Return to The Reign of Mary No. 128
The Reign of Mary
Vol. XXXVIII, No. 128: Letter from the Editor
December 12, 2007
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Dear Readers,
Praised be Jesus and Mary!
In the liturgy for the season of Advent, Holy Mother the Church presents to us the prophecies of the Old Testament which foretold the coming of our Divine Savior.
The prophecies of Isaias, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and His Name shall be called Emmanuel,” (Is. 7:14) and “For a child is born to us and a son is given to us… and His Name shall be called wonderful, counselor, God the mighty…” (Is. 9:6) are frequently heard when Handel’s Messiah is sung.
However, with a thorough research of the Old Testament, we can find a vast number of prophecies which were perfectly fulfilled by our Divine Lord. The prophet Micheas identified Bethlehem as the place of the birth of the promised Messias (Mich. 5:2). The prophet Aggeus comforted the Israelites upon their return from captivity as they began to rebuild the Temple (which would not be as large and beautiful as the Temple of Solomon), foretelling that the Messias would visit the second Temple and fill it with glory (Agg. 2:8-10).
Furthermore, the time of the coming of the Messias was also prophesied. In the book of Genesis, Jacob blessed his sons before his death, and said to Juda that the scepter would not be taken from him until the advent of the Messias. From that time, the tribe of Juda was the leading tribe. King David and his successors were of the tribe of Juda; Zorababel, who brought the Jews back from captivity was of that tribe; and when the Jews regained their liberty, it was under the rule of the Machabees, who also belonged to the tribe of Juda. It was not until 39 B.C. that the Jewish monarchs were deprived of their sovereignty and Herod the Great, a foreigner and a pagan, was raised to the throne by the Romans. It was this same Herod who was alarmed by the arrival of the Magi seeking the newborn King of the Jews.
A more detailed prophecy was made by Daniel (605-530 B.C.) who foretold that from the rebuilding of Jerusalem (453 B.C.) until the public appearance of the Messias, there would be 69 weeks of years (483 years). This comes out to be 30 A.D., the exact time of the public life of Our Lord.
At the time of the Messias’ birth, a new star was to appear (Numbers 24:17); He was to be adored by kings from distant lands (Ps. 71:10); and many children were to be put to death at the time of His birth (Jer. 31:15; Gen. 25:19).
These are just a few of the many prophecies about the advent of the Messias, and it is a great source of consolation for us to see their perfect fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
So clearly did Our Lord fulfill all these Old Testament prophecies that St. Augustine wrote:
“Today, if the Jews are dispersed through all the nations and lands, that is due to God’s design; so that if the idols, altars, sacred groves and temples are all destroyed all over the earth and the sacrifices forbidden, it could still be seen from the Jewish books that all this was prophesied long ago; and although the prophecies, fulfilled in the Christian religion, may be read in our own holy books, no one can accuse us of having composed them ourselves after the event” (De Civitate de Lib. IV, cap. XXXIV).
And St. Thomas reiterated the same point:
“The books of the Jews are witnesses everywhere for Christ and His Church, for when the heathen read them in the Jewish books, they could not imagine that the prophecies concerning Christ had been fabricated by the Christian preachers” (Epist. ad Rom., cap. XI, lect. 2).
And why is this so important for us today? One reason is that it aids us in our fight against Modernism. Pope St. Pius X in his Oath Against Modernism reminded us that miracles and prophecies are the surest sign of divine origin of the Christian religion and that these same proofs are well adapted to the understanding of all eras and all men, even of these times.
This is the precise problem with the Conciliar Church of Vatican II and its ecumenical endeavors with the Jews. We especially find this in the teachings of Benedict XVI (erroneously hailed as a conservative and traditionalist). In his book God in the World, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:
“It is of course possible to read the Old Testament so that it is not directed towards Christ; it does not point quite univocally to Christ. And if Jews cannot see the promises as being fulfilled in Him, this is not just ill will on their part, but genuinely because of the obscurity of the texts and the tension in the relationship between these texts and figure of Jesus… There are perfectly good reasons, then, for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ and for saying: No, that is not what He said.”
What blasphemy! According to Ratzinger, Divine Revelation is obscure and there are perfectly good reasons for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ. What he is saying in reality is that God has failed inasmuch as the divinely inspired prophecies are not sufficiently clear. This is the reason that Pope St. Pius X, knowing this evil tenet of Modernism, explicitly stated in the Oath Against Modernism that miracles and prophecies are the surest signs of the divine origin of the Christian religion and that they are well adapted to all eras and all men.
Wishing you a most blessed Christmas and grace-filled New Year!
With my prayers and blessing,
Most Rev. Mark A. Pivarunas, CMRI