EWTN Live - The Book of Revelation - Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ with , Naji Mouawad - 05-11-2011

he's a Maronite Catholic apologist who is drawing hundreds of people into a deeper study of the book of Revelation and we'll hear what he has to say about it tonight so please stay with us thank you thank you and welcome I father Mitch Pacwa and welcome to EWTN live our chance to bring you guests from all over the world before we go to our guests I just want to ask you to keep a couple issues in prayer of course the people here in the South who have suffered from the tornados of a couple of weeks are still just beginning to clean up it's it's a horrendous mess a number of our own workers from EWTN are volunteering to help out with the cleanup so keep them in your prayers but of course you also need to keep in prayers the people who are suffering from the floods on the Mississippi River they're going through a terrible time right now in the worst flood since the 1927 so please keep them in your prayers one last group I want you to pray for their Coptic Christians of Egypt have been experiencing more harassment two churches were burned last Sunday and so please keep them in your prayers they undergo a lot of harassment and persecution and we need to remember our Coptic brothers and sisters in Egypt who are still suffering greatly that the movement for democracy hasn't taken away the anti-christian feelings that are present in Egypt so please keep them in your prayers now speaking of the Middle East our guest tonight is a Maronite Catholic I born in Lebanon but he lives here in the United States and he's been drawn into an in-depth study of the book of Revelation and to share what he's learned he's been hosting well attended Bible study on those scriptures and he's here to tell us about it tonight so please welcome my good friend nezzie muhammad and as you all of a sudden Allen peak thank you very much good to have you here upon I've known about your Bible class because you don't just do the book revelation you go through many other books of the Bible as you do these Bible studies in San Diego yeah do you do Matt saying that from his church I do them I'd say that from church on Mondays and in my own home on Tuesday it's the same Bible the same study repeating on Tuesday okay so say that from is the Maronite parish there in town if you're in San Diego you have a chance to go to Saint Ephrem on Monday nights or to get to one of these Bible studies that well worth it but the one that you know first got the attention of a lot of people and it's very interesting to our audience is on the book of Revelation yes why did you study the book of Revelation partly because of you know the crisis around 2000 and the expectation people had end-of-the-world not a Narula I had a lot of questions coming to me in in regards to are we experiencing something like the end of the world and I frankly didn't know much about it so eventually I got drawn into studying the book of Revelation because obviously it's fascinating and mysterious at the same time and initially I thought I'd be able to do probably 10 or 12 studies and would be done with it and ended up being a three-year adventure 3 I know I saw the stack of CDs and it's a lot of CDs that you made going through that material yeah and presenting it to people what is the message of the book of Revelation that people should be taking with them when they read that book today yes that's really a very important question when we read the book and many of the commentaries it would seem as if were tempted to almost slice the book into small silos so for instance you know there are seven letters there are seven seals there are seven trumpets there are seven cups and then there is the revelation of the heavenly Jerusalem coming down and it would seem as if you could almost take all these pieces and shuffle the order and it won't change much so the real question that confronted me when I started looking into the book was why is it then when we read the book of Revelation it is hard for us to summarize it the way we would the Gospels anyone who read the Gospels is able to say well it's about the coming of our Lord he was born of the Virgin Mary he had a public ministry he suffered he died on the cross and he raised he was he came back to us from the dead and he rose and went to heaven and now he sits at the right hand of the Father anybody can do that one comes to the book of Revelation it seems that were unable to do so how can we understand the book and its structure I think if we can do that we would have gained a real insight into this book and I would like to talk about tonight is a idea that I think is very much in line or the teaching of the church and shows us really the beauty of the church in the book of Revelation so if you'd like father we can just follow Saint John as he walks through the book okay from the beginning so he's on the Isle of Patmos on Sunday because of a persecution while he's there he hears a voice and he turns around and he has a vision the vision is of our Lord and our Lord is standing in the midst of the churches the seven lampstand each lamp stand symbolizes a church correct and he then tells John to write a letter actually seven letters to these churches now I know there is quite a bit of discussion over the authorship and the dating of the book I don't have much time to get into this tonight but I think it is important to note the following our Lord tells st. John the content of the letters but it is not our Lord who brings the letters to the churches it is John who must do so in the structure of the Catholic Church we know that it isn't up to a one individual one private individual to go to a church and proclaim a truth truth comes to us through the majesty the ecclesial structure of the church I think is really important for understanding the book of Revelation that's why in my mind the fact that it is st. John the Apostle who has that authority becomes really critical effectively it is an apostolic visitation that he has to conduct within these churches when we look at the structure of the letters each one of them they follow what is known as a covenantal lawsuit so before I explain what I mean today if any one of us would go to a website you know you're you're confronted with the famous and user License Agreement which is this legalese that we scroll through and we all click I accept without really knowing what we're clicking so if I were to read that to you show it to you you would know exactly what it is because it is part of our culture we know what it represents even though we don't fully understand it well a covenant lawsuit has this very peculiar structure that would have been evident to the contemporaries of Saint John the covenant is effectively the way God ordains the world Jesus Christ redeemed us all from the devil and he said I have bought you back with my blood you are mine and I am now a sting to instituting and covenant in my blood you follow my covenant you observe the Covenant I will bless you when you don't do so you will fall under curses I think that dynamic that this this dynamic relationship between God and us is also one reason why you fund the book of Revelation very very difficult because if our intent is to only look at God as let's say a glorified Santa Claus I sent him a list of things I want and then he's supposed to give it to me and then that means he's a good god then we're going to fall really short when we confront the book of Revelation because it isn't so in the letters the heading is an introduction of the strong party Jesus Christ I am the Alpha and Omega he reminds them that he is the strong party then comes a recapitulation of what they're doing that's the visitation this is the things you're doing well this is new you're not doing well and there is a calling back to repentance or else I will take your candle stick away from you I will basically shut down this church so right away from the very beginning the focus of the book of Revelation is the church jesus is intent on keeping his church pure and holy he calls us to repentance to conversion and when we do that we impact the world in ways we cannot even begin to imagine as a matter of fact one of the things that's very interesting about the seven letters to the seven churches is that he's calling churches who are already Christian yes to repent yes that even though they've accepted Christ they have to repent or else they'll lose their lampstand exactly exactly and so fundamentally once the church was formed the church was hemmed simultaneously by two problems one was stemming from the Temple of Jerusalem well if the temple is still standing and the Jewish the Jews are worshipping there why can't we worship there why can we go back to the temple and Saint Paul had to deal with that in a letter to the Galatians at the same time Gnosticism was also threatening the church coming either from a Babylonian and holistic background and by Gnosticism this means that if you have inner knowledge yeah that comes to you directly then you don't need the Bible you don't need anything else because you've got your personal experience yes and that was Gnosticism correct so effectively Gnosticism salvation by knowledge you have to know the secrets in order to be saved so all that was hemming the church on both sides and Jesus is coming back and calling everyone back to the essential Christian message in the church then he tells John at the end of this come up here so that I may show you what must happen next well next implies something else has to happen first well what is that well it's precisely what will happen after Saint John actually goes and reads these letters gives them to the churches Jesus is going to show us how he will make this a reality because his word will not be broken what he says will come to pass and now he's going to show John st. John how this is going to happen and there is there a beautiful a beautiful cooperation almost a dance between Jesus and the church in making this happen so if we keep in mind the important role that the church has to play I think we can keep the book of Revelation connected together but when we take that out and replace it by something that is far more loose loosely connected then the book simply falls apart so now he goes up into heaven actually in a throne room God the Father is there and is the Holy Spirit the seven lampstands representing the Holy Spirit and something really peculiar happens there is a scroll in the hand of the father and there is an angel who proclaims who is worthy to open up the scroll then Saint John weeps because no one is found worthy to open the scroll and then an elder comforts him after these three actions the lamb comes and takes a stroll and open it if we think about the sequence we have to ask ourselves a very basic question couldn't I mean wasn't it possible for Jesus the Lamb of God to come straight straight out and open up the scroll and there I think we see that God acts based on the actions of his church and here we see the action of the entire church the angels the weeping of the church militant on earth in in the presence of in the person of Saint John and then the consolation we received from the Saints it's actually very interesting that an elder consoles him not an angel this was not seen in the Old Testament there are no elders consoling us but in the new we see the communion of the saints so the church militant and a church triumphant work together in the praise of God and then God respond they see the like these elders are 24 elders you are seated around the throne of God yes so they're in heaven yes is there close to the Father yes they are and in my study I came to think this is my own personal perspective on it that these elders 2 times 12 12 is the number of the tribes of Israel 2 is is used to represent a faithful witness you need two witnesses for the witness to be true in my view represents the totality of the church so it's actually all the bishops of all the church celebrating the mass ever ever present before the throne of God because one of the things that you see at the throne of God especially by the time you get to chapter 8 is that there's a golden altar yes so that this is a place of worship and adoration as well as a throne yes so the liturgy plays a very important role in advancing the entire action so now the the the and here I'd like to say something about the imagery because we can get really caught into the imagery the lamp so an elder says fear not the Lion of Judah has conquered so when he looks he sees a lamb as though slain with seven horns and seven eyes the problem we modern folks have is that we are twice removed from the problem the imagery in the book of Revelation in that we don't have the context nor do we have the inner textual echo in the scriptures so we almost represent the picture the way we see it as if this is what is meant but if we exorcise the image a little bit we see that just doesn't work I mean if this was indeed a lamb is he walking on his hind legs how does he grab the the the scroll from the hand of the Father the image breaks apart as soon as we try to exorcise it it's a representation of our Lord Jesus Christ in his divinity and humanity the seven horns represent his fullness of power his covenant empower and the seven eyes the fullness of wisdom and knowledge so we have to be careful not to push the image all the way as if it is realistically I mean literally what John is seeing it isn't it's hope is his way to express deep truths to us using imagery that people would have known back then sure so first of the day if somebody were to say colloquially let's speed the road you wouldn't expect somebody with a jackhammer beating the road right right why because we know what's behind these words unfortunately when it comes to the book of Revelation we tend to miss out on the real meaning behind the image right so be it as it may here's the scroll and then there's the seals so the seals are preventing that scroll from being opened but the land but the Lamb the the our Lord Jesus Christ is now able to open them why now in my view there is this correspondence between the action that took that happened earlier which is that he gave the letters to Saint John and when st. John had brought these letters to the church and proclaimed them the action in heaven now can continue so for instance father you know that Our Lady at Lourdes waited for the church to proclaim the dogma of the Immaculate Conception before using these words herself so as I said there is this correspondence between the actions of the church and the actions of God because Jesus is a very courteous groom he treats his bride really really well right and so that's that in my understanding of things that scroll is really the same scroll that st. John has read to the churches but now Jesus can open it and bring about the fulfillment of what was written in that scroll now when he breaks the seals there is a series of warnings that happen in the world it is important now to see how Jesus speaks to the church and how he speaks to the world and in a in order to do that I'll bring up the the famous number 666 which I'm sure everyone knows from the book of Revelation now 666 can mean Caesar Nero because as you know in Hebrew there are no specific symbols for numbers it's like letters these letters right so when you compute the the name Caesar and Nero you get actually you would get six one six if you drop the last n and six six six if you include the last and neuron Kizer neuron and the there are other way that you can also apply to Diocletian and others as well but I think Nero is a good candidate nevertheless the key that is really that is important here is that behind Nero there is the the race Salomon which is the first book of Kings chapter 10 where Solomon in disobedience of God collects taxes that he's not supposed to collect and he receives 666 talents of gold so there's an echo all the way back to an unjust King both ways not just a king but also theologically someone who's acting in the wrong visa vie God and behind the two of them there is the six-day why is that important because God created man and beast on the sixth day man was created on the sixth day for the seventh when we enter into the supernatural life we move to the seventh day but when we rebel we fall back into the sixth day which is the natural day now you know father in Hebrew there is no way of saying best right you would say good then good good for better and then good good good for best that's why we say God is holy holy holy so six six six it is the totality of all that is natural but also all that is rebellious and against God right alright why am i bringing this up at this point because all as the seals are broken a series of natural event takes place in the world which are warnings sent by God for men to repent spoken in the language of nature he reserves the spoken word to his church outside the church he spoke he speaks using the language of the Old Covenant nature because the people in the world don't have the Bible they don't understand scripture right so they can understand natural disasters coming upon them to get them to repent to get them to repent exactly following this that we have seven trumpets in the seven trumpets we have the first chastisement and it is limited and that is intended to again bring back people to their senses now the trumpet is o is present in Scripture the first time in the Book of Numbers chapter 6 when God tells Moses that he will blow the silver trumpet as a remembrance for the Covenant it's a covenantal remembrance now there may be debate whether it's a silver trumpets a shofar which is the the trumpet mane of the horn my sense is because of the original context it would seem that it would be the covenantal trumpet but I'm not completely certain be it as it may the blowing of the trumpet is definitely a covenantal judgment which is limited in its in its measure to really wake people up so you go back to the Old Testament to get the image of how the trumpet was used absolutely then you understand that the use of the trumpet is meant to be a judgment yes yes and it's almost with every other symbol or image used in in the book of Revelation we have to constantly fall back to other text Ezekiel Isaiah Daniel Joel the whole of the Pentateuch as well as the Temple Araya is very important area as well yes Father thank you the temple its architecture and the liturgy of the temple so for instance there was the Feast of the trumpets it's very important for us to key on all these things before we can truly understand what is the Lord telling us in that book as a matter of fact one of the points that you're making here is that in order to read the book of Revelation you really need to know the rest of the Bible well yes because the book of Revelation in a way is summarizing so much of what else is going on in the Bible and showing it's it's endpoint its conclusion absolutely in fact when I started studying when I realized this I put together what I call the Catholic foundation library which is a series of talks to prepare for the book of Revelation destined to help someone really understand how the Bible fits together from a Catholic standpoint because without that it was really difficult to get into the book and constantly refer back to three or four different books every single time we would have slowed us out slowed us down too much so we had to first do a series to build up our foundation and then get it to the book of Revelation now going back to the the end of the trumpets as we said the purpose of this is for repentance and conversion so then what happens something really interesting happens it seems that is what there's something they call the interlude something completely disjointed from the trumpets and the cups and that is we're coming back from heaven down to earth and John is given a rod and he's told to measure the temple actually before he gets that he gets a scroll that he has to swallow and that scroll will taste good in his mouth and better in his stomach that is the same in my understanding this is exactly the same scroll that was opened up it was a scroll for prophesying and for bringing others to Christ it takes good in his mouth because it speaks of God which is sweet - especially somebody like Saint John but it is bitter in his stomach because it's really heart-wrenching the effect of what he has to say are going to be heart-wrenching now how does he speak it as was the case with for instance Isaiah he speaks it by action he's given the rod to measure the temple and that is very significant in the Book of Ezekiel Ezekiel meets an otherworldly being who measures the temple Ezekiel being a priest is not given the rod to measure now you know you measure what you own measuring is like taxes you only tax what you what you really own so measuring is a signs of ownership and a sign of protection in the case of Ezekiel was an otherworldly being who did it in this case it is st. John which it brings me back again to the ecclesial structure of the church it is the Apostle and a bishop in their authority to measure and protect now what is it so that the role of the Apostle and Bishop is to show a certain kind of ownership of the church and measure it absolutely absolutely now what is he supposed to measure the Nao's the inner sanctuary the holy it's really interesting is in obviously in a Catholic Church we don't have temples we have churches and here he's asked and told to measure the temple which therefore tells me that he's measuring the Temple of Jerusalem and he's measuring the nails meaning that he is actually protecting all these people who are now going to be entering the church who are open to the to the inspiration of God and after he measures the fruits begin to to come forth you see two witnesses again the number two means that they're witnessing is true and they witness to those who are unbelieving and at the end of their witnessing once said one-seventh fall but 6/7 praise God now they're praising is doesn't mean that they converted but that they're open they need to be born from above with water and the spirit hence we see the woman pregnant who has to give birth to the whole of Christ it is our lady it is also the church and we see Satan opposing here now in history we had something very similar happening in the case of our Lady of Guadalupe the the monks were trying really hard to bring people to conversion in Mexico and they were not having much success then all of a sudden we had the Reformation happen in Europe and not too long after that millions enter the church so Satan comes and with his tail he brings down one-third of the stars in this case I think it really means those who were part of the church the believers and you see not the symmetry one-seventh fell in a city and 6/7 praise God and then we see the the devil come and one-third fall and he then tries to actually destroys the work that the church has begun he stands before the woman and he's going to devour her child the interesting thing is that isn't he doesn't try to devour her it would have been much easier to devour the woman and a child than devouring the child and I truly believe there is there a clear indication for the for the probing mind and the mind who really is prayerful of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady and the holiness of the Catholic Church and right after that the woman then goes into the wilderness with with the wings of the eagle meaning with swiftness the wilderness is we know that from the Pentateuch from the exodus is that in between between egypt the place that we have to leave and the promised land hence she's very much in the world and she's protecting her children why because we know at the end of the sequence that the devil who is angry with the woman is going after her children giving birth children we see now the connection and why this happens right then after the trumpets and then following the sequence we have an attack by the devil so he opens up his mouth and he tries to drown the land which is all the false communication taking the the faith the faith and distorting it and then the land absorbs it meaning the lady the people who live the faith defend the church and he then we see then the Antichrist and the beasts that come out the whole panoply of his activity trying to overcome the work of salvation that was begun but God in his provenience tiss intervenes in the cup and his wrath is poured on the world and because of that the church is triumphant so then at the end of this whole sequence we see then the New Jerusalem coming down into the world and father I believe that the sequence therefore of the activity of the church through her ecclesial structure and her authority brings prompts God to act to to bring people to salvation and to remove the obstacles that the devil in the world and the flesh put in her way and it is a perennial it's a perennial governing by our Lord Jesus Christ that through all times he is constantly in a sense I would say repeating this cycle but rather applying that pattern so the book of Revelation is telling us how God uses this pattern to govern the world protect his church and bring so many into our fold so this is trying to give a vision of the role of the church in the world with all the opposition that comes from Satan and from people who are unbelieving and show that the church is being used by Christ to draw in all people if they'll listen yes after if they'll come indeed because there is this triptych these three parts at the beginning we see the church in the middle just as I described we see the church and in the end we see the church so most people tend to put the church in the background and put you know the the trumpets that sees all the terrible things in the foreground I think it's about time we switched it around these things the church in the foreground a clean and put the the punishments in the back yes these are the means to the end the end is the church okay we have to take a break but we're going to come back in a couple of minutes and we want to get your questions and your comments so please stay with us welcome back we have a very nice audience and the from all over the place even as far away as Australia and we'd love to have you come and join us if you can be part of our audience please contact our pilgrimage department at two zero five two seven one two nine six six two zero five two seven one two nine six six or go to our website WWE wtn comm and they'll help you with all kinds of things where you can stay the scheduling of masses of programs tours of the network maps to get up to Hanceville to visit the sisters and places to eat and all that the rest that you need to know so it's good to have you now we'd also like you to know about neji's of CDs he's got the CDs on Revelation how many did you do in Revelation 39 39 so if you're interested in getting those you can go to his website which is Cora bono dot-com WWC Audubon or common core Bono is spelled Q o r b-- o n au coeur de Buono dot-com and you can order those plus his other CDs on the various teachings that he does are you ready for some questions yes all right let's start off with the father over here father where you from I'm from the diocese of Wagga Wagga in Australia good to have you here you went a long distance award tonight and what's your question my question the point you raised about witnessing and the credibility of having two witnesses that the number two is somehow associated with testimony the strength of a testimony and even perhaps it could be connected with the fact that Jesus at times says are men it strengthens as it were he's witnessing to himself almost and what about where is it needed or is it as it occur in the book of Revelation where three witnesses are ever are ever needed and as for example when Jesus invited Peter James and John on occasions to witness pivotal moments in his life what's the distinction between two and three so in in the in a Jewish judicial system when someone is brought to court in order for a for an accusation to stand it was required to have two witnesses whose statement would corroborate each other without that the judgment would not be able to stand it was not required to have three two was all that was required so therefore the number three is not related to the legal system if you will it is mostly related as we said earlier to the two stating something in an absolute fashion God is wholly disapper LeTip yes you're the this that the comparative is this is better but I don't have the word better and they don't have the word best right so they to get across the superlative they would use three they would use three indeed so in regards to John James and Peter being brought up to the mountain I don't think it was related to the the topic were discussing here it was mostly related to the fact that these were he is presumably closest the Apostles and he wanted to really rely on them to strengthen the others for instance you know in Luke father in the Gospels st. Luke Jesus tells Peter Peter Peter the devil demanded to sift you all in English it's you but it really is the plural but I have prayed for you singular so that when you come back strengthen your brethren so he picked some apostles to do certain things not all that's my understanding I could we have a phone call Oh John yeah hi were you from Ohio prophet great good to have you on and what is your question well maybe you father Mitch and Ozzie can help me with us everybody a lot of Protestant brothers and sisters believe that were in the end times and Jesus could come back soon and of course the Lord said you won't know the day or the hour but he didn't necessarily say the month or the gear season and part of us that are believers obviously we want to be ready for him no matter what and I was wondering if you felt the book of Revelation and Navy around the end of the book of daniel has prophetic emphasis for Catholics or especially if not you you would know what the Magisterium says about it I would appreciate it and maybe some others would too thank you guys god bless you you're welcome as matter of fact there's a minister who is saying that the Second Coming is going to be this month of May so it's just going to be another tug about week and a half or so so hold on to your seats well father you know that from Scripture there are certain signs that we must be watching for one is the conversion of the Jews the Jews have to convert as st. Paul told us and that would be enrollment yes Father and as well as obviously the coming in Antichrist the Antichrist now Saint John tells us anyone who essentially denies that Jesus rose from the dead is an antichrist but here there's a specific meaning to this the man of iniquity the one who will be able to effectively drive the attention of so many and convinced them of his own powers that they would almost want to worship as a god I don't think we have anyone who could fit this description just st. John speaks that there being many Antichrist First Epistle of John yes but there's going to be a mega Antichrist at the end of time right so watching that we have to watch the signs but I think it's also important not to confuse our own anxiety with what God wants to tell us what do I mean by this we face a world which is uncertain but that uncertainty may be also a conduit of grace for God that God will use this to bring so many more into the church and the other thing I would say my own personal reflection is that John Paul the second told us so many times to prepare for the new evangelization and he said the evangelization of the third millenium I don't have a sense that our Lord would have let's say mislead John Paul the second and telling him that we should be preparing for the Evangelist evangelization the third millenium just to you know close it now yeah as a matter of fact Pope Blessed John Paul the great said that this is the springtime of Christianity and that there's going to be a new flourishing of Christianity in this time right and I think if we follow the pattern the book of Revelation we should be expecting that effectively we are undergoing tribulations and trials and there are persecutions this is working the field so that it bears much fruit right yeah right and I always like to say that knowing the end times and knowing when Jesus is coming back is a management issue God is management you and I are in sales we have to preach the gospel we're not running the show and that's one of the things that other preachers like this minister that I mentioned before all of us have to remember we're here to preach the gospel and always be ready but it's God is going to manage the second coming not not we yes okay let's take another question from our studio audience sir were you from Birmingham Alabama father and in your question well reading Scott Hans book the lamb supper and other Catholic apologists they came the conclusion that the book of Revelation was about the mass itself but this doesn't sound like it is about the mass this it sounds like it's completely different and I was wondering if if the mass does come in to the book of Revelation or is it something that is something holy a different different direction yeah no absolutely you are right the mass is really central to the book of Revelation what I was trying to do in the limited time that we had is sort of stitch the whole thing together because when you take a liturgical approach purely liturgical approach it's really hard for a reader to sort of go back and stitch the various parts together I don't necessarily think that it is a description of the mass although there are some mappings you could make for instance the reading in the beginning you might say this matches the Liturgy of the reading that that's fine however the whole experience in the middle is harder to retrofit into the liturgy I mean we don't have much folks walking around with six-six-six in their foreheads and that sort of thing right but the key to remember is that the liturgy really drives the world what I mean by this remember the Serie Phoenician woman Jesus told her a woman how great is your faith why did she deserve this praise because he said it is not lawful to give the food of the children to the dogs now what he meant by that is that it is not lawful to give the food of the children to those who are not part of the family and she immediately right away answered and said yes Lord but even those who are outside eat the crumbs that fall from now what are the crumbs that fall it's the things that the children do not eat in a sense it's the leftover so let's think about that for a minute what does a lot of G do for us from God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ and our lady in the angels and the Saints it comes down to us now the efficacy of the mass saying st. Thomas it tells us is dependent on four things the sanctity of the reigning pontiff the sanctity of the ordinary the diocese the sanctity of the priest celebrating and the sanctity of those who are present in other words for the master to bring forth the efficacy that God wishes for us we need to be able to move it forward now we can continue that and say and in order for the mass to bear fruit in the world it depends on us so when we are not living a life according to the will of Jesus and a life filled with grace we are unable to bring those crumbs because we are not not receiving the food it's not doing us no good since we're not living in a set of grace hence the world starves and in the book of Revelation you definitely see that what is really important is that in the churches we celebrate according to the truth and we live the faith according to the truth without that nothing can happen that the mass is the conduit of the graces and it's the way by which God truly reigns over the world yes absolutely have I answered your question yes all right we have another phone call we have Dominic on line hello Dominic hello father Pacwa I like this an a she a question in regard to Revelation 20 which refers to the thousand year reign of Christ I understand we're not supposed to take it or literally but there are some teachings and I read some books by Father Joseph Iannuzzi another that explained that and I was wondering what your take is on the thousand-year reign of Christ yeah very good question so the God establishing the Millennium the thousand year I mean in fact the millennium in my view is really an unfortunate word because a thousand is 10 times 10 times 10 here we go repetition of the number 10 10 symbolically means totality so when you repeat totality three times you basically get the everlasting reign of God on earth we're in the middle of it it is the reign of the church it is the age of the church we live in a new age which is the age of the Catholic Church that is essentially what that reign implies too to think that in the book of Revelation there is a there is a desire for scientific exactitude or historical exactly to the way we understand it is really going contrary to the entire structure and makeup of the book none of the numbers are meant this way not 144,000 not the two witnesses it doesn't necessarily mean only two it means all of the faithful are witnessing truthfully to Jesus Christ and so and so forth so we I think we need to be really careful to understand it in the context that it was intended to to be used and that's how I I understand that the the 1,000 year of the reign of Jesus Christ so so you see that then and how would you summarize that I would summarize that by saying that this thousand the number thousand was chosen to indicate totality okay right absolutely tality of the reign of Jesus Christ which he established on the church and nothing will break it there will not be a year that will go by where the church is not in existence that's the fundamental message in that 1000 years of the reign of Christ okay okay we have another question from our studio audience sir where are you from I'm New Albany New Albany in what state um in America America what is your question dad what um that you were talking about the line and he had seven eyes and seven horns the lamb had seven eyes and seven horns oh all right I don't get it what it means welcome to the club not just kidding okay yeah see if if let me give you this example to help you understand this a little bit better suppose there was a an alien who came to earth and had only one second he landed in a library and he grabbed the first book he could put his hands on and then he went back home and started reading this book to understand how we function and then he made a presentation and he told his people that on earth there is a bunch of rabbits then run around with watches and they're all late and they fall in holes and there is a queen of heart that runs the entire show alright what did he do he took Alice in Wonderland and thought that what was written in it meant exactly what happens but you know that that's not the case it's a way of talking about reality because I would someone have watches last time I checked anyhow right so in that case saying John wants to say something about the mercy the wisdom the knowledge the power of Jesus Christ and he uses images that back then would be very familiar to his readers and his audience and they would know what he means their only ways of saying that someone is strong you know if I said of the young man such as you you're strong like Hulk I don't mean you're green do i right I only mean you're really really strong well that's what he's doing now one of the ways to understand it you use your eyes to see things with correct and you learn about stuff from seeing with two eyes now if you had seven eyes you could see even more and you would know a lot more that's why he has seven eyes he can see everything that's what it's meant to symbolize and so in a horn you know if you have a a bull and a bull has two horns and a bull will try to attack you and hit you with the horns well he can do a lot of damage with only two horns but if he had seven horns then he could do even more damage I mean and that's the idea that it's a symbol of strength and power to have a horn and that's a very ancient symbol so that's why we that's why the lamb has seven horns to show that he has all the power and not just a little bit like a bull does that make sense he you're a good man you can take your seat now if you'd like all right we still have a few minutes left to go here um with this book of Revelation we still have a lot of people who want to figure out that there are television shows on other networks that will try to say this event that just happened in today's newspaper is fulfilling Revelation chapter 16 and so on or one of my favorites one of my favorites is that the of Babylon is a city that sits on seven hills what does that mean so the of the of Babylon I sitting on Seven Hills remember from the very beginning of the book what we're dealing with is churches who are in crisis even theologically because they decided to go after false gods and in order to do that they are actually that not in order to do that but rather they can do that for economic gain they want essentially to live the good life they want to go back to Egypt so this image this composite of the all right the Bride of Christ represents the church therefore the is the one who is outside of the Covenant someone who broke relationship and using her graces for her own good instead of using them to glorify God sitting on the Seven Hills Rome was the city of Seven Hills right so effectively she's now consorting with Rome the center the center of power in order to obtain her own gains right so I view it as a sort of a combination between if you will Jerusalem that had moved away from her Lord because Jerusalem is the only city that has been consistently called a by the by the prophets Rome was never called a by anybody right but there is this there is this consorting that is happening between Jerusalem and between Rome when Jesus was being condemned to death the authorities of the temple said we have no other God we have no other king but Caesar right we see this collusion between the two against the Lord and I think this is a composite that talks about the the ways in which false theology marries with economic power to attack the church right but it and so yes throughout history there are cases where we've seen this consistently there are cases where centers of heresies usually tend to follow economic centers of power so when the East was really powerful under the eastern Roman Empire we had a whole bunch heresies come out of it then the economic power transferred over to Europe to Germany into England and we know what came out of this in the United States is and perhaps the only country that merits to have a heresy by its own name Americanism so III do think that this is something that tells us beware beware of becoming unfaithful therefore the notion of a for earthly Goods the reason I brought it up too is that some people try to say well the city on Seven Hills is Rome yes which is one city with 70s but so is Athens yes and so it's Jerusalem one ain't mentioned so is San Francisco and so is Cincinnati I didn't know that and Cincinnati has sin in it twice so you got to be careful here what you're talking about but you know this is that the kind of thing where you have to be very alert that you don't try to use this just to go after an enemy now some people try to use this to go after Catholicism because Catholicism is centered in Rome yes even though the Vatican Hill is not one of the seven hills of Rome it's across the river from the seven hills of Rome so they're just watching what's going on over in the Seven Hills no but it's one of those things that you have to be very careful but but it is very important for people to understand that the reason what we call the Roman Catholic Church was precisely because God is showing us his victory the reason why the church is centered in Rome was because Rome was the center of an empire that divinized their Emperor's and God showed us that he can even take over Rome therefore nothing withstands the power of the church right I think that's important to understand but but you're right we can't be just stuck up only one thing we can't say that the book of Revelation in my mind applies to only one this part of the book applies to this one event and only this event I think it is it is more apt to say that it is the pattern through which Jesus continuously governs history and it's a way to look at the history of salvation and see this you know as a pattern that's going on yes so that's that's a very important thing well you know we're running out of time and I want to thank you but I also know that you have a birthday greeting to give out yes that my oldest daughter just turned 17 happy birthday my am so good Miriam happy birthday to you and I want to thank you very much for coming to join us in tonight's show and helping us understand a little bit more about the book of Revelation which is a difficult a difficult book to read oh but it's it's one that is a very important one and we shouldn't neglect it and that's what you have not done so I appreciate that much and I want to give you all a blessing may Almighty God bless you and keep you and cause his face to shine upon you may lead you in all of your ways by his peace and guide you to himself in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen amen and you know I want to remind you that we can bring you Najee and all the other guests who come here as well as the people come here to make various TV series in different languages as well as English because this network is brought to you by you and I know that everybody is hurting a little bit but you know if you could please keep us in between your gas bill electric bill and your cable bill we'll be able to pay all of our bills god bless you and thank you for your support you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 267,649

Rating: 4.780159 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, EWTN Live, Fr. Mitch Pacwa SJ, Naji Mouawad, Maronite Catholic apologist, The Book of Revelation, Catholic

Id: osODD9qeRLo

Length: 56min 23sec (3383 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2011