Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong has denounced the Vatican for not speaking out on behalf of the persecuted Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China.
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As the Apocalypse was written around 100 A.D. and the new world was unknown to the people of the ancient Middle East, one would assume it either isn’t mentioned in The Apocalypse or it is mentioned in symbolic terms. As the United States has risen in power to become the most powerful nation on earth and in the history of the earth, it seems unlikely that it will have no role in bringing The Mysterious Plan of God to its completion. Steven Paul saw in the events of Chapter 12 a clear reference to a mighty nation, The Eagle, The Great One. Read below for his reasoning.
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The description John gave in Chapter 4 limits the Church to an inside court, the one in the middle, and an outside court; the “door” implies that there is a wall separating the two courts. If this is compared to a church, the altar and tabernacle [God's throne] are located in the sanctuary.
Therefore, the term “naoV“ [naos] should be translated as “sanctuary,” the “mesauloV“ [mesaulos], the one in the middle or midst of the Church. This concept is very important: remember it.
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The Mass is a bit foggy to me but I remember it as something mysterious. The priest in front was doing something partly hidden. And I couldn't understand the words. As I became old enough to read I realized the words were in Latin and the missal book had the English translation opposite the Latin on each page. We always dressed up, my brother and I wore neck ties, jackets, dress pants, and polished shoes. My mother and sisters wore dresses and veils.
We were taught that we needed to confess our sins in order to be in a proper state to receive Communion. Confession was held in confessionals where the priest and the penitent were kept separate.
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Not to woe did the angel swear, but to peace. Nonetheless, the price of victory will not come cheap. It never does. A realistic look reveals who has been, is, and will be the cause of those horrors to come with such magnitude as human imagination cannot totally grasp: the world's every person fundamentally lawless, but also the Church's every member tepid and timid. The tribulations of Christ's mystical body are among “the things that must come” [Apocalypse 1:1]. They must, on account of God's highest concession to man: freedom.
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The “woman clothed with the sun” is a great sign: she is herself and portends or points to something else, namely, “the Great Day of Almighty God” [16:14]. But, the proximal result of this “great sign” is that Saint Michael and his angels [angelic and human] cast out Satan and his angels [angelic and human] from heaven “unto the earth”; and in 12:12 a “loud voice in heaven” declares the time of this event,
“Woe to the earth and to the sea, for the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has a short time.”
This implies that, as Satan was cast out of the Church, so he will be cast out of the world [the earth and sea]. Therefore, the term “a short time” can refer to only one period: the last 3½ years of the second woe.
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“ 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind': this is the great and first commandment. And the second is like to it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” [Mt. 22:37-40]
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The most important point that could be missed if one is looking to Mary is that the Woman is a SIGN, The Great Sign. And the Great Sign has not yet occurred. That means that it is something visible, bigger in either size or importance than all other signs for some reason, and easily discerned so the faithful know how to act. The sign is itself but points to something else, the events that come after.
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It has become commonplace in modern times to look at stories in the Bible, especially the miraculous stories in the Gospels, as symbolic or metaphorical parables designed simply to inform us about our own human nature. Nowhere does modernism clash with the plain speaking of Jesus Christ more than his encounters with Satan and demons.
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Now, the witnesses in verse 3 have not been previously mentioned, but the Speaker designates them as “THE two witnesses,” thus indirectly informing the reader that they are definite persons whose identities can easily be ascertained from the Old and the New Testaments.
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Christ began his address to the bishop with the phrase, “Thus saith the Amen,” which refers to the Old Testament formula, “Thus saith the Lord,” a formula used by the prophets to introduce a message, which would contain, at least, in part, statements from God about his activity in the future. The Church ends a prayer, creed, or other formal statement, with the term “Amen” to express solemn ratification [so be it] or agreement [it is so].
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As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, even to the end of the world, Christ cannot have more than one bride, lest he commit the sin of adultery; and yet, in this last year of the twentieth century, some 2500 denominations individually aver, “I am the bride of Christ!” Judge for yourselves, ye Friends, the signs of these times, when hundreds and hundreds of millions testify, “You, Jesus Christ, are a fornicator, like us!” Contemplate earnestly, therefore, what is coming, and make ready.
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The key symbolizes the Church's authority over the abyss, and the chain symbolizes her power to hold Satan and his demons. The Church alone can bring peace and plenty and security to mankind. If men are left to the authority and power of the Church, and do her teachings, then, they will make a society, a civilization that will approach as close to perfect as possible for the offspring of God.
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Did John record anything about Islam in the Apocalypse? What is the role of Islam in the final battle of good and evil? The answer may or may not surprise you. Some excerpts to wet your appetite...
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David wanted Uriah's wife so badly he committed mortal sin. Murder. How does that relate to today? In the 1970's, after the Supreme Court legalized abortion, the Pope and episcopate saw that a direct attack on the Body of Christ was in progress. Clergy and laity mobilized and formed numerous groups to protest this injustice against human life. They petitioned the government, protested in the streets, wrote books and articles defending the unborn.
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The number “144,000” signifies a minority, a small minority out of the entire laity, just as this number in Chapter 7 indicated that only a small minority of the Jews had converted to Christ by the fourth century AD. However, the number “144,000” in this chapter, does not represent all who have remained faithful, but a special minority of them.
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John, under divine inspiration, deliberately wrote the Apocalypse rife with symbols and subtleties, so that the book would not be a breeze of a read for anybody. He understood that the symbols and subtleties constituted a major problem, one that would occasion many a pounding on pate and tearing of hair, and, perhaps, even splitting of wits and spitting of his name--none of which, may I point out, deterred him from his task; yet, it ought not to be thought that the Seer, a man whose mansuetude pervades every page of his epistles, had even one mean bone in his body.
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Apparently, latitude in the noun's definition admitted the attitude of the translators to an alteration in altitude. I do not know whether the translators, when they trampled down the little big noun, acted out of nescience or acted out of knowledge: if the former be the case, I would offer them each a box of soft, sweet raisins as food for thought, but I do not think that they, as yet, believe in cannibalism; and, if the latter be the case, they have already long indulged in the vile practice; whilst, in either case, I remind them of the final warning in 22:18-19.
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In John's day, the population of the entire Roman Empire was about 125 million; and one out of every ten could be trained and maintained in the military. The 200 Million Horsemen, therefore, according to the ancient ratio, which has changed little in modern times, suggest a population of TWO BILLION.