01-Essential Overview

Father Gobbi

When I was a very young religious I read a passage that said that God would designate a man to explain the Apocalypse. Maybe it said “priest.” I’ve never found the passage again. I thought it was from the stigmatist nun of the 1800s, Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich but maybe it was another saint. When I read it, I assumed this man would be a great scholar. I did not imagine that the Blessed Mother would personally instruct him!

From 1973-1997 an Italian priest named Stefano (Steve) Gobbi heard interior locutions from the Mother of God. I know people who met him in person and they said he was very simple, very simple. It wasn’t real clear to them how he made it through the seminary. These were published piece by piece until there was a book of nearly 1000 pages of the most perfect structure. I’ve read it many times. It would take a genius to come up with a book like this. What human mind could write it? It has a cycle of themes that unfolds and progresses in tandem with the liturgy. It never contradicts itself. It never repeats itself. The language is very careful.

People would see Fr. Gobbi go into ecstasy for a few minutes. Then his spiritual director would approach with pen and paper and Fr. Gobbi would dictate what he just heard. When it all ended in 1997 Fr. Gobbi was more surprised than any­body. Moreover, he took some of the passages literally, so he was confused when Jesus did not show up in person in the year of the 2000 Jubilee. For me, that just confirms that he didn’t make this up. So the locutions either came from heaven or hell, not from the brain of this good priest. You can see in the book or the website how it’s been praised and accepted by tens of thousands of priests, bishops and cardinals. Without further ado lets look at these messages he received.

Mary is the Mother of the Word of God

Is it surprising that She has been designated to show us the Words of the Bible?

198c-I am the Virgin of Revelation.
198g-In these present times, so dense with darkness and threats, look to your heavenly Mother. I will reveal to your souls the secret of the Word, become flesh in my maternal womb.
198h-I will bring you to the full understanding of Sacred Scripture. Above all, I will read to you the pages of its last book, which you are living. In it, everything is already predicted, even that which must still come to pass. The battle to which I am calling you is clearly described, and my great victory is foretold. For this reason, I repeat: do not fear; have confidence! In my Immaculate Heart, you will experience the joy and the peace that, even today, my risen Son gives to all of you.” April 24, 1980

8e-The Spirit of Rebellion against God has seduced humanity; atheism has entered into so many souls and has completely extinguished the light of faith and love.
28f-This is the Red Dragon spoken of in the Bible. Read it, my sons, because the present times are those of its realization! How many of my children are already victims of this error of Satan! December 1, 1973

345i-I am the way to divine Revelation.
345j-I am particularly close to the Church in these times of her painful trial and her bloody purification. . . . as the Mother who wants to help all her children and as the heavenly Prophetess of these last times of yours.
345k-I invite you to look again to me, the Woman Clothed with the Sun, who is journeying along all the roads of the world, to be the way for his luminous and glorious revelation.” February 2, 1987

370c-Know how to read and to meditate upon that which, in Sacred Scripture, has been clearly described for you to help you understand the time in which you are living. With my motherly voice I am leading you all to understand the signs of the great tribulation. From the Gospels, from the Letters of the Apostles and from the book of the Apocalypse, sure signs have been clearly described for you to make you understand what the period of the great tribulation is. All these signs are in the act of being realized in this time of yours. December 31, 1987

To The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons

I discovered Fr. Gobbi about 1986 or 1987. In one way I was very happy and comforted because I had been so grieved about what was happening in the world and in the church, but people around me seemed to think that everything was wonderful. In these messages Mary complains that a lot of things are terribly wrong and She explained why. But I was not happy that She asked us to read the Apocalypse. That is such an impossible book! I had been reading the Bible since age 8, but not the Apocalypse. Ughh! I would need humility and perseverance:

96e-It is not with human intelligence alone that the word of my Son is to be read. He thanked the Father for having hidden the mysteries of his kingdom from the wise and prudent of this world to reveal them to the little ones.
96f-It is above all with interior humility and full docility of the soul that his word is to be read and understood. April 13, 1976

318f-There is need again today of a great silence, in order to understand the mysterious plan of God and to know how to read the signs of the times through which you are living, December 24, 1985

To The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons

Fortunately, in the cloister I had plenty of silence. So I read the Apocalypse slowly and carefully, and didn’t understand a word of it. It seemed to be a disorganized book. It seemed to end seven times and then starts all over again. Every other word is a symbol. The whole things is written in code. But Mary kept insisting that it was important to under­stand this book today.

284h-A gift of my Immaculate Heart is the book containing my messages.
284i-In my book what you should know has already been revealed. If you know how to read it, therein is my total plan, in its preparation, in its sorrowful actualization, and in its luminous and victorious completion.
284j-Read it, my beloved sons, meditate on it, live it! Have no doubt; I am speaking to you. Through these words I am Present in it and manifest myself. Only tomorrow will you understand the importance of this maternal message of mine.

391c-I am opening for you the sealed Book, October 13, 1988

520i-Mine is an apocalyptic message, because you are in the heart of that which has been announced to you in the last and so very important book of Sacred Scripture.
520j-I entrust to the angels of light of my Immaculate Heart the task of bringing you to an understanding of these events, now that I have opened the sealed Book for you.” May 13, 1994 January 28, 1984

To The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons

I read the Apocalypse again, very slowly. Same problem. I didn’t get it. In my schooldays the Old Testament was my fórte and this NT book seemed so much like the OT prophetic books. A footnote caught my attention. It said the Book of Revelation contains approx. 418 references to the OT. I knew well that most of the OT prophecies have not yet been ful­filled. Many Christians presume that everything was fulfilled at least symbolically when Christ came to the earth, but it’s not so. The Church has never taught that. Here is one parallel among many between OT and NT

I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and suppli¬cation, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born.
Rev 1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.

Zech 11:10

Spoiler! Let me say right up front that Mary never teaches that we are near the end of the world. She says Jesus is “coming soon” but it’s a sublime, spiritual coming. A long beautiful era is around the corner. There are symbolic names for this era. At Fatima She calls it the time of the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart. We’ll talk about that later as we go through the Apocalypse.

So I reread the OT prophets: Ezekiel and Daniel and Isaiah and Amos, etc. and for a while I went back and forth between all these books, trying to take notes. But it was overwhelming. I didn’t see a pattern except that so many events revolved around the “day of the Lord”. I didn’t see a code. I didn’t get it.

I began to read scripture commentaries and take notes.

I finished all the books on that subject in the convent library, and then in 1992 Divine Providence took me to another monastery because of a change in the Carmelite Constitutions. This convent of nuns was near a Hermitage of Carmelite men, and the Prior was always giving or lending the nuns books. Here I had the opportunity to study virtually all the standard Catholic biblical commentaries, as well as many Protestant commentaries because the monks thought highly of Protestant scholarship.

It was now 1997, and suddenly Mary says She’s revealed everything. What ! ! !

604k-As of now, all that I had to say to you has been said, because all has been revealed to you.
604l-Therefore, on this night, there come to an end the public messages which I have been giving you for twenty-five years; now you must meditate on them, live them and put them into practice . . .
604n-All has been revealed to you: my plan has been foretold to you especially in its wonderful and victorious fulfillment. Dec. 31, 1997

To The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons

Well, if She explained everything, I must have failed to pick up some of the symbols of the Apocalypse that She talked about. After all, this was a profound book, 970 pages, 603 messages. So I began rereading all the messages again, very care­fully, taking notes. Then a concordance of the messages was donated to the convent and I explored every term in the con­cordance.

Failure. I collected many interesting and compelling explanations that Mary presents regarding different passages of the Apocalypse, but it was by no means complete. I still didn’t understand the Book of Revelation. It remained a mystery to me. Yet She claimed that She had explained everything. Either all of Fr. Gobbi’s locutions were from a lying spirit, or else I needed to look again. Why did I persevere?

Why didn’t I conclude that Gobbi was a false prophet?

By now I had studied many scholarly commentaries and they were all seriously flawed. Nobody is satisfied with them. That’s why people are always publishing new commentaries. The cream of the cream is the Book of Destiny by Fr. Herman Kramer, published in1956. He constructs an elaborate schema in which the Apocalypse travels through 20 centuries of Christianity and brings us up to our present day. Using this construction in the 1950’s he predicted Vatican Council II. Yet I could not accept the scholarship of this excellent priest because he did something to Scripture that is never done. When a symbol appears in the book, he’ll assign it one meaning in one chapter, and a different meaning in another chapter. In the Bible a symbol is consistent throughout that book, and often throughout all the books of the Bible. Assigning arbitrary meanings to the same symbol in the same book is absurd.

Nevertheless, I went back to the commentaries written by various scholars, Catholic and Protestant to compare their schemas. I was hoping to find an insight into Mary’s schema, because so far I didn’t see one, just a lot of interesting pieces. I found the usual debates as to whether the Apocalypse was all fulfilled back in the days of the Roman empire, or whether the text was to be fulfilled at the end of the world, and some claimed (I think correctly) that the Book has multiple fulfillments. But I noticed that the commentators spent most of their time arguing with each other over one issue, namely to divide the book in 4 sets of 7s, or in 5 sets of sevens. All agreed that there were Seven Seals, Seven Trumpets, Seven Signs and Seven Plagues, but they had long and boring debates about whether the Seven Letters were an integral part of the Revelation or an admonition to the churches to read and heed the Revelation? That was the debate, ad nauseum. It seemed to be an exercise in futility, arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The debate was not going to resolve the meaning of the Book of Revelation.

Then suddenly the light dawned for me! I wish I had recorded the moment, the date and the circumstances. Perhaps it was on the feast of some saint who was interceding for me. But I was too excited, too caught up in what I saw. We were all miss­ing the forest for the trees! Sevens! Trumpets! This book is about a great Year of Jubilee.

Trumpets are always blown at the end of seven Sabbatical years. We all know there were three great feasts in the Mosaic Law. Jesus fulfilled the Passover feast by his death and Resurrection when He “passed over” from earth to heaven which He opened for us. The Second feast was fulfilled by the Holy Spirit fifty days after the Resurrection. In the old Feast of Weeks, the Law of Moses was read and the first fruits of the wheat harvest were offered seven weeks after Passover. 49 days plus one = 50, hence the Greek Jews called it Pentecost. In the new Pentecost, the Apostles and disciples were themselves the first fruits of Jesus’ ministry and the Holy Spirit propelled them into Jerusalem to be sacrificed as it were, by bearing witness to the Word of God. It’s tempting to say a lot about that rich feast, but this is a class on the Apocalypse. What about the third feast, Tabernacles? The greatest feast of the Mosaic Law! The feast of feasts! This feast should correspond to the greatest Person of the Holy Trinity, the Father from whom all goodness comes.

The Feast of Tabernacles

The old Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the arrival and occupation of the Promised Land. For seven days the Israelites lived in little makeshift tents or booths to relive the time when they were sojourning in the wilderness. In the old Feast of Tabernacles, seventy bulls are offered. The rabbis saw this number as corresponding to the Genesis Table of seventy nations of the whole world. Isaiah and other prophets foresaw a time when all the nations of the world would acclaim the true God. The Book of Revelation celebrates the defeat of evil in the world and the worship of the true God by many nations! When the Jews are journeying to Jerusalem they sing the Hallel psalms, Hallelujah. Allel-Yahweh! Where do we hear Hallelujah in the NT? Only in the Book of Revelation:

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just . . . And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who is seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” And from the throne came a voice crying, “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.” Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying, Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

Rev. 19:1-6

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem . . .
and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. . . .
By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it . . .
they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

Rev 21 [passim]

Is this hunch correct? If so, there has to be seven groups of seven in the book, not just four or five. So I began to look for two more groups of seven. That took about five minutes because it’s very easy. The last group of five ends in Chapter 16 with the seven bowls of plagues. But the Apocalypse has another six more chapters to go. And what are these final chapters about? A wicked harlot and a beautiful bride-city. The harlot receives seven judgments and the bride-city receives seven adornments. These are not explicitly numbered and Mary does not explicitly discuss them, but when I built a table for the seven groups of sevens, I saw something extraordinary!

What Mary gave in great detail was an explanation of the meaning of the first four of the “seven signs.” The “seven signs” form the central column in the book of the Apocalypse. The Signs are the fourth group of Sevens, the central column. If the fourth Church is central to the Book, then the Apocalypse is stamped with the Cross.

Who is the 4th Church?

4th Letter to Thyatira

And to the angel of the Church in Thyatira write: Thus says the Son of God he who has eyes as a flame of fire, and whose feet are like bright bronze. I know your works, your charity, your faith, your service your patience, and your last works more numerous than the first. But I have this against you, that you do tolerate the woman Jezebel, who, calling herself a prophetess, teaches and leads astray my servants to commit impurity and to eat idol-offerings. And I gave her time that she should repent and she wills not to repent of her impurity. . . doctrine . . . of knowing the deep things of Satan”

Rev 2:18-21

We’ll go into the letters later, but Thyatira is accused of Gnosticism (knowing deep or secret things) and being guided by Jezebel. Ahab was a king of Israel in the days of Elijah. He entered in to a political marriage with a woman of another nation and religion. If Ahab had built her a little temple in Israel to worship her God by herself, well that had been done by other kings. But no, Ahab and Jezebel wanted to syncretize religions. All religions are true. Everything is true. Everything is rela­tive. Have you ever heard that before?

Today these ideas fall under the big umbrella of the ideology of the New Age. A century ago its predecessor was called Modernism, but since it’s been around for decades it doesn’t feel very modern. Who would argue that syncretism isn’t the central problem for the Catholic Church right now? Actually, it’s a central problem in the Protestant churches as well. It’s getting very hard for them to define themselves as Methodist, or Calvinist, or Baptist. It’s all getting mashed together. Most churches are preferring to call themselves non-denominational, which means “without name”, without clear identity. Each member is free to decide on his own “truth”. For one person, fornication before marriage is okay, for another it’s not. For one person sodomy is fine, for another it’s not.

But that’s a Protestant problem, right? Catholics still recite a creed at Mass and have a Pope to define the magisterium. But how many Catholics privately adhere to their own “truth”? The magisterium is very clear about contraception. By the way, most contraceptives today do not prevent conception. Chemicals make it impossible for the newly conceived child to be nourished in the womb. We don’t need to discuss the seriousness of murder here, but we need to know that statistics say that 90% of Catholic couples are using contraceptives. That’s just one item among many where we can talk about Jezebel representing a strong ideology in the Church.

Does Mary talk about the seven letters or Thyatira in particular? No. She talks continually about sin in the Church and in the world.

351d-The night of sin has enveloped the world, and evil has spread everywhere like a terrible cancer. There is an unwill¬ingness to recognize sin as an evil; on the contrary it is openly justified and exalted as a good.

To The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons

Let’s examine signs that Mary specifically de-codes.

Later we can use her key to unlock other symbols in this important book. Let’s begin with the second sign.

404 The Huge Red Dragon May 14, 1989
404e–The huge Red Dragon is atheistic communism which has spread everywhere the error of the denial and of the obstinate rejection of God. The huge Red Dragon is Marxist atheism, which appears with ten horns, namely with the power of its means of communication, in order to lead humanity to disobey the ten commandments of God, and with seven heads, upon each of which there is a crown, signs of authority and royalty. The crowned heads indicate the nations in which atheistic communism is established and rules with the force of its ideological, political and military power.
404f–The hugeness of the Dragon clearly manifests the vastness of the territory occupied by the uncontested reign of atheistic communism. Its color is red because it uses wars and blood as instruments of its numerous conquests.
404g–The huge Red Dragon has succeeded during these years in conquering humanity with the error of theoretical and practical atheism, which has now seduced all the nations of the earth. It has thus succeeded in building up for itself a new civilization without God, materialistic, egoistic, hedonistic, arid and cold, which carries within itself the seeds of corruption and of death.
404h–The huge Red Dragon has the diabolical task of taking all humanity away from the Dominion of God, from the glorification of the Most Holy Trinity, from the full actualization of the plan of the Father who, by means of the Son, has created it for his glory.
404i–The Lord has re-clothed me with his light and the Holy Spirit with his divine power, and thus I appear as a great sign in heaven, a Woman clothed with the sun, because I have the task of taking humanity away from the dominion of the huge Red Dragon and of bringing it all back to the perfect glorification of the Most Holy Trinity.
404j–For this I have formed for myself the army of my littlest children, in every part of the world, and I am asking of them that they consecrate themselves to my Immaculate Heart. Thus I am leading them to live only for the glory of God, by means of faith and charity, and I myself am jealously cultivating them in my heavenly garden.
404k–Then each day I present myself before the throne of my Lord in an act of profound adoration, I open the golden door of my Immaculate Heart and I offer in my arms all these little children of mine, as I say: ‘Most holy and divine Trinity, at the moment when You are being universally denied, I present to You the homage of my motherly reparation, by means of all these little ones of mine whom I am forming each day to your greater glorification.’
404l–Thus again today, from the mouths of infants and sucklings, the Lord receives his perfect praise.”

To The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons

From God’s perspective Communism is a huge problem, a huge red dragon.

From God’s perspective Communism is a huge problem, a huge red dragon. This class today is taking place at the beginning of 2017 the centenary year of the October Bolshevik revolution and of Fatima where in that same October in faraway Portugal 70,000 people witnessed a miracle to confirm Mary’s warnings about the errors of Communism. While the crowds were looking at the sun, three children were looking at Mary. But Communism didn’t begin in 1917. The Woman clothed with the Sun had been in battle with it since 1830. I put together a little time-line to provide a quick look at the beginnings of Communism, namely in the Communes of Paris with Karl Marx in the wings.

The Dragon and Jezebel

When Mary says that atheistic Communism has “built up for itself a new civilization without God, materialistic, egoistic and, hedonistic. It’s a religion because it has a creed: “I believe in no God.” The creed is expressed not only in the Communist parties of nations ranging from China to Peru but the Letter to Thyatira attacks religion from another dimension in the temptation to syncretism. If every religion is true, in the end none of them are true and none of them matter, or rather there must be common elements in all religions. Just as Communism wants all the earth to be shared in common, so Jezebel wants all the religions to be one. Then all conflicts in religion and government will cease. We’ll have peace! It will be heaven on earth. This is the anti-gospel.

I ask you to force yourself to read the Book of Revelation.

I ask you to force yourself to read the Book of Revelation. It’s really only twenty pages. Don’t read the footnotes, that will be a useless distraction, but expose yourself to the book as a whole, so that as we discuss it in the coming weeks you’ll have a have an better idea of the structure and symbols.

Since this first class is an overview, I’ll just read aloud this chart to conclude for today.

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