answer to Petrus: That Woman clothed with the sun suffered in childbirth, and then fled into the wilderness after her child was taken up to heaven. The Fathers of the Church quoted in the compendium of Catholic exegesis of Sacred Scripture by Cornelius a Lapidus, SJ (cir. 1550) believed this figure of the Woman was the Church itself to whom these things can be properly attributed and who is itself the Bride of Christ. Mary, the Church teaches us, did not suffer in childbirth, nor is there any account of her fleeing into the wilderness after her son was taken up to heaven. I do not know if Paul VI had an opinion about these qualifications.

"Saint John had Her in his home." But, St. John wrote the Gospel of St. John, three epistles and the Apocalypse, and in all these books he never said one word about his personal relationship to Mary as intercessor or his religious devotion to her or her influence on the apostles or our religious duty to her. Neither did any of the other apostles or disciples. Her name is never mentioned in Sacred Scripture in the context of our sanctification or the governing of the Church. Now, if John were the very one to whom she was specifically given as Mother by our Lord Jesus Christ, and he never said anything about her salvic mission in any of the copious books he wrote to teach us the Faith, one wonders if all the modern doctrines of Mary as the object of our devotion and confidence are, after all, apostolic.

The whole of Jeremiah treats of how the people of God (ancient Israel) had betrayed Him and disgraced His Holy Name. The Israelites were deeply involved in idolatry which they had annexed to the Temple Worship as well as using other venues. Then, when Jeremiah attempted to show them their sins, they mocked him, and so he anguished in these verses copied above. These prophecies of the Old Testament were merged by Christ into His prophecies of the End Times which St. Paul tells us will be signified by the Apostasy of the Church, prefigured by ancient Israel.

This is certainly true because St. Paul tells us so. If one interprets this idol in a spiritual sense as the beasts of a similar vision of Daniel, they all represent the various aspects of the great apostasy from God that began with pagan Babylon after the flood of Noah. This idol and these beasts may represent the "Mystery of Iniquity"; that is, the worship of Satan through all his pagan religions and philosophies which have been "chained" by Christianity, but as a bear hibernates only to reappear (third beast), we see in our own times the recrudescence of paganism before a lax and befuddled Church.

That light by which we see the difference between good and evil in our souls is the presence of Jesus Himself: "I am the light of the world." His Grace illumines, but the illuminator is the Person of Jesus and no other! It is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. When we see our fault, we see it because He is our Shepherd, Omnipresent, Omniscient, guarding us and Omnipotent, pointing out the danger as it arises to us. He is with us but we have our backs to Him until we turn to thank Him for His light, our sanctification. As St. Paul said: "Christ in me, the hope of Glory." And this turning from sin, is this not that Narrow Gate which only few can find? For how narrow is the space between perfidy and Faith? Is this not the purpose of our Confirmation Father Ney? I have missed your active presence here these many months. May our Lord confirm your steadfast love
more and more.