The Joyful Mysteries: a Symbol of All Human History? - Part VI - the Nine Months of St John the Babe

 For fuller reference and prerequisite, see the essays before this one similarly titled this week, daily installations.

TEACHER: Amen! We got it all together now. Now we can probe the Joyful Mysteries as image of the same mysteries, and it will be astounding that everything we have just done will fit perfectly and then some!

STUDENT: Awesome! But now, then, how the heck can we get the numbers of the pregnancies in the Joyful Mysteries out of 5, 3, or 8 ,since the pregnancies involve 9 [St Elizabeth gives birth after 9 months], 6 [Mary conceives in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy], which then also raises 15, or thereabouts, since Mary will give birth the same six months after St Elizabeth does, as in 9+6?

TEACHER: Excellent Question! It would seem futile. For one, we obviously need to look at the months. What does a month symbolize? Well, that is not immediately evident. For that matter, what sorts of quantities of months are we looking at?

STUDENT: Yeah, that is a brooding question. For example, isn’t 6 one of them? “For thy cousin Elizabeth is in her sixth month…”

TEACHER: Yes, 6 is one, or even rather, almost 6.

STUDENT: Almost 6?

TEACHER: Yes, since Mary conceives in the sixth month, not at the end of it. Hence, the pregnancy of St Elizabeth actually lasts five full months and a part of a month (of unknown proportion) when Mary conceives.

And also, 9 is one of them, since it is at the very end of month 9 and beginning of 10 that St Elizabeth gives birth.

STUDENT: Yes, correct: St Elizabeth gives birth at the junction of months 9 and 10. 6, 9, 10! None of them help in regards to 5, 3, or 8.

TEACHER: True, plus the ultimate number doesn’t help, 15, or should we say, 14 full months and part of a month.

STUDENT: Where do we get 15?

TEACHER: Well, Mary conceives 5 full months and part of a month after St Elizabeth conceives. Hence, Mary gives birth 5 months and a part of a month after St Elizabeth gives birth.

STUDENT: OK, I see: St. Elizabeth gives birth at end of month 9. So count five full months and part of a month from there, we get when Mary gave birth. 9 + 5 = 14 full months and part of month, or somewhere in month 15.

TEACHER: Yes, and isn’t this crazy. None of these numbers seem to have anything to do with the days of creation or beast kings. Is there any solution? Cuz, obviously, the pregnancy months are a far greater refinement of history than the days of creation. Perhaps the 5 | 3 model can be broken down itself.

STUDENT: Yes, I wonder. Well, let us look at a day of creation. Can a day of creation be broken down?

TEACHER: Yes! Let me ask you, how does Genesis describe a day of creation as having two parts?

STUDENT: “Evening came, and morning followed, the first day; evening came, and morning followed, the second day;” and so forth. Bingo, each day has two parts, evening and morning, or spiritual darkness and spiritual light!

TEACHER: You nailed it. And that agrees with our analyses above: history constantly alternates between a major period of spiritual darkness and spiritual light. Moreover, how many total parts are there? Well, there are 8 total days, from the Fall to the New Creation inclusive. So 2 parts for each of these days is:

8*2 = 16 total parts!

We are a lot closer now. Now, we have 16 parts, and for months, 14 full months and part of a 15^th month. Well, not quite there. Now what?

STUDENT: Your guess is as good as mine.

TEACHER: Well, first of all, we know from Advent Tradition that Jesus’ birth is an image of the Second Coming. We also know that day 8 is the great apostasy and Second Coming, or, that is,

Parts:

15: Great Apostasy

16: Second Coming.

So close. We are one off. Actually, we are a part of a month off, since, in the pregnancy model, Mary gives birth in the midst of month 15, and by the days of creation model, Jesus comes back right at the end of part 15 and beginning of part 16. Now what? STUDENT, what do you think might be the solution.

STUDENT: Well, I think here of the fact that Jesus said He would come early, like a thief in the night. Perhaps this might indicate that Jesus interrupts the natural process of the Great Tribulation before humanity destroys itself, as in “and unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the sake of the elect, those days have been shortened.”

TEACHER: Bingo, you are right on. But let us hold it right here and not get ahead of ourselves. Let us say that your idea is the common sense solution to this 15/16 debacle, and resolve to start from the beginning.

STUDENT: Sounds good.

TEACHER: So our numbers are now, leaving 15 behind for the Second Coming, 6 and 9. Well, look, rather than guess out of the blue, why not just go ahead and lay out the numbers of ages according to the parts of the days and see what we get?

STUDENT: Excellent Idea.

TEACHER: Here they are, starting from the Fall to the New Creation inclusive. First, the days without numbers in the parts:

Old Testament

Day 1:

Darkness: Fall

Light: Flood

Day 2:

Darkness: Babel

Light: Confounding of Tongues, Formation of Hebrew People (Abraham)

Day 3:

Darkness: Egypt Enslaves

Light: Exodus, Red Sea, King David

Day 4:

Darkness: Pre-Exile wickedness of Jews

Light: Exile, Repentance, Restoration to Holy Land and Temple

Day 5:

Darkness: Old Testament Antichrist Antiochus, Maccabees

Light: First Coming of Christ

New Testament

Day 6:

Darkness: Pagan Rome Persecutes

Light: Catholic Christendom, Doctrinal Development

Day 7:

Darkness: Intermediate Gentile Secular Apostasy [today]

Light: Sabbath Rest, Our Lady's Age of Peace [future]

Day 8:

Darkness: Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist [future]

Light: Eternal Sabbath, Second Coming of Christ [future]

And now with the darknesses and lights numbered like the months:

Old Testament

1. Darkness: Fall

2. Light: Flood

3. Darkness: Babel

4. Light: Confounding of Tongues, Formation of Hebrew People (Abraham)

5. Darkness: Egypt Enslaves

6. Light: Exodus, Red Sea, King David

7. Darkness: Pre-Exile wickedness of Jews

8. Light: Exile, Repentance, Restoration to Holy Land and Temple

9. Darkness: OT Antichrist Antiochus

10. Light: First Coming of Christ

New Testament

11. Darkness: Pagan Rome Persecutes

12. Light: Catholic Christendom, Doctrinal Development

13. Darkness: Intermediate Gentile Secular Apostasy [today]

14. Light: Minor Chastisement, Gentile Renewal, Our Lady's Age of Peace [future]

15. Darkness: Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist [future to now]

16. Light: Second Coming of Christ [future to now]

Now, we look at 9: St John the Baptist is born at the very end of month 9 and beginning of month 10. BINGO! Above, month 9 is the Maccabean Struggle of Old Testament Antichrist, and month 10 is the FIRST COMING! Hence, clearly, the literal birth of St John the Baptist symbolizes the FIRST COMING OF JESUS!

STUDENT: That is awesome! And it fits in the theology. I will step in, TEACHER: St John the Baptist is the culmination of all Old Testament activity and forms the juncture between Old and New. He heralds the coming of the Christ the First time. Moreover, he develops for nine months in his mother, St Elizabeth’s, womb. That is perfect: if St John the Baptist culminates Old Testament activity, then the period of nine parts of his gestation can symbolize the Old Testament developing toward the Coming of the Messiah in nine phases!

TEACHER: You rock! Wayne’s World Awesomeness! And guess what, there is another dimension to the 9.

STUDENT: What?

TEACHER: St Zachariah!

STUDENT: How?

TEACHER: Zachariah was struck dumb at the outset for his lack of faith. This was a disciplinary measure that lasted until the birth of St John the Baptist. Hence, if the entire period of gestation of St John the Baptist is the Old Testament, and, again, the birth of St John is the First Coming, it would seem to imply that some essence, person, or People were restrained or disciplined for the Old Testament period until the First Coming. Who or what might that be?

STUDENT: Sinful humanity, or the Gentiles!

TEACHER: Bingo! In the beginning, at the fall, sinful humanity did not trust God’s offer of love in paradise and resisted His natural law, just as St Zachariah doubted the angel’s message that St Elizabeth would conceive in her old age. As a consequence, since God’s resolve was to begin a prefiguring covenant with some remnant people to prepare for Messiah, and since most of humanity was not disposed to enter into such covenant, God would need to keep the Gentiles occupied with useless activity until the time of Christ. Toward that end, we have in apocalyptic theology the very real tendency of fallen man to aggregate in selfish and perverse unity for the purpose of a society joined under the fabric of secular messianism: humanity seeking its ultimate fulfillment in the purely physical world and all its mere brute, created goods, rather than in a spousal relationship with the Creator.

Moreover, since such illusory and frail peace and prosperity places humanity in a position where it does not consider the Divine seriously, God must frustrate this condition for the time until Messiah so as to borrow time to work in the prefiguring people. Toward that end, the greatest form of such restraint is seen allegorically in Babel: supreme, positive Divine Intervention to confound human communication and to divide up humanity into nation-states.

In fact, this seems to be imaged in the parable on the tower and the armies. Jesus says, don’t build a tower if you cannot finish it. Then, immediately after, He moves on to the armies of 10,000 against 20,000. A mystical view here unveils the only history worth noting in unjustified and unenlightened societies. They try to build the perverse, blasphemous, and materialistic utopia, the “tower”. But it can never be completed, for man cannot, without God, secure peace and prosperity. Without Him, all things fade to nothing, empires crash down like a tidal wave of torrent and chaos. Then, the fragmented collection of divided nations remains, and the nations, nonetheless, like an animal with unchangeable instinct, simply go back in irrationality and try to recover the “tower.” Here, then, larger armies swallow bigger ones: 20,000 and 10,000. And on and on it goes.

The CCC deals with this in the sections on Divine Revelation:

57 This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity¹⁰ united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel.¹¹ But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.¹²

Hence, the apocalyptic age of restraint of the Gentiles from antiquity until the first Coming of Our Lord, where their tongue is tied, unable to speak to one another, is most clearly imaged in St Zachariah, who is retrained by the state of muteness until the revelation of St John entering the world. There, Zachariah’s ejaculating proclamation, “His name is John” images that with the Coming of Christ, the Gentiles, in the many Christian communities formed by the Apostles throughout the known world, proclaim, “Jesus Christ is Lord!”

(for full reference, see Theology of the Ages - The Joyful Mysteries as Image of the Whole of Salvation History)