The Woman Clothed with the Sun

A gem is not appreciated until it is dug out and polished. The twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse is such a gem. In the past dozen years a great increase of interest and study has been devoted to it.¹ This interest sprang both from the endeavour to ascertain the evidence of Holy Writ for the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother,² and to a great extent from the present day study of Mariology in general. Our problem is to identify the Woman and to find out the meaning of the chapter.

Literary Structure and Content of the Vision

Even from a literary point of view, the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse has artistic balance and beauty. It is like a drama in three acts, with the action moving swiftly. The eighteen verses of the chapter fall neatly into three parts with six verses to each part.³

Act I: verses 1-6

Brilliant is the vision with which the act opens. It is a great symbolic sign or portent. The setting is heaven.⁴ A Woman is engulfed in the dazzling brightness of the sun itself, as in a garment of light;⁵ her feet tread on the moon.⁶ She is radiant with the celestial ornament of twelve stars which form her royal crown. And she is Mother! That is the one occupation mentioned of her: child-bearing, with all the care and pain of child-bearing, all the ardour and labour of bringing forth: “And she was with Child and cried out in the pangs of birth and in pain to be delivered” (verse 2).

But at once another sign or portent appears on the scene: a great red Dragon. His colour is one of fire and war, his appearance one of wordly might and power.⁷ Seven heads he has, each one crowned with a diadem. Ten horns of power are upon those heads. But the occupation mentioned of him is that of ruthless destruction. For “his tail swept down one-third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth” (verse 4).

Stars crown the Woman; stars are swept down by the Dragon. The Woman is in the act of giving life to the world; the Dragon is in the act of destroying a great part of it. Thus the two great figures of this scene are ushered in, described separately at first, as just mentioned, but then immediately in relation to each other.

The Dragon is the sworn enemy of the Woman: “And the Dragon stationed himself before the Woman who was about to be delivered, so that when she was delivered he might devour her Child” (verse 4). Not satisfied with destroying the third part of the heavens, he is all out to devour the Woman’s offspring. Why this hatred against the Woman and her Child? Why this desire to make an end of the Child? The reason is given as the action proceeds.

Now the scene changes and we are on earth. The Child is no other than the Lord of the world: “And she gave birth to a son, a male,⁸ who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her Child⁹ was caught up to God and His throne. Then the Woman fled to the desert, where she has a place prepared by God, that there they might nourish her for 1260 days.’’¹⁰

Notice that what is said of the Woman and her Child spells a twofold defeat for the Dragon, namely, the failure to devour or harm the Child, for “he was caught up to God and His throne”; and the further failure to inflict harm on the Woman, for she hid herself and was cared for by God.

That ends the first act. The Woman and her Child disappear from the scene unharmed, unconquered. No wonder the Dragon wanted to snuff out the life of the Child, for, with all his power of seven heads, ten horns and seven diadems, the Dragon was but a usurper of world power. Here was the true Lord of the world.

Act II: verses 7-12

Again the setting is heaven. There is war and a battle: “And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels going forth to make war with the Dragon; and the Dragon and his angels fought, and did not prevail, nor was their place found anymore in heaven” (verses 7-8). Why were they cast out? There is no offence mentioned, other than the one given in the first part of the first act, where the setting was also heaven, namely, the Dragon had refused submission to the Lord of the world, the rightful heir of all.

But the action proceeds. The Dragon was cast down to the earth. Now the sacred writer tells us who the Dragon is: “He is the ancient Serpent (ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος: Gen. 3:14-15 LXX) who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (verse 9). He will deceive men and blind them to the truth.

There follows a hymn of victory, sung in heaven. It sings the downfall of Satan, and the triumph of God’s Anointed, the Christ. It sings further the triumph of martyrs, who, one with Christ, conquer the Dragon, namely, by choosing to die with Christ in testimony of the truth: “They have conquered him [the Dragon] because of the Blood of the Lamb and because of the utterances of their testimony. And they clung not to their life even when facing death” (verse 11). Thus it was the death of the Lamb that enabled these martyrs to triumph over the deceiver of the world.

But the voice from heaven continues: “Woe to the earth and to the sea. Because the Devil has descended to you in great fury, knowing that he has but a short time” (verse 12). A woe is pronounced on the earth, the third of the woes mentioned in 11:14: “Lo, the third woe shall come quickly.”¹¹

Act III: verses 13-18

Again the scene is on earth and the action between the Dragon and the Woman is resumed. Now it is the Woman alone who is the object of his fury: “And when the Dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he went in pursuit of the Woman who had given birth to the son, the male. And the two wings of the great eagle were given to the Woman so that she might fly into the desert to her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times and half a time,¹² away from the presence of the Serpent” (verses 13-14). So the Dragon fails to harm the Woman because she has God’s special protection, symbolized by the wings of the eagle (as can be inferred from Ex. 19:4; Deut. 32:11).

A second attempt is made by the Dragon-Serpent (the Dragon is now called the Serpent by the Sacred writer) to overthrow the Woman. Then the Serpent vomited water from his mouth like a river after the Woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream” (verse 15). This time help comes again to the Woman and it is from the side of the earth which opened its mouth and sucked up the river vomited from the mouth of the Serpent. So whatever may be tried, the Dragon-Serpent was foiled. He was unable to harm the Woman who remained inviolable against his attacks.

The final action of the Dragon in this chapter is his resolve to wage war on the remainder of the Woman’s offspring. They are characterized as those who observe the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus (verse 17).¹³

Chapter 12 ends with the Dragon stationing himself on the shore of the sea to invest with his power and with his throne and with all his authority the Beast which comes up out of the sea (chapter 13). By its very appearance, the Beast is recognized as the Dragon’s offspring.

From this mere literary analysis certain points are clear:

1. The Dragon is Satan, who is the Enemy to the Lord of the world and to the one who bore the Lord of the world.

2. The Lord of the world is, first of all, Christ the Messias. St. John¹⁴ takes special pains to show that:

   1. He describes him with a quotation taken from a psalm that is admittedly messianic:¹⁵ “You shall rule the nations with a rod of iron” (Psa. 2:9). For no one else but the Messias does the Old Testament claim such world-rule.

   2. In explicit terms this is expressed in Apocalypse 19:11-16: “His Name is called Word of God… He shall rule the nations with a rod of iron… He has upon His robe and upon His thigh a Name: King of kings and Lord of lords.”

   3. In order that no one will miss the point, St. John inserts in our present verse (12:5) the word “all”: “He shall rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” There can be no reasonable doubt then, that the Woman’s offspring is Christ, the Messias, the Lord of the world and universal King.

3. The Lord of the world in this same verse also designates the members of Christ’s mystical body. This follows:

   1. From the grammatical context: The Woman brings forth a son, a male (υἱόν, ἄρσεν). There is no other mention of the Woman’s bringing forth than this. Yet in the same chapter that offspring (υἱόν, ἄρσεν) is both individual and collective:¹⁶ individual, when it is designated as “the Child” (τὸ τέκνον: verses 4 and 6); collective, when referred to as “the remainder of her seed” (λοιπῶν τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτῆς: verse 17). Thus “the Child” and “the remainder of her seed” are both included in the “son, the male” (υἱόν, ἄρσεν) born of the Woman, as Lord of the world.¹⁷

   2. This also follows from the parallel text of Apocalypse 2:27, where the members of Christ are given a share in the rule of the world: “To the victor and to him who guards my words to the end, I will give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.”

   3. It is likewise the teaching of the earliest Fathers who comment on this chapter 12 of the Apocalypse. For St. Hippolytus, the son, the male, is Christ the perfect man, Head and members.¹⁸ St. Methodius¹⁹ and St. Victorinus of Pettau²⁰ likewise.

4. The Woman gives birth to Christ, Head and members, in one and the same act. Who is this woman, the object of Satan’s fury, decked out as Queen of the Heavens, in the great throes of Motherhood in order to give to the world its rightful heir and king, and what role has she to play at this juncture of the apocalyptic visions, placed as she is before the reign of the Beast in chapter 13? From the foregoing is not the impression received that she is a concrete and individual personality? What prevents us from stating that the Woman symbolizes the Blessed Mother?

Objections to the Woman’s Symbolizing Mary

Formerly it was a frequent objection that the description of the Woman is incompatible with the Blessed Mother. Here are the chief points:

First objection: the birth-pangs.

Several satisfactory solutions can be given to reconcile the birth-pangs with the Virgin-Mother who suffered no such birth-pangs in bringing forth Christ, the Messias:

1. To be born in pangs of birth (ὠδίνω) does not necessarily refer to physical pangs of child-bearing. St. Paul tells the Galatians (4:19) that he is in the pains of child-birth again (ὠδίνω) until Christ be formed in them. But he cannot mean the physical pangs of child-birth. In Romans 8:22 he says that all creation groans and agonizes until now (συν ὠδίνω). In both cases there is a question of sufferings in general or sufferings of soul.

2. Likewise the expression “to be in pain to be delivered” (βασανίζω) is used in the New Testament either for physical or spiritual suffering.²¹ Thus the picture of the Woman in the throes of child-bearing can represent spiritual sufferings, cares and anxieties, or even persecution. In Jeremias 30:6 it is a symbol of the sufferings of exile. For the earliest Fathers²² it is the symbol of persecution or of the anguish of intense desire.

Consequently the picture can represent the universal Mother in her anguish of desire to bring forth Christ in the hearts of all men, or the spiritual sufferings which were the price of Motherhood of the whole Christ.

Second objection: The Woman has other children (verse 17) and this is said to militate against Mary’s perpetual virginity.

It is surprising that this objection is still made today.²³ Even a superficial examination of the use of the word Offspring (σπέρμα) in Scripture shows that it can stand both for physical offspring of carnal descent, and for those who are born in a spiritual manner of someone. In Galatians 3:29 Abraham’s offspring (σπέρμα) are the Gentiles who believe, and thus become the spiritual sons of Abraham, but are not his sons by carnal descent. Scripture speaks of the seed of Satan, the Serpent (Gen. 3:15) and of the seed of God (1 John 3:9). So in Apocalypse 12:17, too, there can be a question of the spiritual progeny of the Woman and hence the dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity would be left intact.

Third objection: The Woman in chapter 12 is a symbol. Hence it cannot refer to an individual.

This statement is not borne out by the Scriptural use of a symbol. The Lamb in Apocalypse 5 with seven horns and seven eyes is a symbol and yet it surely does refer to Christ the individual (see also Dan. 8:21-22).

Fourth objection: The Apocalypse is written long after Mary’s departure from this earth. According to its author it is a prophecy (22:18) and consequently deals with the future. Thus it cannot refer to things that happened to the Blessed Mother in the past.

A proper understanding of the nature of the apocalyptic books satisfies this objection. Such books were common in the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. Symbols were used to signify events partly accomplished and partly to be fulfilled. The Apocalypse itself gives evidence of this. The Lamb in 5:6 is depicted as slain, and yet is about to execute the contents of the sealed scroll. The angel in 17:9 has the same to say about the seven heads of the Beast: “Five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come.” Chapter 12, then, can refer to past events in Mary’s life and still be prophetic of something in the future.

Fifth objection: The detail of the flight into the desert for 1260 days does not fit the Blessed Mother.

To this it may be said that it could be a literary device of the author to express the Woman’s exemption from all diabolical influence. Moreover, also from a historical standpoint, it is not incompatible with the life of Mary, even if nothing is known to correspond to it. But precisely this detail will be taken up further on.

Far from the description of the Woman being incompatible with the Blessed Mother, it lends itself admirably to any number of truths of Mariology:

1. Mary’s fullness of divine graces and gifts, symbolized by being clothed with Christ, the Light of the world.

2. Her exalted position in heaven where the entire body of the elect form her crown of glory, twelve being the number for universality.

3. The divine Motherhood of her whose Son is Messias, Universal King and Son of God (verse 5).

4. Spiritual Motherhood of the faithful by reason of which she suffered the birth-pangs of Calvary long before it became a reality (Luke 2:35).

5. Her complete exemption from all diabolical influence so as to remain unconquered by Satan in every way.

Yet the minds of many remain unconvinced that all this is anything more than apt accommodation. It does not prove sufficiently that the Holy Spirit, the author of Scripture, intended the Woman to symbolize the Blessed Mother, so that such is the true scriptural sense of the symbol. We must proceed further, then, with our study.

Is Mary Intended by the Holy Spirit in the Literal Sense?

It must be kept in mind that chapter 12 is a revelation given by God to St. John in a vision. Moreover, the Apocalypse is a prophecy (22:18). The Seer describes the symbolic vision as clearly as he can, but the full meaning of it is known to him only if it pleases God to make it known (cf. Dan. 7:16). God’s meaning of the symbol in question, if not given by the sacred writer, will have to be ascertained by ruling out whatever the analogy of faith shows to be incompatible with the symbol; and at the same time by applying the other norms of Catholic exegesis (either literary or doctrinal as laid down by Pius XII in “Divino Afflante Spiritu”) if they help clarify the issue.

1. The Woman is not the Israel of the Old Testament, taken by itself. Some authors contented themselves with saying: “The Woman is the Chosen People of God, Israel, represented as a single person. From Israel the Messias sprang according to the flesh amid heavy birth-pangs.” The following reasons militate against such an assumption.

   1. Israel can never be said to be mother both of Christ (verse 6) and of Christ’s followers or members (verse 17). If circumcision and the Law were necessary for Christians, as some early Judaizers advocated, this view could have some backing. But just the opposite is the case. Not by any connection with Judaism or the Synagogue did one become a disciple of Christ, but by Baptism, an entirely new institution of Christ. And in becoming a member of Christ in Baptism, one by no means became a member of Israel. Israel, then, is not the Woman who begets Christ the Head and His members.²⁴

   2. A picture of a woman in birth-pangs may well represent Israel amid many sufferings giving the Messias to the world, but the glorious Woman in verse 1 is poles apart from the reality of unfaithful Israel with her many failures and transgressions as the prophets depict her for us (cf. Isa. 1:4-6; Ez. 16; etc.).

   3. Israel was never mother to Christians (verse 17). She persecuted them from the very beginning of Christianity.

   4. Israel’s whole purpose was to give the Messias to the world. If John had Israel in mind, his emphasis upon the Woman after the birth of the Child (verses 13 to 17) is meaningless, To imagine that it refers to a special protection of God for the unbelieving Jewish people in the Christian era does not fit into the picture.²⁵

2. The Woman is not the Christian Church founded by Christ, taken by itself.

   1. The Church may well be depicted as the mother of Christians, the members of Christ, but never of the personal Christ Himself. It is certain that the Woman’s Child in verse 5 (and the following verses) includes the personal Christ, so it is against all the rules of symbolism to designate as His Mother the very institution that He founded, which is rather symbolized as the New Eve coming forth from His side on the cross. The Church is the Spouse of Jesus Christ.

   2. Nor can we simply say that we have here a figure of speech which is elastic. First of all, a figure of speech is not identical with a symbolic vision. Moreover, a figure of speech has to correspond to the rules of thought. Would anyone ever think of calling the United States of America the mother of George Washington? Likewise it is incorrect to call the Church the Mother of Jesus.

3. The Woman is not the personified People of God, the Community of the Just of both Testaments, both faithful Israel out of which the Messias took flesh and spiritual Israel, the Church, considered as one. This is St. Augustine’s interpretation, who holds that the Woman is the City of God from the just Abel down to the last Saint; and it is the opinion of several notable authors today.²⁶

   Against this we must note the following. No one doubts that in heaven the just of all times form one People of God, one Kingdom of God and His Christ, one Communion of Saints; no one doubts that the People of God in the Old Testament can well be represented by the symbol of a woman (as in the prophets) and that the People of God in the New Testament can well be represented by the figure of a woman (as in St. Paul and the Fathers of the Church). But it is quite another thing to say that the same identical symbol can represent at the same time both the People of God in the Old Testament and those of the New Testament in their sojourn on earth. Their images are related to each other as type and antitype, figure and fulfilment; they have a different origin, organization, program of action, extension in time and place, and it is difficult to see how they can be blended together under one and the same symbol. If the observations concerning the υἱόν, ἄρσεν hold good, as was explained earlier in the literary analysis of Apocalypse 12, namely, that the Woman is Mother simultaneously of the personal Christ and His members, the Woman is not the Community of the just of both Testaments.²⁷

4. The Woman is not Mary, taken alone. Despite the fact that the symbolic vision of chapter 12 has been shown to correspond to many truths of Mariology, an adequate explanation of the flight into the desert for 1260 days (verses 6 and 14) is not forthcoming. This detail evidently connects the chapter with the foregoing (11:2-3) and the following chapter (13:5). It brings us to the final possibility.

The Woman Is Simultaneously an Individual and a Collectivity

If we examine the symbols in the book of Daniel we find that they allow a certain amount of fluctuation in the objects they symbolize. Not that they fluctuate between designating various objects, but rather between a collective body and the chief representative of that collective body. The golden head of the statue in Daniel 2 refers to Nabuchodonosor in person and at the same time, the Babylonian Empire in its entirety.²⁸ The two-horned ram in chapter 8 (verses 3 and 20), according to the tenor of the angel’s explanation, symbolizes the Medo-Persian Empire and at the same time its chief representative who fought the Greeks. Similarly with the he-goat in the same chapter. The son of man in chapter 7 symbolizes both the Holy One of Israel²⁹ and His people, the holy ones of God (verses 14, 21 and 27). In all these cases God intended to symbolize both the collective body and its chief representative by one and the same symbol, and in both cases we are dealing with the Scriptural sense of the symbol. There need be no question of a double literal sense, for the collective body and its chief representative do not form two diverse objects, but one organic unity. They really are one.

Let us apply this to Apocalypse 12. The Woman signifies an individual,³⁰ and no other individual can be meant but Mary, for Mary alone became Mother simultaneously of the personal Christ and of those who are His members.³¹ The Woman signifies, at the same time, a collective body that is organically one with Mary, namely, the Church, which is born of Mary, and is truly the fruit of her womb, and of which she is truly Mother and Ideal.³² This double signification of the symbol of the Woman was already considered common view in the fifth century in the West³³ and is represented by a steady line of interpreters down to our own day.³⁴

Yet I think that the Woman (Mary) represents something more than precisely the Church in general here, and that is the Church in its final stage of perfection on earth, when the Ideal of the Perfect Woman which God always had in mind, has worked itself out perfectly in the Church, namely, when the Church of the Consummation has acquired the full likeness of the Ideal Virgin-Mother. I say the Church in its final stage on earth, for that is where chapter 12 fits into the Apocalypse, to wit: “when the mystery of God achieves its full perfection, in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound” (10:7; 11:15). That, however, is bound up with the return of Israel to Christ (chapter 11), at the time of the Antichrist (chapter 13).³⁵

The Meaning of Chapter Twelve

The salient features of chapter 12 can now be pointed out. But first of all let us recall that chapter 12 and 13 are intimately connected (cf. 12:6; 12:14; 13:5). If chapter 13 is the reign of the Beast, then chapter 12 is the setting of the stage for that event. And in that capacity, chapter 12 has a wide perspective. Prophecies, and eschatological prophecies in particular, often project the first and last phase of a given reality onto one and the same field of vision, the intervening interval being passed over. The prophet Joel gives us a good example of this when in one and the same vision he describes the first and the last phase of the Messianic era.³⁶ Our Lord does the same in the eschatological prophecy of the doom of Jerusalem and the doom of the world (Matt. 24) which has been characterized as the first and last phase of the coming Judgment.

The Apocalypse, interpreted eschatologically, gives the same picture. It is the Grand Finale of the Kingdom of God on earth, the mosaic of all prophecies in a final synthesis.³⁷ Chapters 1-3 are the first phase of Christ’s Kingdom on earth, the Son of man in the midst of the seven Churches, dictating the seven letters to the Church contemporary with St. John.³⁸ Chapters 4-20 is the last phase of Christ’s Kingdom on earth, the Lamb executing the decrees of the sealed scroll, down to the last trumpet sound of the seventh angel, the third great woe, which is the reign of the personal Antichrist (the first Beast) in chapter 13.³⁹

Yet just before that scene unfolds before the eyes of the Seer, another vision is introduced which gives the background and the deeper reason for chapter 13. It is that of the Woman and Dragon in their implacable enmity, seen in vision according to the same prophetical pattern of the first and last phase.

The very first phase when God unfolded His ineffable mystery of Mary, the perfect Woman, and her Divine Offspring before the gaze of the angels, and Satan refused to bow (verses 1 to 4). The very last phase of that enmity when the mystery of God achieved its full perfection (10:7 and 11:15) in the Marian Church of the Consummation, which, as the perfect double of the Virgin-Mother, brings forth the man child in great sufferings, by begetting Israel in the latter days as members of Christ; and for these very reasons, the object of the full wrath and fury of Satan (verses 5 to 6).

It shows us also the first and last phase of the defeat of Satan: the first phase when his pride was punished by his being thrown out of heaven (verses 7 to 9); the last phase when he is defeated by the humility and faith of the martyrs under Antichrist, who lay down their lives with the Crucified Lamb, whose death spelled Satan’s defeat on Calvary (verses 10 to 12).⁴⁰ In both the first and the last phase St. Michael the Archangel plays an important role (see Dan. 12:1).

And finally it shows us the first and last phase of the Victory of the Woman and Child. The first phase is the prodigy of the Virgin-Mother and the Divine Child inviolable against all the cunning and attacks of Satan (verse 6). The last phase, the prodigy of the inviolable Marian Church of the Consummation, after the return of Israel, miraculously protected by God from harm during the reign of Antichrist, as was Israel of old in Egypt (Ex. 9:16; 10:23; 12:13).⁴¹ This is the flight of the Woman into the desert (verses 6, 13 to 16). Once the Redemption has been accomplished, Christ is identified with His members and Mary with the Church. This view does seem to satisfy best the various details of chapter 12.

The glorious Woman of chapter 12 is the Blessed Mother of God and our Mother, clothed with Christ, the Light, Queen of the Universe, Conqueror over all her adversaries, God’s chosen ideal for all the redeemed,⁴² the sign of salvation for the sons of God, the sign of defeat to Satan and hell. The ever Blessed Mary symbolizes simultaneously (in this picture) God’s prodigy of the latter times, the Church modelled on the Ideal Mother, giving birth to Israel as members of Christ, protected by God from the fury of Satan in the impending reign of Antichrist, when the mystery of God has achieved its full perfection.

Throughout the Scriptures, the Woman and her Child are the prodigy of God, the sign of man’s supernatural salvation and divinization. That explains the fury of Lucifer in heaven (Apoc. 12:3) in his refusal to agree to this plan of God. At the very moment that he had defeated our first parents, the prodigy of the Woman and Child was proclaimed to Satan to be his eventual undoing and defeat (Gen. 3:14-15). Simultaneously the Woman and Child were the sign of salvation and victory given to mankind, the object of their faith and hope until the sign became a reality.

Thousands of years later, when God’s own people were on the brink of spiritual bankruptcy under King Achaz, the same prodigy of the Woman and Child was shown to Isaias as a guarantee of God’s plans for His people (Isa. 7:14). Micheas, too, saw the wonder. For him it was the Great Mother for whom all were waiting that she bring forth (Mich. 5:12). Nor were these the only prophets who were given to see the prodigy of God. But it was Elizabeth who, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, recognized the prodigy in reality, and proclaimed with a loud voice: Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb (Luke 1:42). And every child of God on earth repeats that phrase daily.

Isaias and Micheas saw the prodigy in vision before it became a reality. Both recognized a true Child and a true Mother (see Matt. 1:22). After the vision had been fulfilled, after the Redemption had been accomplished, after the Virgin-Birth of Christ and the divine Motherhood of Mary had been clearly set forth in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the prodigy of the Woman and Child was seen again in vision, this for the last time, by the Beloved Disciple. Was it not a psychological necessity for him to recognize the Woman and the Child, the same prodigy of God, the same sign of supernatural salvation? But now from another angle. Now Calvary is past. Now the Woman can be seen in her great role of Mother of all the living, the role which wed her to suffering.⁴³ Does St. John need to tell us who she is, after he has brought out the similarity with Genesis 3:15 so strikingly?⁴⁴ And as if to forestall all doubt, he will tell us who she is, in the very last of his great writings, the Gospel (for the Gospel is written after the Apocalypse). There he will show us the Mother of all the living, the Mother of the sons of God. Christ Himself makes her known: Behold, this is thy Mother"⁴⁵ (John 19:26) in the force of the Greek particle (ἴδε). That completes the Mosaic which the Beloved Disciple had been constructing all through his writings.⁴⁶

But for John in the Apocalypse, the Woman and Child are not only a reality, they are also a symbol. Christ and Mary are seen in their all-embracing relation to redeemed mankind, the Church as the Body of Christ, the Church as the fruit of Mary’s womb.

He to whom it was given to see at the very outset of the apocalyptic visions, the dazzling vision of Christ in the midst of the Church (the lamp stands, chapter 1), which is the vision of the first phase of Christ’s kingdom on earth, was also given to see in chapter 12 the brilliant vision of Mary and the Church, the last phase of Christ’s Kingdom on earth, the Church in which the Ideal has been realized, the Church in which the supernatural has blossomed to perfection. On that Church Satan vents his full fury for it is identified with the Woman whom he hates. But even the Beast, invested with all the power of hell, will never succeed in destroying the Woman, for she is God’s prodigy also in the latter times, and the whole world will witness that her Bridegroom is Emmanuel, God-with-us.

With superb brevity, St. John has set forth in this chapter a grand prophecy. He describes what God wants His Church to be: a double of His Mother.⁴⁷ It is evident, then, why the Catholic Church has given such prominence to devotion to the Blessed Mother. There is more than an external motivation in it, there is an inner, vital and necessary relation.

For our times God has reserved the revelation made by the Blessed Mother, in which she requests the consecration of the whole world, the entire Church and every member in that Church, to her Immaculate Heart. Our gloriously reigning Pontiff has expressed his will that this consecration be carried out in every country, diocese, parish, and family. But a consecration is not merely the reciting of a formula; it implies a remodelling of heart and mind and ideals, an identifying of ourselves with the Mother who gave us Life. The Blessed Mother herself, then, has shown the way how the prophecy of Apocalypse 12 will be realized. She herself is gradually preparing the Church for the Age of Mary.⁴⁸

Bernard J. LeFrois, S.V.D.

Saint Mary’s Seminary

Techny, Illinois