Defending Apocalypse Millennium as Our Lady's Immaculate Triumph | Part II

Defending Apocalypse Millennium as Our Lady's Immaculate Triumph | Part II

The purpose of these series of essays is to defend the position that the best way to see the Millennium of Apocalypse 20, is not the traditional augustinian one that the church has tended to follow, but should now be viewed more profoundly as the coming age of peace, where the blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima will reign in most of the world through her most Immaculate heart.

For reference to this interpretation, please see the following prerequisite if you require more information to follow along

An alternative solution to the Millennium of Apocalypse 19 to 20 | The Era of the Virgin’s Immaculate Heart

https://www.catholic365.com/article/46143/an-alternative-solution-to-the-millennium-of-apocalypse-19-to-20-the-era-of-the-virgins-immaculate-heart.html

This is part ii to answer a second objection.

Objection 2: The interpretation of the millennium of Apocalypse 20 as the Catholic age of peace is condemned. The only permitted meaning of that text is what Protestants call amillennialism. See the Catechism.

Answer: Let us cite the Catechism:

The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.30

Now, it is true that since St. Augustine gave us the perennial understanding of the millennium, one of a few ways that he suggested, this view, which is called by heretics “amillennialism”, is effectively the standard view that the Church takes down through the centuries. It is also true that, per the quote above, any view that takes the literal, bodily return of Our Lord as anytime within human history, that is, at any time prior to the end of time, is condemned. It is also true that the Church condemns any permanent realization of a civilization of love and peace, even if by Christ’s merits, such that the age of love would persist right up until the parousia. And even if a period of love might be attained before the end but not persevere, the Church would condemn any view, per above, that would have such civilization of grace having been attained progressively. Finally, and most importantly, the Church decisively and virulently condemns any age of peace that should be attained on merely secular means, as if the powers of this world should secure an age of human brotherhood, whether temporary or permanent.

Good. But the age of peace does not fit any of these. Firstly, in the age of peace, Jesus has in no wise come again in the sense of the dogmatic reality of the Second Coming. Jesus still remains, in terms of a revelatory presence, in heaven; the reign of Jesus is spiritual in the age of peace, just like Augustine’s time between the two comings. Secondly, the age of peace is not permanent, for, as we have seen, it eventually, at some point, disintegrates into the great apostasy, so that Public Revelation of the state of great lack of faith at the very end is not abrogated. Thirdly, it is not attained through a progressive ascendancy of the Gospel but rather through an epic crisis of faith, morals, and chastisement. Indeed, the last 500 years have been anything but an upward mobility of the Gospel but rather three great woes, steps down to the pit: Protestantism, age of solo-ratio, and secular apostasy. And finally, we have gone out of our way in this discourse to show that the only means that such age of peace is attained and maintained is by the grace of God, through His Church, showing, definitively, that a world without God perishes, the despicable futility of secular messianism.

The reality, rather, Is that the age of peace interpretation is pretty much the same as St. Augustine’s typical view, sparing a detail: the age of peace is a proper portion of the whole age of the Church, instead of the whole age of the Church itself, as with St. Augustine. That is, in the Augustinian view, the millennium is the entire age of the Church, whereas in the age of peace view, it is a partial age toward the end of history, that period of light between the two apostasies of the end, the minor and the major.

It should also be noted that the resurrections on either end of the thousand-year reign are spiritual. In the typical view, the Christian rises to new life through baptism, and the Church comes to life again through the martyrs’ reign in heaven. Too, in the age of peace version, the resurrection of the just can image the glorious rising of the Church back to life spiritually after the horror of the minor apostasy and tribulation. Here, she draws back to herself the separated Christians and renews the whole world. Also, in both views, the resurrection of darkness at the end of the millennium symbolizes the resurgence of apostasy at the end of the world, when, after having renewed the Gentiles to maturity, humanity rebels in the great apostasy.