The image above, the Virgin of the Apocalypse, pulls together the birth of the male child and the battle waging in heaven between St. Michael the Archangel, and the dragon in the book of Revelation Chapter 12:

She brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but 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, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 

Revelation 12:5-9

Later in chapter 12 we hear of the dragon went to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.

Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. 

Revelation 12:17

Does it feel like the devil, the dragon, has been unleashed on the whole world? Is the dragon waging war on the offspring of the women who bore the male child that was taken up to God?

It’s no surprise to anyone how the Catholic Church has been the brunt of many scandals recently. Satan has been hard at work on the interior of many clergy and religious. Oh how he must feel when he finally gets a religious person to succumb to sin and work in the hearts of the leaders to cover up the behavior of predators on children. Yes, it’s easy to find fault with these clergy who have been seduced by Satan, but as Jesus said “let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.” There is a terrible satanic force at work and these people are on the front line. Satan rejoices when he can wound a Sgt on the front lines and distract the flock and diminish their prayers and worship to the almighty.

In my last post on the Apocalypse, The Sea Beast and the Land Beast, I discussed the role Communism and Marxist atheism is playing as the great red dragon in Revelation. One of the beasts in the book of Revelation is Freemasonry. Both work against God and His eternal plan. There was also mention of a beast with two horns like a lamb but speaking like the great red dragon, like a Communist and the lamb being a reference to the priesthood.

Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.

Revelation 13:11-12

But now, let’s turn to chapter 14 and explain the Lamb and 144,000.

Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion!

Revelation 14

We had just discussed the lamb with the two horns that spoke like a dragon. In that reference, it is the group of clergy of the Catholic Church who have given themselves over as sympathizers to Communism and Marxist atheism. With this Lamb being referenced to Zion and a Lamb that the 144,000 follow.

The one hundred forty-four thousand who have been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins; these follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They have been redeemed from humankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found; they are blameless.

Rev 14:3-4

These 144,000 seem to be very pure, not defiled themselves with women, virgins. I’ve heard some interpretations where the 144,000 is broken down to 3*4*12*1,000 where of course the 1,000 is symbolic of a great number, the 12 of course the twelve tribes. But as I was composing this post, my thoughts focused on what group of men take a vow of chastity? Again, sounds like a reference to possibly very holy priests. After Satan has been successful at corrupting many of the priests, the ones that were not seduced by Satan might be those who lead the charge in bringing about a renewed church. It could also be a large number of faithful who stay true to the teachings of Christ.

The Lamb which is their leader may be a reference to a Holy and Faithful leader of the Catholic Church in the future who leads the church, and the world, closer to God and closer to the fulfillment of His Divine Will. The great 1,000 year, aka a very long time, era of peace as described in chapter 20.

What does the Catholic Church say about this time of persecution of the Church? The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a section that discusses the basis for the creed. Starting at paragraph 675 is a discussion on the Church’s ultimate trial and includes these paragraphs:

Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a
final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The
persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil
the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering
men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy
from the truth. the supreme religious deception is that of the
Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in
place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.

Christ the Lord already reigns through the Church, but all the things of this world are not yet subjected to him. the triumph of Christ’s kingdom will not come about without one last assault by the powers of evil.

CCC 675, 677, 680

From this official teaching of the church we know the church must go through a passion just like Our Lord’s passion. It will be a time of great persecution. Many martyrs and a time of great suffering for the people of God.

Religious have discussed this time of confusion and persecution for many centuries.

Men will surrender to the spirit of the age. They will say that if they had lived in our day, Faith would be simple and easy. But in their day, they will say, things are complex; the Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day’s problems. When the Church and the world are one, then those days are at hand because our Divine Master placed a barrier between His things and the things of the world.

St. Anthony of the Desert (251 – 356 A.D.) catholicprophecy.org

After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, people’s minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognizable. People’s appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair.

There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.

He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is deceit of the Antichrist. And, the impious one!? He will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases.

The Prophecy of St. Nilus (who lived around 400 AD), catholicprophecy.org

We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future; trials that will require us to give up even our lives, and a total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible toalleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because it is only in this way that the Church can be effectively renewed. How many times, indeed, has the renewal of the Church been effected in blood? This time, again, it will not be otherwise.

Regis Scanlon, “Flood and Fire”, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, April 1994

[John Paul II] does indeed cherish a great expectation that the millennium of divisions will be followed by a millennium of unifications… that all the catastrophes of our century, all its tears, as the Pope says, will be caught up at the end and turned into a new beginning.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI), Salt of the Earth, An Interview With Peter Seewald, p. 237

But there is hope for a new beginning. A new era. An era of peace. An era where God’s Will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges… The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed… But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.

Cardinal Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT), “What Will the Church Look Like in 2000”, radio sermon in 1969; Ignatius Press; ucatholic.com

After purification through trial and suffering, the dawn of a new era is about to break.

POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II, General Audience, September 10, 2003

There will emerge in the Catholic church a great and holy Pope. One who will pick up the pieces of destruction and move the church and the world into a renewed peace. He will be a true shepherd for the people and the faithful clergy “will follow the Lamb wherever he goes” and through their care many will return to God.