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As we explained in our opening conference, Mary unveiled certain parts of the Apocalypse in an amazing, original and compelling manner, but She didn’t speak directly about every character or event in the Book of Revelation. However, by decoding the first four of the seven signs, She gave us the key or the code, as it were, to unlock the rest of the book.

In our previous talks, we listened to long passages where she explained the meaning of the second sign, the Red Dragon as bloody, atheistic communism. Then She told us that the third sign of the dark seven-headed beast rising from the sea represents the agenda of Freemasonry. The fourth sign, the false lamb who only “looks like a lamb” but it doesn’t bleat like a lamb. Rather it “speaks like a dragon” [Rev. 13:11]. She explained to us that this lamb-beast represents the sad phenomenon of Freemasonry among the priesthood and hierarchy.

Tonight we launch out on our own, holding Mary’s keys, to unlock for ourselves the identity of the fifth sign, another lamb.

This lamb has one head, seven horns and seven eyes. I tried to find an artistic image on the internet and found scarcely anything except one sketch in which the artist portrayed the eyes in a cluster in the forehead. A reviewer took the artist to task for daring to portray something so frightening, as if the artist wasn’t trying his or her best to portray what St. John describes. I recall seeing a medieval illustration of this lamb, and the artist placed the eyes in a circle around the head, under a cluster of seven horns. No matter how we try to visualize it, it’s not a normal lamb. Anything unfamiliar will naturally feel disconcerting, but we have to recognize this as a symbol trying to convey to us an identity of either an ideology or a group of persons.

Animals represent Groups

I just gave a talk a couple of days ago about Eve conversing with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I made the case that the serpent represented a group or legion of demons. The Old Testament habitually used animals to represent groups. Ezekiel referred to Egypt as a sea monster because of the Nile. The prophet Nahum called Assyria a lion because its warriors were conquering so many nations. We do the same thing today: Great Britain is a lion, China a dragon, the USA a bald eagle and so on. Our political parties are elephants vs donkeys. Our schools have mascots and many businesses employ animal symbols in their advertising from Gatorade to Frosted Flakes. These symbols are usually natural enough to recognize the animal, but stylized enough to make us recognize some particular group.

But the Apocalypse takes this all a giant leap beyond natural animals. Some of these animals have multiple heads or eyes all over. We can’t even identify the sea-beast with any natural animal. It “was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth” [13:2]. Later on we’ll be asked to envision “locusts like horses arrayed for battle; on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, their teeth like lions’ teeth; and scales like iron breastplates” [9:7-9]. The Holy Spirit isn’t trying to frighten us and give us nightmares. Rather, we are supposed to understand that the groups that are active in the time of the Apocalypse, are entities that transcend natural boundaries. These groups are not to be recognized by clear-cut membership that one can go and research with the usual methods. Those who hold an atheistic mindset or adhere to Masonic values, might not even be fully conscious of it, let alone be card-carrying Communists or oath-swearing Freemasons. But what they buy, how they vote, how they behave, the entertainment they prefer, makes them part of the “movement” of a living entity, and these large bodies of persons have a major influence on society for better or worse.

In past generations we could speak about nation-beast-bodies interacting with other nations. Language alone was usually a boundary. Travel was limited because on foot or horse it was costly and time-consuming to spend weeks to cross territory.

The Apocalyptic era is a global era. Travel is meaningless. We don’t even have to leave our armchair to skype with someone on the other side of the planet. We don’t have to look for and employ translators if we want to write a letter. Computer-generated translations, while far from perfect for lengthy texts, are quite adequate for many kinds of transactions. Many of us in the United States aren’t aware that we happen to be native speakers of a language that’s rapidly becoming a global language.

English is widely spoken or studied in more than 90 others. Eighty percent of Russian children study English starting in the fifth grade. 250 million Chinese are studying the language right now—more than the number speaking it in the United States. In Japanese schools, six years of English is required. In Burma, English-language classes are mandatory from kindergarten through college. In France, studying English is not mandatory, but 83 percent of the French students attending secondary schools freely choose to study English. Throughout Western Europe it’s the second language of most bilingual people.

Why is this happening ? The more distant catalyst was Great Britain which colonized parts of Asia and Africa, places of multiple tribes. A common language was needed for the sake of trade. India has 179 different languages within its borders, but English is the official language. The Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta serve the poor in almost every country in the globe, but English is the language of the congregation. In more recent decades the United States has provided the incentive for learning English. Most computer software is written here. Also most medical books are written and published here. My brother is a dentist who gives conferences internationally. He doesn’t need translators. Most dentists learn English to get through dental school. It’s cheaper to ask the students to learn English than to translate and republish all the material.

The Apocalyptic world is a global world. Boundaries are more fluid. Even if we build walls, communication streams in from all directions. National values have less reason for uniting people. When we speak of the “scientific community” or the “LGBT community” etc., we aren’t thinking of some particular country. And then there is the business world. The vast majority of businesses have an internet location in cyberspace. They can sell merchandise to anyone on the globe. As for businesses that have physical locations outside their nation of origin, I don’t know how to offer you statistics for that. Who can count the factories or the McDonald’s restaurants? Mark Hitchcock, a Protestant minister in Oklahoma made a good point:

Everywhere one looks today, there’ s another group of nations being created to deal with the growing complexities and uncertainties of the world economy. There’s the G-7, G-15, G-20, G-30, G-77, and a proposed G-33. Nations are forging necessary economic alliances to stay afloat and insure credit and available markets for their own benefit. [Cashless, by Mark Hitchcock, author of nearly twenty books on biblical prophecy, Harvest House Publications, Eugene OR ©2009]

For all these reasons I find Mary’s explanation of the animal symbols very compelling. She doesn’t expect us to believe that there will literally be a war with ten particular nations who have old-fashioned kings at the head of their governments. She talks instead of ideologies or philosophies, they are crowned in the sense that they hold a great power of influence. And it doesn’t imply that people will even be consciously exerting power. Many people don’t reflect on who they align themselves with, but are floating in the sea of nations and drifting here or there in clusters. They listen to whoever is nearby. We must not underestimate our power to influence people by “speaking the truth in love” as St. Paul’s advises [Eph 4:15].

This is why we need to deliberately make an effort not to align ourselves with the ideology of the dragon or the sea beast or the false lamb, which the Book of Revelation tells us are actually all interconnected. It takes prayerful discernment to stay away from the beast that “looks like a lamb.” Except for some horses this is probably the most normal looking animal in the entire Book of Revelation. It only has one head, and two eyes and two horns. Very natural! Who wouldn’t feel comfortable by such a harmless lambkin? Don’t be put off by the horns. Americans tend to breed hornless varieties of sheep. The technical word is “polled.” Horned or non-polled sheep are quite common throughout the world. When the angel spared Isaac, Abraham sacrificed a sheep that had its horns caught in bush. Lambs can have horn “nubbins” at birth, and already growing out at the age of two weeks. In fact, in warm climates horns are an important way for the animal to release heat. Horns can be quite hot to the touch. So horns on a lamb are not at all unnatural or scary. So how do we recognize persons belonging to a false lamb? Unfortunately they lie like the dragon so we could be deceived. However the false lamb has a mortal wound of which it is healed and it has connections to 666. Mary has much to tell us about this number.

Individual Persons in the Apocalypse

But before we immerse ourselves in the drama of this book, we need to be introduced to the cast of characters. Tonight we want to identify the fifth sign, another lamb but one has seven horns and seven eyes. Is this the Lamb of God? No. We’re going to call this lamb, the Lamb of Zion. Why can’t we identify this seven-eyed lamb with Jesus? First of all, we just made the case that beasts in the Bible, and even in our present culture, symbolize groups, not individual persons. Mary already told us the identity of the dragon, the sea-beast and the lamb with two horns. They are groups with strong ideologies. It would be totally inconsistent for the next beast, the fifth sign to not represent a group.

Are there no individual persons in the Apocalypse? There are a few. There’s a sky woman with wings, standing on the moon and facing the dragon. This is the first sign and Mary identifies this woman as herself. Since she is in heaven now, she is above the earth. Then there’s a man with bronze feet and flaming eyes walking among lampstands. John identifies this person as the Son of Man, a clear reference to Jesus. Then we have a man on a horse whose name is “The Word of God.” It’s not a contradiction for the same person to be walking in one chapter, then riding a horse in other chapters. Later we’ll run into two witnesses. Even though many commentators try to name them as Enoch and Elijah, or Peter and Paul, the Apocalypse doesn’t name them and I will demonstrate later on that these are group entities. Lastly we have the whore of Babylon, a woman sitting on the sea-beast. But in chapter seventeen an angel will take pains to explain the mystery that she symbolizes. The angel declares:

The woman whom you saw is the great city which holds sway over the kings of the earth. [17:18]

So the argument is very strong that Jesus and Mary are the only individuals in this great drama. It would disrupt the structure of the book to assert that one of the beasts is a person rather than a group, and that this seven-eyed lamb is the man riding the horse and walking among the lampstands. The Apocalypse is a wild book, but it’s not crazy!

Since Mary left us on our own for this seven-horned, seven-eyed lamb, She is confident that we can figure out the identity. Dr. Scott Hahn teaches us that the first place we should always do is to check out the rest of the Bible. Does the inspired word give us a clue? This gets fun.

Amnos, Agnus

Some commentators will tell you that St. John the Evangelist didn’t write the Book of Revelation. If they bother making a case, it’s always flimsy. All of the early Church writers assume this is the Apostle John. In the text of the Apocalypse, somebody named John claims authorship because he takes pains several times to say “I, John saw . . .” In his Gospel, the Apostle John identifies himself only as “the one Jesus loved,” this allows all of us to sit close to Jesus at the Last Supper and stand with Mary at the foot of the Cross. But a style is hard to hide. Only John the Evangelist becomes animated when he wants to tell us that he really saw something:

One of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it bears witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth–that you also may believe. [Jn 19:34-35]

It’s tempting to get into a discussion regarding the authorship of the Apocalypse, but Mary doesn’t get into it. It’s only important that we are all agreed that the Book of Revelation is the inspired word of God and we need to take it seriously. But the reason I brought up St. John is that only in his Gospel is Jesus identified as the Lamb of God.

And he [John the Baptist ] looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” [Jn 1:36]

The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! [Jn 1:29]

The great scholar Fr. Herman Kramer pointed out for us that St. John, in his Gospel, was using the typical Greek word for lamb, amnos. The Latin sounds similar, agnus. St. Peter employs this word, and so does Luke in Acts.

[You were redeemed] with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the Blood of Christ. [1Pe 1:19]

Now the passage of Scripture which [the Ethiopian eunuch] was reading was this: “he was led as a sheep to slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he does not open his mouth. [Ac 8:32]

In the Hebrew Old Testament, the word for lamb is kebes {keh-bes’}. It occurs a hundred times, and almost every time it’s referring to the year-old lamb that was stipulated for sacrifices in the Mosaic law. In Carmel we enjoyed commentaries by sheepherders since the Bible constantly refers to us as sheep. I recall one experienced shepherd noting in an offhand manner that a year-old male lamb was “just old enough to butt.”

Arnion

Father Kramer laid stress on the fact that the author of the Apocalypse never even once employs that normal word for lamb amnos, but instead uses another Greek word: arnion.

[Arnion] is used 29 times in 12 chapters. This is very significant. It appears to be intentionally used to attach a totally different meaning to the title “lamb” in the Apocalypse than in the Old Testament or elsewhere in the New. [Book of Destiny, Kramer p. 13-137]

The only correct way to translate arnion is lambkin, as any concordance will tell you. Why don’t our English Bibles translate the word correctly? In the fourth century, St. Jerome was commissioned by the Pope to bring the New Testament Greek into Latin which had become the common world-language. Did Latin not have an equivalent for lambkin? I don’t know. He could have used two words and designated the Apocalyptic lamb as “little lamb.” But would it make any sense to describe the seven-eyed lamb standing on Mt. Zion surrounded by 144,000 as a little lamb?

St. Jerome may have consulted other scholars and they all might have assumed that the identity of this seven-horned, seven-eyed beast is the Lamb of God so it would be alright to equate arnion with amnos. After all, many scholars today assert that the Lamb of Zion is the Lamb of God so it would be rather demeaning to use the term lambkin, which would be like calling Jesus a puppy. An arnion was so week and small that it couldn’t even butt. It seemed rather silly. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate became the preferred base for making translations into European languages because Latin is closer than Greek, and so differences in the lamb-words has been overlooked up to the present except by a few scholars like Fr. Kramer. Hopefully, future translations of the Bible will make it clear that we are dealing with a very young lambkin in the Apocalypse, not even a year-old paschal lamb. The Greek is quite clear.

Lambkin (arnion) is the only lamb word in the Book of Revelation. It occurs only two times in the rest of the Bible, and these two times are helpful for us.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambkins.” [Jn 21:15] and He continues, telling Peter to “tend my sheep” and then “feed my sheep.”

But I was like a tender lambkin led to the slaughter; And I did not know that they had devised plots against me, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, And let us cut him off from the land of the living, That his name be remembered no more.”[Jer 11:19]

The risen Jesus tells Peter to take care of the lambkins, as if this is a special part of his flock. And Jeremiah identifies the lambkin with himself a persecuted prophet.

Arane and Arni

Before we leave our Greek lexicon I want to note two rarer Greek words for lamb. Arane has nearly the same letters as arnion, and it occurs in Luke.

The Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come. . . Go, behold, I send you out as lambs <arane> in the midst of wolves. [Lk 10:1,3]

Again, we see a special portion of the flock being designated, and not the Lamb of God.

Another Greek word occurs, and this is much more obscure. It comes up as a name. I had to go down some rabbit holes in the lexicons. It seems that the Greek word arni might be the equivalent of aram in Hebrew.

In Lu 3:33 in the middle of the genealogy of Jesus we find some English Bibles saying different things:

“the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron . . .”

“the son of Admin, the son of Ram (rom), the son of Hezron . . .”

“the son of Amminadab, the son of Aram, the son of Hezron . . .”

Obviously, these are Jesus’ ancestors so they would have Hebrew names. And a Greek speaker is trying to wrap his tongue around them. We English speakers can’t pronounce Paris like the Parisians, so who are we to complain about Bible translators? Aram or Ram or Ramah was an Old Testament place name and a personal name. It means high, exalted, lifted up. Ram was a great-grandson of Judah and an obscure ancestor of David (Ru 4:19; 1Ch 2:9,10). We have no particular information in the Bible on these men. The only reason I point it out is that arni is very similar to arnion. In the Apocalypse the seven-horned arnion always appears standing, and sometimes standing on a high place, Mount Zion, so we have a reiteration of a high, exalted position. . Does Mary give us any clues?

Knock

The apparition at Knock in Ireland was an amazing apocalyptic tableau: a bride clothed in white dominates the scene, a bishop is reading from a book (one of the witnesses had been to another parish and said the bishop looked like the statue he had scene of St. John the Evangelist), and there is an altar with a lamb, and numerous angels hovering above. I’ll give a talk on Knock next week. For now we’ll focus on the Lamb of Knock. The witnesses were eighteen rural people of the 1800s. Unlike most of us in the 21st century who deal daily with machines, these folks lived in daily familiarity with farm animals. I remember being amused when I first read a small book on this apparition because the witnesses were not quite agreed on the size of the lamb. The Irish have to fight about everything, don’t they? Patrick Hill said the lamb was eight weeks old but another witness said it was, I can’t remember, something like six weeks or ten weeks. I didn’t scan in that precious old book in the Carmelite library because I wasn’t yet studying the Apocalyptic lamb. A lamb is a lamb right? Well no! I realized later that these good parishioners at Knock were seeing a lambkin, not a year-old paschal lamb. Jesus is the Passover lamb, the great Lamb of God. The seven-horned Lamb of Zion is a little lamb, a lambkin, an arnion.

MMP on Good Lambkins

We just read above that Jeremiah was like an innocent arnion set up for slaughter. And Jesus told Peter to take special care of his arnions. And then, using a similar Greek word, Jesus sent out seventy-two disciple as aranes among wolves. In locutions to Fr. Gobbi, Mary speaks often of priests consecrated to her heart as sacrificial lambs to be martyred or slaughtered.

MMP 224lm-Together with me, carry your heavy cross each day. Pour out, with love, your blood. Allow yourselves to be placed on the altar of his very scaffold. Meek as lambs, allow your hands and your feet to be also transfixed with nails: love, forgive, suffer and offer yourselves to the Father, with love, for the salvation of all.

MMP 241f-Beloved sons, let yourselves be offered on the altar of the Lord, as docile and meek lambs, for the salvation of the world. For this reason, I am bringing you all today into the temple of the Lord to present you, as a hymn of perfect glorification, to the Most Holy Trinity. Your little voices will become strong, like the roar of a hurricane, and joined to the powerful victory-cry of the cohorts of angels and saints, they will go out through all the world to proclaim everywhere, ‘Who is like God? Who is like God?’

MMP 291l-As little lambs I have gathered you into my sheepfold to prepare you for the immolation which awaits you. And now I look upon you with pleasure because you are co-operating with my action which disposes you to be offered to the Lord, on the altar of my Immaculate Heart, for the salvation of the world.”

MMP 537qr-I am ever close to you, and I am leading you by the hand at each moment, as a mother leads her little children. I will be at your side, in an extraordinary way, during the bloody moments of your priestly passion and of your martyrdom. You will see me then and rejoice, because you will contemplate your heavenly Mother who offers you, as little lambs, on the altar of her Immaculate Heart, to the perfect glory of the Most Holy and Divine Trinity”

Father Stephano Gobbi died in his bed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of priests who have consecrated themselves to Mary’s Immaculate Heart and offered her their labors and sufferings, passed out of this life without enduring a bloody martyrdom. We have to remember that being a member of a lamb-beast is a multi-generational affair. The sea-beast of Freemasonry celebrates its 300th anniversary this year of 2017. The entities of the Apocalypse are not confined to national boundaries, and nor are they confined to this or that decade. Like cells in a living body, each member does its part, and dies and is replaced while the body lives on. Not every member of the seven-horned lambkin will be part of the definitive victory battle. A war usually lasts a long time and there are many battles. If every soldier on one side were to be killed in the first battle, that would be the end of the war. Has anyone ever heard of a war that required only one battle?

Before we proceed to identify the seven-horned Lamb of Zion, we recall once again that the two-horned Lamb is also an arnion. It looks like an arnion. But it’s a false lambkin, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Mary had quite a bit to say to Fr. Gobbi about these bad lambkins.

MMP on the False Lambkin

MMP 313f-The cause of such a vast diffusion of errors and of this great apostasy rests with unfaithful pastors. They remain silent when they should speak with courage to condemn error and to defend the truth. They do not intervene when they should be unmasking the rapacious wolves who, hidden beneath the clothing of lambs, have insinuated themselves into the flock of Christ. They are dumb dogs who allow their flocks to be torn to pieces. You, on the other hand, must speak out with force and with courage to condemn error and to spread only the truth. The time of your public and courageous witness has come.

MMP 323i-[Jesus is] betrayed on the part of those pastors who do not look after the flock entrusted to them, who remain silent out of fear, or for the sake of convenience, and do not defend the truth from the snares of errors, nor do they protect the sheep from the terrible scourge of rapacious wolves, who present themselves dressed as lambs.

MMP 332h-There has entered into the Church disunity, division, strife and antagonism. The forces of atheism and Masonry, having infiltrated within it, are on the point of breaking up its interior unity and of darkening the splendor of its sanctity. These are the times, foretold by me, when cardinals will be set against cardinals, bishops against bishops and priests against priests and the flock of Christ will be torn to pieces by rapacious wolves, who have found their way in under the clothing of defenseless and meek lambs. Among them there are even some who occupy posts of great responsibility and, by means of them, Satan has succeeded in entering and in operating at the very summit [arni, ramah] of the Church.

MMP 390e- The Lord is about to ask you for an account of how you have managed his vineyard and why you have permitted rapacious wolves to enter into it, disguised as lambs, in order to devour a downtrodden and dispersed flock.

MMP 437h-Those errors which have brought people to the loss of the true faith have continued to spread. Many pastors have been neither attentive nor vigilant, and have allowed many rapacious wolves, clothed as lambs, to insinuate themselves into the flock in order to bring disorder and destruction.

MMP 506e-See how the apostasy has spread everywhere; how errors are taught and propagated; how the lack of discipline and confusion is increasing. How many pastors no longer keep watch over the flock entrusted to them and thus many rapacious wolves, in lambs’ clothing, are entering to wreak havoc in the sheepfold of my Son Jesus.

The Lamb of Zion in Scripture

Well, after this long lexical introduction, it’s time for us to look at all the places in the Book of Revelation which mentions the Lamb of Zion. I warned you in the first conference, the overview, that the book is not to be read in a time-line from beginning to end, but rather in mini-timelines as it unfolds the sagas of seven groups of sevens. Whereas the book seems to stop six times and begin again, in reality we need to be thinking that the second seal, the second plague, the second sign, etc, are happening about the same time. But the Holy Spirit evidently thought we could never understand the story chronologically unless He inspired the author to group together the various sets of seven so that we could grasp their symbolism. And so as we look at the passages that mention the Lamb of Zion, it will be rather messy because the Lamb seems to be in victory mode, then in defeat mode, then in victory mode. We’ll just have to put up with it for now.

Chapter 5:1-11

The first mention of the Lamb of Zion is in chapter five. We are in a mysterious liturgy with four living creatures covered with eyes, and twenty four elders wearing crowns. In the midst is a great thorn symbolized by the radiance of three gems of three colors. At this point a new character enters the sanctuary:

And I beheld on the right hand of him who sits upon the throne, a scroll with writing both on the face and on the back, and sealed down with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a mighty voice: ‘who is worthy to open the scroll and to break the seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to behold it. And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the volume or to behold it. Then says one of the elders to me ‘Weep not; behold, the lion who is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals’.

And within the space between the throne and the four living beings, and in the midst of the elders, I saw a Lambkin standing, as it were slain; he had seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth unto all the earth. He came and took the volume out of the right hand of him who sits upon the throne. And when he had taken the volume, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lambkin, each holding a cithara and golden vials full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

And they sing a new canticle, say­ing: ‘Worthy are you to take the volume and to open its seals, for you were slain, and did redeem to God through your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign upon the earth!’

Then I beheld, and I heard around the throne and the living beings and the elders the voice of many angels, and their number was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, and they said with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lambkin who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

The temptation now is to say, oh, we got it wrong, the Lamb of Zion is really Jesus, after all. No, let’s recall that when Mary talked about the two-horned arnion, that beast-like-a-lambkin, she said:

406f–The beast has on its head two horns like those of a lambkin. To the symbol of the sacrifice there is intimately connected that of the priesthood: the two horns. The high priest of the Old Testament wore a headpiece with two horns. The bishops of the Church wear the mitre—with two horns—to indicate the fullness of their priesthood.

She went on to identify the beast as Ecclesiastical Masonry. So if the false beast like a lambkin represents members of the ordained priesthood, then the true lamb-beast must represent priestly members who are trying to live their priesthood in a holy and authentic manner. It’s only to be expected that the Lamb of Zion is very closely identified with the Lamb of God. I could cite so many documents on this. One of my favorites is Mediator Dei by Pope Pius XII.

The Church is a society, and as such requires an authority and hierarchy of her own. Only to the apostles, and thenceforth to those on whom their successors have imposed hands, is granted the power of the priesthood, in virtue of which they represent the person of Jesus Christ before their people, acting at the same time as representatives of their people before God. This priesthood is not transmitted by heredity or human descent. It does not emanate from the Christian community. It is not a delegation from the people. Prior to acting as representative of the community before the throne of God, the priest is the ambassador of the divine Redeemer. He is God’s vice-regent in the midst of his flock precisely because Jesus Christ is Head of that body of which Christians are the members. The power entrusted to him, therefore, bears no natural resemblance to anything human. It is entirely supernatural. It comes from God. “As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. . . he that heareth you heareth me. . . go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” [#39, 40]

But who merited to open the seven seals? “The lion of the tribe of Judah.” But the lion doesn’t approach the throne to take the scroll. That task is given to the Lamb of Zion. Jesus is the Son of David, of the tribe of Judah. Judah’s father, Jacob had given each of the tribes an animal symbol. Judah was called a lion’s whelp. Enigmatically, Jesus isn’t named as the one who merits the opening of the seal, but neither is the Lamb of Zion. Ultimately all merit belongs to Jesus Christ who redeemed us. But every believer can also merit graces.

Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. [Ro 4:3 Ga 3:6; Jas 2:23]

At first glance it doesn’t seem right for all these people to bow down before the lambkin and offer incense, but this isn’t the incense prescribed for God in the Law of Moses, or in the Roman Missal. The text states that the incense is “the prayers of the saints.” What does a priest do at Mass if not gather up the petitions of the faithful and offer them to God with the blood of Jesus Christ? A priest is the appointed mediator between God and the people. It’s normal for Catholics to kneel before a priest to receive a blessing, to confess their sins. They aren’t bending the knee to a man, but to the one whom He is ordained to represent. But you protest: they are also singing hymns of praise! Surely this is Jesus Christ!?!

[they ]fell down before the Lambkin . . . and they sing a new song, say­ing: ‘Worthy are you to take the volume and to open its seals, for you were slain, and did redeem to God through your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign upon the earth!’

Through their blood” they have redeemed many souls? Can we say that of the saints? Don’t we sing hymns to the saints, praising them for their heroism and their labors to bring the faith to others, even by bearing witness to the shedding of blood? Does this blood redeem them from sin? No. Only the Blood of Jesus, the Word Incarnate can redeem from sin. But the text of the Apocalypse is very precise: “you were slain and did redeem to God.” This lamb had been introduced here in Chapter 5:6 as coming among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered. The lexicons say the word can be translated as slain, slaughtered, butchered, wound mortally. Sacrifice is a rare and unusual translation in English Bibles. The Greek word occurs eight times in the Book of Revelation but nowhere else in the New Testament. Fr. Kramer notes this also:

The word is not used for the death of Christ. It is used here in the Apocalypse to denote [the Lamb’s] “sacrifice.” It might mean the same as the Latin word “jugulatus”, which connotes the idea of immolation in divine worship, as the animals were sacrificed in the Temple. But it is not used for the sacrifice of the Cross anywhere in the New Testament. This again, as every term, connecting sacrifice with the Lamb of the Apocalypse, is very significant. It makes a distinction in the manner of offering between this, and that of the sacrifice of the Cross. [Book of Destiny, Kramer p. 13-137]

Here’s another place in the Apocalypse that talks about martyred saints who have been slain (same Greek word):

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of their testimony. [Rev 6:9]

The passage of the Apocalypse puts value on the blood of this slain Lamb. Does the blood of saints have value “to redeem souls back to God,” souls who had been redeemed by the Blood of Christ, but had slipped back into a life of sin and were in danger of being eternally lost? Can the prayers and sacrifices of the people of God win grace for these souls, a new opportunity, a second chance? The Church can do nothing apart from Christ. But in union with Christ St. Paul implies that we can add our sacrifices to the redemption of the Blood of Jesus:

I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church [Col 1:24]

This is central to the modern apparitions of Mary. But it isn’t some outlandish private revelation, that says souls can be lost if we fail to help them with our prayers and sufferings. This is magisterial teaching. This is how Church traditionally interprets the teaching of the Apostles. Again, I want to quote Pope Pius XII, this time from another encyclical:

Because Christ the Head holds such an eminent position, one must not think that he does not require the help of the Body. What Paul said of the human organism is to be applied likewise to the Mystical Body: “The head cannot say to the feet: I have no need of you” [1Cor. 12:21]. It is manifestly clear that the faithful need the help of the Divine Redeemer, for He has said: “Without me you can do nothing,” [Jn15:5] . . . [but] marvelous though it may seem: Christ has need of his members. First, because the person of Jesus Christ is represented by the Supreme Pontiff, who in turn must call on others to share much of his solicitude lest he be overwhelmed by the burden of his pastoral office, and must be helped daily by the prayers of the Church. Moreover, as our Savior does not rule the Church directly in a visible manner, He wills to be helped by the members of his Body in carrying out the work of redemption. That is not because He is indigent and weak, but rather because He has so willed it for the greater glory of his spotless spouse. Dying on the Cross He left to his Church the immense treasury of the Redemption, towards which she contributed nothing. But when those graces come to be distributed, not only does He share this work of sanctification with his Church, but He wills that in some way it be due to her action. This is a deep mystery, and an inexhaustible subject of meditation, that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention and on the cooperation of pastors of souls and of the faithful, especially of fathers and mothers of families, a cooperation which they must offer to our Divine Savior as though they were his associates. [Encyclical Mystici Corporis, #44 Pope Pius XII]

Through this active and individual participation, the members of the Mystical Body not only become daily more like to their divine Head, but the life flowing from the Head is imparted to the members, so that we can each repeat the words of St. Paul, “With Christ I am nailed to the Cross: I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:19-20). [Encyclical Mediator Dei, #78 Pope Pius XII]

The Church also officially confirmed the authenticity of the heavenly revelation, which we call the Third Secret of Fatima and this speaks of people being sprinkled with the blood of martyrs. The children behold a city in ruins and people making their way toward a big cross:

. . . priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

Chapter 6-7

Let’s move on. We’re not finished with the delicate business of distinguishing the Lamb of Zion from the Lamb of God. So the seven-horned Lamb proceeds to open the seals. When he opens the sixth seal Scripture says:

And I beheld when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake etc . . . And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the generals, and the rich, and the strong, and every man, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and rocks of the mountains, and they say to the mountains and to the rocks: ‘Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lambkin, for the great day of their wrath has come’ [6:11-17]

It’s rather hilarious to try to imagine the wrath of a little lamb, too weak to butt another lamb. But Jesus gave the keys to Peter and his successors. Priests are only men, but they have real power to withhold the saving sacraments. The Lamb of Zion conforms itself to the Just God enthroned in heaven, and deals with sinners according to the rules.

After these things, I beheld, and lo! a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lambkin, clothed in white robes, and with palms in their hands. And they cry with a loud voice, saying: Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lambkin! [7:9-12]

I read an old classic Catholic commentary on Revelation, and the editor remarked as if stupefied.

This is the only passage in the New Testament in which divine homage is simultaneously rendered both to God and to Christ. . . ?!

Right. That’s a big red-flag if we are expected to accept an interpretation that separates the Divinity into God on the one hand, and a Divine Lamb-beast on the other. It doesn’t work. This is not what’s going on. Others had trouble with this line in the Apocalypse:

Worthy is the Lambkin who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!

More than one commentator I read was so frustrated that they wanted to find a way to justify striking out that offensive little word “riches” from the praises given to the Lamb of God. It made absolutely no sense to offer earthly wealth to Jesus who abides in glory with his Father.

We don’t need to violate the text. We need to pay attention. Scriptural language is very careful and we need to respect it.

“Salvation belongs to God and to the Lambkin.”

The Lamb of Zion alone cannot save anyone, but we on earth can contribute something.

Seven Eyes and Seven Horns

I had to spend a lot of time this evening with the task of distinguishing the Lamb of Zion from the Lamb of God, because this is a novel interpretation. But it’s our only way forward for understanding this fifth sign, now that we’ve been given some important clues from Our Lady who decoded the previous four signs. Her interpretation has been extraordinarily logical, far better than all other interpretations I’ve ever read. They all get bogged down and finally become inconsistent, incoherent and unconvincing.

Nevertheless I haven’t fully unpacked the identity of the Lamb of Zion. This lamb has seven horns, not two. Mary had explained that the two-horns on the other beast-like-a-lamb signified the priesthood. So what do seven horns signify? That’s easy! The seven sacraments!

Samuel took a horn of oil, and anointed David in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of Yahweh rushed mightily upon David from that day forward. [1Sm 16:13]

MMP 271b-To you [priests] has been entrusted the precious task of baptizing and of pardoning, of announcing the Gospel, of renewing, in the celebration of holy Mass, the sacrifice consummated upon Calvary, of communicating grace by means of the sacraments instituted by Jesus.

MMP 271c-Cause his blood to flow down once again and wash away all the sins of the world. Each day with love and with sorrow, with the intimate participation of your own lives, celebrate the holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It has the power to make reparation, and to destroy so much evil in the world.

The members of the two-horned lamb are also ordained, but they do not administer the sacraments well.

MMP 31e-i-How many thorns afflict my heart: . . . priests. . . who, like Judas, daily betray my Son Jesus and his Church, how numerous now are the wavering, the doubting, the unfaithful! They celebrate Holy Mass, they administer the sacraments and they no longer believe . . .Their sacrileges have now reached that limit which cannot any longer be exceeded without abusing the very justice of God. . . If these unfaithful sons of mine only knew the horrible trials which await them, oh, perhaps they would repent! . .

But the seven-horned lamb also has seven eyes. This is mysterious. What does this mean? Jesus had something to tell us about the role of the eye:

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light [Mt 6:22].

This lambkin is a priestly body, but it has seven eyes bringing in light to help the priests. Who are helpers to the priests? The Apocalypse says that these “seven eyes are the seven spirits of God.” The Church has hymns to the sevenfold Holy Spirit. Seven represents the fullness of gifts or charisms (is the Greek word) to build up the body of Christ. In the Catholic Church there are seven Major Rules or charisms to guide those who wish to live a consecrated life: the Rule of St. Albert, St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Ignatius, and the latest to be approved, a Rule dictated by Mary during the apparition at LaSalette. Most congregations in the world take their basic inspiration from one of these seven charisms.

The Lamb of Zion is standing, but it is as if had been slain. When religious pronounce their final vows, it is a formal way of dying to the world, of offering oneself in total sacrifice. The Benedictine tradition is for the candidate to lay down and the other religious to cover him or her with a black pall, as if this is a funeral. The Carmelites and the Passionists and other Orders do something similar in their rituals.

I spoke recently in another conference about the manner in which Eve was meant to be a helpmate to Adam. I elaborated how the masculine mind approaches data or a situation in a positive focus. But the feminine mind is all about relationships. Science can now identify the sex of an embryo in the womb by analyzing the electrical activity in the brain. The male brain is quiet, but the female brain is receiving stimuli and processing it in a rapid stream between both lobes of her brain. These are complementary ways of apprehending reality. Both gifts are needed to govern the Church. Adam and Eve were given joint dominion.

Eve was supposed to be Adam who was supposed to be high-priest of creation, So after that failed, God raised up Israel and members of the tribe of Levi were called to freely come forward to be set apart and dedicated as helpers to the Sons of Aaron in their priestly duties of the Mosaic Law. Religious of the new Israel minister to the priests, doing many jobs in the temple of the Church. They are out serving the Church in a variety of charisms with the sevenfold fullness of the Holy Spirit. They are the eyes of the Body of Christ looking out in all directions because they see the needs and report them to the pastors. And being close to the people, they can relay to them more particularly and individually what the pastors teach more generally from the pulpits.

The two-horned Lamb only has two eyes because the religious connected with these unfervent priests are focused straight ahead on their particular agenda. They don’t provide the priests a well-rounded view of the needs of the Church. They don’t fully obey their seven holy Rules to which they professed obedience. In fact, they don’t like to serve at all. The two-horned Lamb doesn’t benefit from the insights of these religious, rather these religious contribute to the narrow vision and pride of the hierarchy by supplying them with all kinds of skewed statistics and strange interpretations of their holy founders.

The third element of the identity Lamb of Zion

The Lamb is always accompanied and never separated from a mysterious number of secular persons who are “sealed”.

I beheld four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding fast the four winds of the earth, in order that no wind should blow on earth or sea, or against any tree. And I saw another angel coming up from the rising of the sun, holding the seal of the living God, and be cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to harm earth and sea, saying, ‘Harm not earth or sea or trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads’. And I heard the number of those that were sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand sealed out of every tribe of the sons of Israel. [Rev 7:1-4]

These laypeople are very pure and fervent. They don’t get confused by the false idol worship going on. How do they do it? What is this seal?

We’ve already spoken for an hour this evening. It would be wrong to give a short and quick answer regarding the identity of the 144,000 because there are so many theories proposed by good and prayerful Christians, that it would be unjust not to put forward a serious response.

We’ll return to our meditation on this precious Book of the Bible, next week.

God bless you!