Psalm 18 and the Miracle of the Sun
13 October 2017
A great day, the centenary of the Miracle of the Sun, when the Sun was seen to dance down upon the Earth. I wish to share a few thoughts about the Typology of this event, with its deeply scriptural and traditional roots.
Our starting point should be Psalm 18, and the rich use which Holy Tradition has made of this psalm.
In the Pius XII Psalter which was masterminded by Cardinal Augustin Bea (bad ... bad), we read (verse 5) "He has made a tabernacle for the sun". An accurate translation, it may be, of the Hebrew.
But this is not what we find in both the ancient Latin Vulgate and the Greek Septuagint (abbreviated to LXX): the two versions by which Christians of both East and West have always worshipped. Here is a literal rendering of what these versions give us:
5.In the sun he has placed his tabernacle: and he himself like a bridegroom going forth from his chamber has rejoiced (LXX: will rejoice) like a giant to run his course.
6. From highest (LXX: furthest) heaven {is} his going forth: and his meeting is even unto its highest (LXX: furthest); neither is there one who might hide himself from his heat.
Our Catholic and Orthodox forebears took the Sun to be our Lady (St Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634:
"For in thee, O Virgin, as in a most pure and sparkling Heaven, God has placed his tabernacle").
They understood the bridegroom to be Christ. The bridal-chamber is the womb of the Blessed Virgin. In that Womb he united Godhead with manhood as bridegroom is united to bride, so that he is a giant with two Natures in one Person. His going forth is his eternal generation, as the Divine and Only-begotten Son, from the Father. His meeting is the Son's equality with the Father.
Let's consider the Advent Office Hymn
Conditor alme siderum. We will take the clever and accurate translation of stanza 3 by the Anglican John Mason Neale which appears as Number 1 in the English Hymnal:
"Thou cam'st, the bridegroom of the bride,
As drew the world to evening-tide;
Proceeding from a virgin shrine,
The spotless Victim all divine."
And a hymn by the great St Ambrose himself,
Veni Redemptor gentium:
"Forth from his chamber goeth he,
That royal home of purity,
A giant in twofold substance one,
Rejoicing now his course to run."
The Liturgy of the hours unfortunately misses out ('ad brevitatem') the next stanza, also based on our psalm, which Neale (English Hymnal 14) renders
"From God the Father he proceeds,
To God the Father back he speeds;
His course he runs to death and hell,
Returning on God's throne to dwell."
The Pre-Conciliar Breviary and the English Hymnal do not provide another ancient hymn,
Fit porta Christi pervia, which the Liturgy of the Hours dug up and ordered to be said at Morning Prayer on January 1. Here is a literal version of the second stanza; it shows its indebtedness to Psalm 18:
"The Son of the highest Father has gone forth from the palace of the Virgin, bridegroom, Redeemer, Creator, the Giant of his Church."
I'm sure you've noticed the relevance of all this to
the importance of celebrating Mass versus Orientem, towards the Lord who comes to us at the dawning of the day, walking to meet us from the womb of his Mother, the Woman clothed with Sun, the Tabernacle of Divinity.
But today, we think of the Sun as the great cosmic Ikon of the Mother of God, which spectacularly confirmed the authenticity of the Fatima Message; confirmed it for 1917 and for every successive year.
The Miracle of the Sun,
the blasphemies of Pope Francis, and
the betrayal of unfaithful Catholics
October 13, 2017
The Miracle of the Sun is 100 years today. What happened at Cova da Iria on 13 October 1917 is one of the greatest gifts a merciful God and His Mother ever gave to a skeptic humanity, prone not to believe unless they have seen. On that day, tens of thousands ‘saw’. We reflect on the events 100 years later and recognize, once again, that we keep being unfaithful, and undeserving of the gifts given to us.
One hundred years later, the consecration of Russia has not happened. In addition, a lurid process of obfuscation of Our Lady’s warnings has taken place, steered by the Vatican itself.
And then there is the vision of hell, happened during the series of apparitions. These are the words with which Sister Lucia described the vision:
“She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke.
Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”
One hundred years after the series of events in Fatima, culminating with the miracle at Cova da Iria, the extremely brutal warning on hell afforded by this terrifying vision has obviously escaped the current Pope, who, just days ago, without subsequent denial or recantation, allowed an interview to be published in which he, to use the arrogant words of the atheist journalist author, abolished hell.
[If only because of the Fatima centenary and the vision of Hell Our Lady deliberately showed to the little shepherds, Bergoglio ought to have stayed away from speaking about hell in any way!]
One hundred years later, the Church is living a crisis – nay, a satanic infiltration – that seems to threaten her very existence, as the reigning Pope tries to transform the Church in the exact contrary of what Fatima stands for. One hundred years later, it is fair to say that the reigning Pope is more likely to consecrate Russia to Stalin than to the Blessed Virgin.
As the last of the Fatima apparitions occurred, on 13 October 1917, an atheist, devastating ideology was only weeks away from taking power in Russia and starting a reign of terror with global ambitions that went on for many decades. One hundred years later only some faint echoes of that terror remain, as Communist regimes have been almost extinct.
What a tragic irony that one of their few remaining,
[not quite] closeted admirers of Communism – as always, not in formal words
[but yes, that too!], but
[worse,]in espousing its ideology, its social hatred and utter Godlessness [That is going too far, although Bergoglio does espouse the socialist ideals of communism and practices its authoritarianism in his own style of governing, but not its ‘utter godlessness’, as JMB does pay lip service to ‘God’, even if he says ‘there is no Catholic God’, thereby seeming to deny the Holy Trinity, but then he seems to think he is both Jesus II and the Holy Spirit, and the only Person of the Trinity he has not yet co-opted is God the Father] – should be, of all people, the Pope.
This day should be a sobering remainder of the extent of our unfaithfulness and of the pit of irreligious thinking in which our entire Christian civilisation has fallen in these 100 years, as millions of ‘small c’ catholics proving of their fornicating children, indifferent to sexual perversion, quite comfortable with abortion and divorce [and the adultery of remarried divorcees], and utterly approving of contraception are busy clapping in church as they read sacred texts and give communion to each other with sanctimonious “peace ‘n love” faces.
This pope did not come out of a vacuum. He is the product of decades of stupidity. Cova da Iria, 100 years later, reminds us of how big the stupidity has now become.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/10/2017 08:18]