EWTN On Location - 2016-02-27 - Hail, Holy Queen

EWTN goes on location to Toronto Ontario for the mercy and Kingdom conference today dr. Scott Hahn examines the endearing role of our Blessed Mother with his talk hail holy Queen let's unite our hearts in prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Almighty God our Father in Heaven we thank you for the gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary our true mother in the order of grace who helps us to grow in the family of God to become more and more like her son our Savior and through Jesus name and the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary we ask that you would wrap us in the mantle of her mercy and her son as well our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil amen hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen I'd like to share with you about how I came to discover the Blessed Virgin Mary I'd like to do it in two parts the first part really corresponds to what I found long before I became a Catholic the second part is what really drew me into the church and helped me to explain this to my non Catholic family members and friends I think we need to start by recognizing that Mary is really a bone of contention a point of division in a way that must break the heart of our mother so I think what she would want for us to do is to recognize how much common ground we share like you know any dysfunctional family we often tend to fixate on our differences and obsess with our divergences and really overlook just how much convergence there is when in fact we share at least 90% in common with our separated brothers and sisters who love Jesus who said of the Bible and who really want to grow in their faith and their hope and their love but Mary Mary seems quite contrary to the way that they read the Bible and I know been there done that and fought you all but at the same time before I discovered the basis in the Bible for the Marian doctrines and the devotions especially the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception her bodily assumption in her heavenly queenship I discovered along my path long before I enter the church just how much common ground we share even with the Blessed Virgin Mary for one thing we can learn from the Gospels especially that she is a model disciple right when Jesus says my mother's waiting outside who are my mothers and my brothers my sisters whoever does the will of my father in heaven in no way was he demeaning her if a recorder had been set up outside I think he would have you would have heard her shout and men preach it's son because the prerogatives and the graces that she got are not primarily her physical motherhood but the spiritual graces that she received to really be the model disciple the model for all of us to emulate for example when she says be it done unto me according to thy word notice what she doesn't say when she hears the Word of God through the angel Gabriel she doesn't say I will do it according to your word why because the task that we have as children of God is not something that we can do but we can allow God to do it be it done unto me according to thy word and then what does she do at the wedding feast at Cana she turns around and says do whatever he tells you and that's the same thing she would tell us today do whatever he tells you so we want to see in her the paradigm the exemplar the model of true discipleship because her prerogatives are not primarily physical but spiritual they're not primarily biological they're truly theological the second thing that I came to discover was the truth of what was defined by the bishops of the Catholic Church back in 431 at the Council of Ephesus when there was one bishop named miss stories who insisted upon saying that Mary is nothing but the the mother of Christ Christa tokus the bearer of Christ not Theotokos the faithful were upset and the bishops came to their side and defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431 the mystery of Theotokos that she is the mother of God and why not because we add to the word but because of what we find in the word when the Blessed Virgin goes to the Judean hill country to visit or kinswoman Elizabeth what does Elizabeth say Who am I that the mother of my lord should come to me and Mary didn't correct her and say oh no I'm just the mother of his human nature because mothers don't bare natures they bear persons and the person she bore is the second person of the Trinity the eternal son of God which makes her the mother of God not in the sense of the origin and the origin of God obviously but the one who bore the son of the Father for our salvation finally I would say this that when it comes to the Blessed Virgin Mary and how we are devoted to her it in no way detracts from Christ I used to think it did and so I opposed Marian doctrine but especially Marian devotion until I realized that Mary no more detracts from her son than the Munda tracks from our Sun the moon reflects the light of the Sun the Blessed Virgin Mary reflects the light of her son the more we make of her the more we really ascribe to him the perfect work of our salvation because the father didn't send the son come down to earth to gain more glory than he already had because he possessed it all then why go to the trouble why bother if you already possess all this grace and all this glory to which we can add no more why come to earth well it wasn't to get more it was to give more to us than we had well just how much grace is God willing to give just how much glory is the father willing to bestow well if he's a perfect father you'd think he might just be willing to bestow all of it upon his children and if he's a a father Almighty you might just think he's successful that he's going to work he's going to find a way but if you look around this room or if you take a hard long look at me you're going to wonder well how successful is God as a father in downloading all of this grace and glory it's only when you look at the Blessed Virgin Mary that you see exhibit a proof positive she is the one who demonstrates the fact that Christ's work of salvation is perfect he didn't redeem himself he didn't come down and die and rise to get something that he lacked he lacked nothing but he gave everything and she's proof that he's not only willing but able to communicate at all she is his work and so when it comes to honoring her I remember getting a phone call the very day I'd had decided to come into the church are you going to worship Mary no I'm going to honor her what's the difference my Protestant friends said well I said it's really a matter of imitating Christ because you know the law of God that Christ kept more perfectly than anybody else the first three commands deal with our relationship to God the last seven our relationship with our fellow humans and what do you hear at the beginning of those last seven honor your father and mother and I pointed out to my friend that the word for honor and Hebrew cuff Allah literally means to take the glory that is yours and return it to your father and your mother that's exactly what Jesus does with his divine father but it's also what he does with his mother and what do we do we simply imitate him by honoring the one that he honored with the same honor we don't want to love her any more than he does but we also don't want honor her any less and so in imitating Jesus we want to glorify God the Father but we also want to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary this is the common ground that we share this is how we can proceed in fraternal discussion within the family of God's own sons and daughters and at the same time I'd like to just kind of shift now over to the three doctrines that really do still divide us and that is the Immaculate Conception defined back in 1854 the bodily assumption that is defined in 1950 and then her heavenly queenship which is celebrated in the Feast of her queenship after the Assumption all of this is really in our heart as Catholics and I think it also ought to be something that we can communicate not to win arguments but to win the hearts of the sons and daughters of God to win the hearts of those children who don't know that they belong to the Blessed Virgin who don't understand that when Jesus was there at the cross saying behold your son behold Your Mother that he wasn't simply taking care of a legal custody issue you know would you take care of her he would have done that days before and by the way the fact that Jesus had no blood brothers or sisters through Mary is the only way to make sense out of what he does in John 19 as even professor II W hang Steinberg a leading Lutheran pointed out that if Jesus had brothers through Mary than what he did at the cross would have been highly illegal you don't entrust your mother to someone if you already have brothers to take care of her this is the kind of thing we see but what we really need is to figure out way to build bridges instead of walls to really go back and forth on the basis of the Bible this is what happened to me the couple of years that led up to my coming into the church but this is also what happened to me the following year after I had come into the church I remember because well just to kind of summarize this story this experience that I had I found out that after becoming Catholic I had fences to mend put it that way my mother made that clear god bless her she's a Baptist so pray for her physical health as well as her spiritual life we were very close I'm the only one she watches on EWTN though now you know why I want her in rehab they have a TV but my sister also made it clear because she married a Baptist minister who was a good friend of mine who didn't know what to think about me when I had become a Catholic and so at the request of my family members we sort of scheduled a trip out to central Pennsylvania to visit with my mom to visit with my brother-in-law and my sister but my wife at the time was still far from the church she was still somewhat anti-catholic not nearly as bad as I had been for many years but still there was tension and so before we arrived at the town of State College she extracted a promise not to engage in any debate with my Baptist brother-in-law something she knows I live for wise life well unbeknownst to me my sister had basically taken the same pledge for her husband too so there we were at the kitchen table our first night together staring at each other just wondering if there would be a break we were talking about you know pregnancy and children and nursing and all kinds of things that men love to discuss when Bill got up and said oh I had to take out the garbage and there were two bags and he could have handled both of them easily but he said Scott could you help me what sure yeah that was the break and so we went out to the garage put him in the cans and walked to the basement instead of the kitchen down to his office and he closed the door he said we got to keep quiet what have you done close the door I'll tell you and out of came well it didn't take long for him to really focus on what trouble to the most and that was the Blessed Virgin Mary Marian doctrine and Marian devotion and sure enough he brought up the Immaculate Conception and then the bodily assumption and then her Evan Lee queenship but I'd gone to seminary with Bill and so I reminded him of our last year together because we had been taking the Bible courses together we had been in Bible studies together but we also read the biblical preaching of the early church fathers and had discovered what riches there are in the first four or five centuries as san agustin would show that the New Testament is concealed in the old and the old is revealed and fulfilled by the new not just by Jesus as a new Adam not just by Jesus as the new Moses who brings us the new Passover in the Eucharist and the new Exodus not just by Jesus as the new Solomon the son of David the king of Israel the the son of God but also in the disciples because Moses had chosen twelve Prince's to assist him in governing Israel and Jesus chose twelve and said you'll sit on Thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel so the fulfillment of the old by the new was not only Jesus it was also others and when I put it out the bill in that conversation as it began was that I went deeper into the early church fathers after we graduated together and I found gold in them thar hills I found out stuff about the Blessed Virgin Mary that they weren't debating bill they were celebrating I'm like what were the three mountain peaks in salvation history back in the Old Testament that we focused on do you remember he said well of course I'm an Irenaeus Justin Martyr creation when the world came into existence and Adam prefigures Jesus that's right the new Adam the new creation and then one then he said well the Exodus with Moses leading Israel out of bondage there in Egypt to Mount Sinai for the Covenant and like that's right and so Jesus new Moses who brings a new Passover new Exodus and what else he said well the third is the kingdom creation the Exodus and the kingdom when Israel has established over all the other nations and the son of David the son of God the king of Israel becomes the source of all this wisdom to instruct them and like so Jesus is a new Adam a new Moses and a new Solomon there's a new creation a new Exodus and a new Jerusalem a new Kingdom he's like yeah but but I mean what does this have to do with the Blessed Virgin Mary and I said that's what I thought and then what I found in the father's was an extension of what they had shown us about Jesus because when you compare the old in the new when you compare Genesis 1 and 2 to John 1 and 2 as Irenaeus and Justin and others do here's what you find in Genesis 1 verse 1 what do you read in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and when you read John 1 verse 1 it's in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and it goes on to describe how in the beginning God created everything through the power of his word because the word was not just a power it was also a person the word who became flesh to dwell among us and I said if you keep reading Genesis 1 on into Genesis 2 you read about what happened the next day and the next day and the next day until finally on the sixth day God creates man male and female but he creates man as male first and then after the deep sleep of the sixth day he awakens as the rabbi's would show on the Sabbath day the seventh day and he discovers what bone of my bone flesh on my flesh she shall be called woman so he addresses her as woman because the marital covenant is not man-made it's god-given for Adam and he's like well yeah so I'm like you go to John 1 and you see how it leads in the John 2 and you'll find what the early church fathers show is that it's not just the opening verses of John 1 clearly echoing the opening verses of Genesis 1 but if you look at John 1 verse 29 and John 1 verse 35 and in John 1 verse 43 would you read the next day the next day the next day there's a sequence of days in John 1 just like in Genesis 1 and what do you find in Genesis 2 that on the seventh day there is this marriage and when you move from chapter one in the chapter two of John's Gospel what he read on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee and I said so counting up the next day John 1:29 leads us to day two the second time the phrase occurs in verse 35 that leads us to day three the third time the next day occurs in verse 43 leads us to day four and so when you read on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee three days from one the last day that was mentioned what's four plus three that adds up for the seventh day and who's there at the wedding there's a bride and a groom and their families but nobody is identified by name bill except for Jesus and Mary but it isn't Collard Mary he doesn't call her mom what does he call her woman the exact same Greek word that you find back in Genesis 2 so for the early church fathers who recognize that Adam and Eve were created with an original sin and most certainly Jesus is you can see how Jesus is introduced as a new Adam his incarnation 'old debut is ushering in a new creation but just as there was an Adam and Eve at the old creation of the Old Covenant so the New Covenant the new creation involves not only a new Adam but a new Eve and so by the time the Church's teaching is developing you can see that at least three out of the four are preserved from original sin and how fitting it would be for Christ to fashion his own mother and preserve her from the stain and the corruption of original sin that's what the Immaculate Conception celebrates the new creation along with the revelation of the new Adam and the unveiling of the new Eve he looked and he said wow that was clever I'm like but I didn't make it up it's in the early church fathers if you really dive in deep as I did research for the next two or three years after we graduated together he's like okay that's just one out of three what do you do with our bodily assumption and I'm like well you move from Genesis and creation to Exodus and Moses and what do you find in the book of Exodus and what follows you find that God empowers Moses to lead Israel out of Egyptian slavery but the real point is not a political convention in mount sinai but a covenant or renewal it's a family gathering they're reunited as twelve tribes they're formed into one family and so what does God lead Moses to construct the tabernacle and what is that it is really the place of worship it is the place of God's own dwelling and as you read the last four or five chapters of the book of Exodus which is the climax of everything that God has done in leading them out of slavery in Egypt in leading them the freedom and Mount Sinai in sealing the Covenant that is architectural II symbolized by the tabernacle what is there in the tabernacle there's the outer court the holy place then there's the inner sanctum bill the Holy of Holies and what makes that so holy is the Ark of the Covenant described in exodus 40 and what makes this box so holy is not that it just covered with gold to symbolize the divinity but that it contains the Word of God that God wrote with his fingers and tablets of stone it contains the word of God in stone along with the manna that God used to sustain them along with Aaron's rod that blossomed as well and I said when they left Sinai and as they traveled through the waters for the next 40 years Moses got older and older but what was leading them was not Moses so much as the Levites carrying the Ark of the Covenant as the proof that God's presence was there in their midst and even when Moses died and head of the torch off to Joshua how did the conquest begin it wasn't a military strategy bill they got to the River Jordan and they couldn't cross they called the Army Corps of Engineers they had pontoons built no they didn't they had the Levites carry the Ark of the Covenant down to the bank of the River Jordan and the water of the Jordan did for Joshua with the water of the Red Sea did for Moses they partly crossed over on dry ground and as soon as the whole of Israel got to the other side the ange of the Lord appears to Joshua and basically gave him a command that was a battle plan the conquest will begin by all of you going at Jericho which was a dumb idea as you know from our testment class Jericho was an impregnable fortress why not start with the small towns and villages and build up but if that was a bad idea what was worse was the strategy because the aims of the Lord Commander Joshua that the battle plan will follow this pattern on the first day the Levites will carry the Ark of the Covenant all around the city with the twelve tribes following in a liturgical procession and that will be done on day two three four five and six a liturgical procession one time around the city on the seventh day the Levites cared the ark seven times around the city now bill knew from the archaeological studies that we had shared from professor Kenyon that the walls of Jericho were at that time so thick that you could ride two chariots side-by-side on top of them and there were layers of walls the defenders of the city must be looking out on from the top of the walls at these Israelites who had spent forty years too long in the desert son what are they doing well on the seventh day after the seventh circuit they raised the trumpets and they blew the trumpets to the Lord and Joshua commanded all of Israel to shout to the Lord a cry of Thanksgiving for what just do it and you'll see and with the ark leading them for all seven days and in the seventh procession on the seventh day the trumpets were sounded and they shouted their Thanksgiving and to this day seismologists and archaeologists can't figure out what happened to those walls decays because they came tumbling down Jericho fell like overripe fruit into the hands of a the people of God and I said and what happened they took credit for it so they left the ark behind the next battle they went to fight they got cut to ribbons in a much smaller campaign because God's presence wasn't what they were trusting what could have taken forty years took almost four hundred years bill because it wasn't until David actually found the Ark of the Covenant in the Judean hill country where it had been for three months and then he fetched it and in the process finally completed the conquest and he's like okay so where is all of this going and I said well what the early church fathers showed me about the itinerary of the Ark of the Covenant is significant because when the Ark was finished back in Exodus 40 as it began to accompany Israel in their journeys we read in Exodus 40 how the glory of the Most High came to overshadow the ark Epis key odds in a very unusual Greek verb that is applied not only to the Ark of the Old Covenant in Exodus but it's also applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Luke verse 135 where we hear how it is that the the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will want overshadow you implying that the Holy Spirit is going to do to Mary in the new with the power of the Most High had done to the Ark of the Covenant and why because the Ark contained the word of God and stone but the Blessed Virgin Mary was about to contain the uncontainable the Word of God made flesh but I said it goes even more than that because as you continue to read about Luke's description of the Blessed Virgin Mary and how she arose and went to the Judean hill country where her kinswoman Elizabeth lived you see that in 2nd Samuel 6 verse 2 before David could complete the conquest he had to go where to the Judean hill country for what to find the Ark where he had gone missing and so in Luke 142 you hear upon Mary's arrival Elizabeth is filled with such a sense of awe she says why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me when David finally found the Ark in the Judean hill country there in second Samuel 6 verse 9 bill would as he exclaimed Who am I then how can the Ark of the Lord come to me it's almost a perfect echo and likewise in Luke 144 the joyful response of Elizabeth and John the Baptist leaping for joy in utero is matched by what David did when he found the ark people saw him literally leaping for joy and dancing before the Ark of the Covenant in Luke 1:45 Elizabeth pronounces this blessing upon the Blessed Virgin Mary that was there for the Levites and likewise in second Samuel six verse 18 you hear the same blessing pronounced by David upon the Lord and the Ark of his covenant and it just goes on Mary responds to God's grace with song just like David led Israel and a song of Thanksgiving and I said besides that how long did Mary stay with her kinswoman Elizabeth they're in the Judean Hill Country for three months how long was the Ark of the Covenant they are in the same location in the Old Testament for three months what is Luke doing he's showing how Jesus is a new Moses who's bringing about a new Exodus by establishing a new Passover but before that we see the Ark of the New Covenant containing the word of God in flesh containing the new manna of the New Covenant as well and so just as you see David in 2nd Samuel 6 and in 7 finally going up to Jerusalem having conquered the whole entire promised land what does he do he has this liturgical procession where the Ark of the Covenant is being led out in front into the Royal Capitol the earthly Jerusalem which David didn't simply make his political capital he made it also the spiritual capital the place where all the pilgrims go to worship the God of Israel as their one true father and I said this is the reason why when you look at the old and light of the new when you read about the Ark of the Old Covenant in the light of Luke's description of the Ark of the New Covenant you can see that just as the Ark was taken up into the earthly Jerusalem at the time of the kingdom so the Ark of the Covenant is taken up into the heavenly Jerusalem when Jesus ascended into heaven he had Mary assumed into heaven and I said this is the basis for the doctrine as well as the devotion it's the fulfillment of the old in the new it's the fulfillment of the old Exodus by the old Moses by a new and greater Exodus involving not only a new and greater Moses but also the Ark of the New Covenant and then he said okay there's one more left and that is this idea that she is somehow the queen the queen where do you get that I said well as soon as the kingdom of God was established in Jerusalem we've already moved to the third mountain peak from creation when the world came into existence to the Exodus when Israel came into existence to the kingdom where Israel is exalted over all the nations so the king of Israel becomes the king of kings the son of David is dis Clare to be the son of God and when you read about this in first Kings chapters 1 & 2 you look at the very day that Solomon was crowned to be king he was anointed by Zadok with the holy oil of anointing and when he took his throne all the subjects bow before him not simply to honor the king but the true God of Israel who established the son of David as the representative on earth of this kingdom of heaven but if you keep reading in 1st Kings 2 you discover that not only is he crowned not only is he enthroned and anointed but in 1st Kings 2 verse 19 he issues this royal decree and what is his first decree to bring a throne and why because in verse 18 you read about what happened when everybody turned and saw Solomon's mother enter into the royal court for the first time that day he arose from his throne for the first that time that day he honors his mother by bowing before her instead of heavy having everybody bow before him and when he rises from the bow and sits back upon his throne that's when he issues the decree the royal decree to establish a throne at his right hand for her to be seated and enthroned herself as the gabbie raah the Hebrew expression bill for the Queen Mother the great lady you might wonder well why not his wife you know well in Solomon's case that would have been tricky since he had 700 wives and 300 concubines the most you could expect or hope for would be two you know maybe queen for a day as the old TV show watch you know but I said honey he only had one mother and she was not only the wife of his father she oversaw the smooth succession she became a royal counselor she gave him wisdom and instruction based upon her own experience and her love for and all the people and I said furthermore what you find is that as long as the Davidic dynasty endured and it lasted longer than any other dynasty in recorded human history over four centuries unbroken succession every time the king is identified the son of David is exalted the Queen Mother also participates in this as a permanent fixture in the Davidic Kingdom that got established by his covenant you have the son of David and you have the Queen Mother at his right hand so when Jeremiah gives the King and Oracle the word of the Lord comes saying say to the king and the Queen mother thus saith the Lord the only chapter of the Hebrew Bible bill that was written by a woman was proverbs 31 and is written by the Queen mother of King Lemuel to give him wisdom through these proverbs about how to find a wise and godly virtuous wife and I said so when the Davidic Kingdom crumbled and when Jerusalem was conquered and when the prophets announced that God would eventually restore the kingdom and rebuild the temple and re-establish the Davidic Kingdom by sending a messiah the King Messiah from the line of David that's what Matthew 1 and 2 describes so as John 1 and 2 describes a new creation with a new Adam and Eve as Luke 1 and who describes a new Exodus with a new Moses and the Ark of the New Covenant so Matthew 1 and 2 describes for us the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom and how does it do it the opening verse the book of the genealogy of Jesus the Christ the Son of David and then you have that elaborate genealogy that you hope you never have to read if you're a priest or a deacon because all those names that are hard to pronounce because there are three sets of 14 names from Abraham to David three more from david to the exile and then three more set or 14 more generations in the third set from the Exile to Joseph and Mary so fourteen generations from Abraham to David fourteen from David of the Exile and the third set of fourteen comes right to the Holy Family and why because every Jew could tell you that Hebrew there are no numbers it's like you know Latin that has no numerals you assign numerical value to the letters so if you see L IV it might be live or it might be 54 in Hebrew DVD Daleth wild Alice's David's name three letters but they add up to the number 14 so when you see the genealogy of Jesus you see the Davidic pedigree the royal genealogy that proves the fact that not only is Jesus the Son of David as the first verse declares but by the time you get to the fulfillment of the Oracle of Isaiah a woman a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and what shall his name be Emmanuel because God is with us you go back to Isaiah and you'll see what the scholars can show you you'll see what the father's could see and that was Isaiah was addressing the Queen Mother referring to the Queen Mother of the son of David far off in the future and how the Davidic Kingdom would be restored not just through the son of David but the Queen Mother of the son of David so in Matthew 1 and 2 you see the son of David who comes as the king of Israel born in Bethlehem the same birthplace as David but along with him comes her along with the son of David comes the Queen Mother and I said the basis of the heavenly queenship is the matthean portrait of the fulfillment of the old in Jesus and Mary much like you find in the other Gospels and I said what's so special for me was to read what the fathers found in revelation 11 and 12 because they're in revelation 11 and 12 bill you here in 1119 how John looks up and sees in heaven God's temple in heaven was open and the Ark of his covenant was seen within the temple now that might not mean much to us but to Jews the first century it would have been startling it would have been thrilling and why because the ark had gone missing when you read second Maccabees I pointed out the bill you discover that the Prophet Jeremiah was sent by God's Spirit into the jerusalem temple to actually draw out the Ark of the Covenant before the Babylonian soldiers arrived under Nebuchadnezzar to demolish the temple and desecrate all of that which was holy before the ark could be desecrated the Prophet Jeremiah took it back to the Judean hill country into a cave that was then covered over so that nobody knew its entrance when the temple officials confronted Jeremiah and demanded the whereabouts of the Ark he announced in an oracle that the Ark of God's covenant would only be seen when the mercy of God was restored to his people and so for John to announce at the end of chapter 11 in the apocalypse I saw the Ark of his covenant seen within his temple every Jewish reader would have gasped where is it what condition is it in how can we fetch him because the Ark had gone missing it was never found not until Harrison Forge shut up and that's what the whole movie is based upon the Lost Ark that was never found and so the Jewish readers would have said tell us where it is tell us what condition isn't tell us out of fetchin but John doesn't answer any of those kinds of questions instead he moves on in the next verse or the next two verses he just shifts and describes something that seems to be altogether different and a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed of the Sun that's fine John you saw a woman go back to the ark where is it what condition is it in but he's not talking about the ark of the Old Covenant in the earthly Jerusalem in a man-made temple what John says is then God's temple God's temple in heaven was open and the Ark of his covenant was seen within the temple he wasn't teasing his Jewish readers I saw the Ark and you didn't and now I'm moving on and not talking about it he's not talking about the old one he's talking about the new one and a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the Sun the moon under her feet her head on her head a crown of twelve stars well that's fine but go back to the ark I think he would have said I just did because the Ark of the New Covenant isn't a wooden box made of acacia covered with gold it is the immaculate flesh of the Blessed Virgin overshadowed by divinity containing not the word in stone but the word made flesh the true manna not the old man that perished I said to build this is the fulfillment of the old the old Exodus but it's not just that because the woman clothed that the Sun has the moon under her feet this is not just a disembodied soul up in heaven like John describes in chapter 6 where he saw the souls of the martyrs but there are only souls this woman is not just a soul but a body she's clothed with the Sun the moon is under her feet she is up in heaven in embodied glory the Ark of the Covenant was taken up to the heavenly Jerusalem but what is she given on her body a crown of twelve stars I said bill what is that the zodiac I don't think so that's the 12 tribes of Israel she is the Queen Mother of the son of David which you read in the next four verses because she gives birth to the male child who's destined to rule the nations of the rod of iron which is a quotation from David Psalm Psalm 2 showing the fulfillment of the Messiah thou art my son today have I begotten thee Psalm 2 so she is the Ark of the new covenant she is the queen mother of the son of David in the heavenly Jerusalem but she's also the woman and who else knows that the devil the serpent we read in verse 9 that the ancient serpent then attacked the woman so that God had to deliver her from his assault and why because the devil knew his scripture back in genesis 3:15 what did God promise that through the seed of the woman the ancient Serpent's head would be crushed and the seed is the savior and the woman is the new Eve who gave us the new Adam and so just as the devil had succeeded as the ancient serpent against the first Adam and Eve so he tried to succeed against the first Adam this the second Adam and Eve only of course he failed were had once succeeded I said all three traditions are braided together they're triangulated here in revelation 11 and 12 so that you can see that Jesus is ushered in a new heavens and new earth a new creation he's the new Adam but there is the new Eve the woman and also the new Exodus the new Passover the marriage supper of the lamb but along with that the Ark of the New Covenant and then the son of David and the heavenly Jerusalem restoring this Kingdom but there's the Queen Mother of the son of David I mean all three of them converged here in the stuff that we had read but never could make sense of the early church fathers show this to me and he's like would you hush up like what he said you're you're shouting Am I oh my and sure enough I had awakened the dead up in the kitchen right above us we could hear the chairs and then the footsteps running I can hear them they're downstairs in his office and so they came down like referees trying to part these two prizefighters you know and I was just getting started Kimberly said you made me you made a promise I'm like he's starting it PARP said did no I I asked him a question then he just took off and got all worked up and so we went back to talking diapers and nursing and all that stuff until we were bored that fell asleep the next morning and I'm at breakfast and I look at the calendar and it's August 15th see cradle Catholics can't memorize chapter and verse but the holy days of obligation you got down right I was brand new and so for me it was tough and so what happened that morning was a little awkward because I knew I had to get the mass it was my first year as a Catholic it was a holy day of obligation so I'm like barb I don't want to get you upset but I got to get to mass today it's a holy day of obligation where is there a parish she says well there's only one in our town it's Our Lady of Victory which was like music to my ears huh and like well how can I get there because we found out there was a noon mass and she tried to give me directions but it was really out there you know and she knew I'd get lost and Bill walked into the kitchen and he was like barb he's not going to find it it's just too complicated look I could drive you and I could drop you off and I'm like okay but I don't know how long it'll last it could be 25 or 30 minutes there could be an hour he's like I'll drop you know what I'll drop you off and I'll come in you know I've never been to a mass and I'm thinking you know if I'd asked him I would have been in such trouble but here he was volunteering it you know so sure enough at noon we drive to Our Lady of Victory we walk in he won't dip his fingers I wouldn't have didn't mind a couple of years earlier into the holy water we sit down about half way back you know I've been a Catholic now for almost thirty years so I sit in the way back but as the bell rang and the priest came out and everybody stood except for my Baptist brother-in-law you know the penitential right and then the Liturgy of the word and the first reading I was somewhat surprised I'd never been to the feet of the Assumption before but the first reading was actually taken from second samuel chapter 6 where david goes into the Judean hill country where he finds the ark where it's Bennifer three months and he's leaping for joy and he is doing all of the things that we were talking about last night I'm like whoa good job and then the psalm the responsorial Psalm was 132 now if you know the 150 Psalms you'll know that there's only one of 150 that is devoted to how David treated the Ark of the Covenant that day sure enough Psalm 132 and then the next reading was taken from the New Testament perhaps you've heard of the book of Revelation beginning in chapter 11 verse 19 where he saw the Ark of the Covenant up in God's temple and concluding with the vision of the woman clothed with the Sun the ancient serpent attacking the new Eve but she's victorious then we read the gospel and it's taken from the Annunciation narrative in Luke 1 where she hears from Gabriel and then goes to the Judean hill country for her kinswoman Elizabeth for three months and I am standing there feeling like I have just one little lectionary lottery I mean what are the chances of all of these taxes converging like that and then I sit down and I feel this elbow poking me and he's like did you have anything to do with the selection of those passages in huh and I'm thinking of myself is a you know every convert gets to choose the passages one mass for his first year you know and I said honestly bill I had no idea I've never been to the feast before and he rolled his eyes he here right and I'm sitting there thinking yeah right I had never been I didn't know I thought I had concocted this elaborate sophisticated compelling argument from the old and the new and the fathers who were Greek in Aladdin and I had just you know deployed my armies last night and then I realized that any cradle Catholic who goes to the feast who stays half awake is going to hear all of those Bible verses assembled just like the early church fathers shared them it was very exciting and at the same moment it was very humbling because I realized we don't need to get our doctorates we don't need to study the father's we don't need to be prepared to win all the arguments we just need to be faithful sons and daughters of God the Father and discover that Jesus has entrusted to us the Blessed Virgin to be the mother of God and the family of God for the children of God because we're weak and we need the mercy that she gives us in a way that only a mother can to prove that we really are a family it isn't just metaphorical it isn't make-believe the family of God is so real that it makes the Hans seem dysfunctional no matter what our best days look like and the mother of God is so amazingly maternal for us as her beloved children she loves us in ways that we can't possibly imagine and so what we need to do is we got to study the scriptures take God at His Word hear the scriptures from the heart of the church but brothers and sisters we got to wake up and recognize that we're also sons and daughters of God the Father and the of God this is our birthright but it's also the birthright of many others who don't know it Jesus didn't just suffer and die for Catholics he suffered and died for all he entrusted the Blessed Virgin Mary to the blood disciple but Catholics aren't the only disciples who are beloved by God anybody who would follow Jesus needs to discover that what he leads us to is his father but also he entrust to us his mother this is who we are as Catholics this is what we do in the New Evangelization and this is why the arc of the New Covenant the mother mercy the new Eve the Queen Mother the son of David ought to have a central place in our own hearts in our minds in our lives that our homes

Channel: EWTN

Views: 50,448

Rating: 4.8264737 out of 5

Keywords: EOL, EOL02153

Id: 3o50ajVvJ5I

Length: 46min 30sec (2790 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2016