels. But even here, the miracle given to "A Bleeding Woman" is inserted. The Bleeding Woman has much company: "A certain Centurion", "Ten lepers", "A woman tending the body of her son". Another notable exception is Zacheus, one of the better known tax collectors in Jericho, and the reason he is identified is the same reason most others were not; they were still living, and the Apostles did not want them mobbed with the curious, both because it would make prayer and contemplation impossible, and also because these were times of persecution, and they might have been on the lam from the authorities.
Our Lady IS mentioned in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, as being in the Cenacle when all the Apostles were gathered, praying constantly, waiting for the Gift of the Holy Ghost. (The astute student of the Gospels will reflect that it was here, for the very first time, that the Apostles were becoming contemplatives and ascetics, where up to this time they had been constantly reprimanded by Our Lord Jesus Christ for being more interested in social discourse, eating and drinking, merriment, being gossips, and enjoying the perks of being His closest disciples.) And after the Holy Ghost did come, more than likely it struck Peter that it was primarily through her prayers, and not the pathetic ones of the Twelve, that God lavished them with His Spirit.
The Apostles instantly recognized the Greatness of Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces and Co-Redemptrix of the Human Race, especially from her role during the Passion of only a few weeks ago. And they realized that her role was to continue to pray for the nascent and infantile church, just as she had kept in the shadows during the Public Ministry of Her Son, and so she was committed to the care of St John and taken to live a quiet life in Ephesus. Oh sure, some puzzled out the secret, and made pilgrimages to her abode. And she probably gave them some mundane words of wisdom, and then reached into her cupboard, which was probably empty, but at her slightest nod she would pull out a loaf and give it to the stranger. And upon going some distance from her home he would sit down to eat, and notice it was the most wonderful bread he had ever tasted. And he would realize that the vocation of this Woman was not to be disturbed, and so continue on his way. And in this way Our Lady multiplied loaves as had her son.
More than likely she was the author of many miracles through mediation with her son, such as at the Wedding of Cana. But St John mentions Cana as being sufficient, not wanting to clutter his gospel with details, but staying focused on the Great Drama between the apostate Jews, who represent all the reprobate of the world, and the Gentle Reproaches of the Son of God. And St John probably had a premonition, having witnessed the Great Visions at Patmos which became the Book of the Apocalypse, that Our Lady should be kept somewhat hidden for her role in a somewhat distant future.
In fact, St John probably knew Our Lady had explicitly appeared in the Apocalypse, which was made somewhat of a Trainwreck by the division into Chapter and Verse by later scholars. This Wolf always thinks these "scholars" made a tremendous mistake in their decision to demarcate the line between chapters eleven and twelve. Let us take the last verse of Chapter eleven and chapter twelve and run them together and see what we have: "And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the Ark of his Testament was seen in his Temple, and there were lightnings, and VOICES, and an earthquake, and great hail. And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered."
Many scholars have interpreted this woman to be a figure of the Church, the crown on her head representing the Twelve Apostles. But the inverse is true. Our Lord Jesus Christ chose Twelve Apostles to correspond to the stars on her crown. Meanwhile, Our Lady, as Mother of God, painlessly gave birth to Her Son, not being cursed as Eve, but as Co-Redeptrix, very painfully gives birth to each of the elect, who are caught up to God and His Throne. Meanwhile, do we not see in these lines both Our Lady of Fatima, who had a voice, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, who was pregnant?
Yes indeed, Our Lady of Fatima is here represented in the Deposit of Faith, and is not a mere "private revelation". Why do priests- even good priests like Fr Paul Kramer and Fr Isaac Reylea, conflate Our Lady of Fatima with dubious "apparitions" such as Akita in Japan. Perhaps God has blinded even the good priests, because of His Wrath against all priests, who are supposed to be imitators of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but have instead been given to impurity, and have become gluttons, and lovers of pleasure. And God has also blinded these priests somewhat because their flocks wallow in sin of every sort- cowardice, fraud, drunkenness, sloth, importunity, avarice, lack of Faith in God's providence...
Our Lady of Guadalupe looks back on Chapter Eleven of the Apocalypse, where the Two Witness, Henoch and Elias will come to preserve the Faith during the dire times of the persecution of the Antichrist, when the Institutional Church shall have been completely destroyed and many will be tempted to apostatize to the worldly pleasures presented by the Antichrist. They will come down from Heaven on Mount Tepeyac, take possession of the Glorious Tilma, and process with it to Jerusalem, by way of Russia. And many shall join them in the longest and most solemn procession of all history, leaving a trail blazed by the Most Holy Rosary all along the way. (And you thought it coincidence that the Mormons named a town in Utah after the Pot of Moab?)
Our Lady of Fatima lives and grows while all the false and dubious apparitions fall by the wayside and die. Garabandal has been completely refuted, as has Bayside, Necedah and so many others. Fr Gobbi has been shown to be a fraud. And yet many still twist and weave these false signs to suit their narrative. And meanwhile, twisted minds such as that of Fr Malachi Martin have dared to fill the airwaves with sensational and distorted interpretations of Our Lady's "Third Secret", as was often done in a most sensational manner on the Art Bell show.
And Our Lady works in most mysterious ways. Back in the 1930's, Cardinal Pacelli sought, after the fashion of the Satanists, who always expose their designs in a certain manner so as to preserve their "karma", to present the Great Plan to Destroy the Mass to the world in a veiled manner. And so he conflated the Great Plan with Our Lady of Fatima: "I am concerned about the confidences of the Virgin to the little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of the Good Lady in face of the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the alteration of the Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul, would represent. I hear around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her remorseful for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must affirm her past, or else she will dig her own grave."
Yet, we know that as Pius XII he would do everything to forward the Great Plan to destroy the Mass and the Priesthood, from the issuance of Sacramentum Ordinis to the appointment of Annibale Bugnini to head a "Liturgy Committee" in 1947 to wreck Holy Week to undermining Our Lady of Fatima and steadfastly refusing to perform the Collegial Consecration of Russia. And his "Prophecies" are still unfolding. Consider these words in the light of what the African Bishops- no true defenders of Orthodoxy- did in reaction to the recent proclamation of Pope Frantic: "Fiducia supplicans": "Then, priests will rise up from Africa..."
Prepare, O Glorious Soul, for the most dire trials. As per the True Words of the Prophecy of Our Lady of La Salette: "The Times of Times, and the End of Ends, is nigh..."
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us. You are our only hope!