Explaining the Faith - Ark of the Covenant

okay hi and welcome everybody i'm father chris aylar one of the marians of the immaculate conception coming to you here live from the national shrine of the divine mercy in stockbridge massachusetts where we finally have a nice day and it's finally warm so we are glad you could join us as you saw on your screen we are talking today last week we did the ark of noah noah's ark and this week we're going to do the ark of the covenant and a big part of it is how it is a typology which will explain what that means of mary and so if you can get through the first part of this where we just talk about kind of the history don't flip me off because you'll be able to get or turn me off i'm sorry i didn't sound right don't turn it off because you're going to want to hear the connection with mary okay that is very important and so let us begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit 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 our lady mother of the church pray for us in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen well thank you again everybody you know our topic today being the ark of the covenant is very important because we know the ark is mentioned throughout the bible in the book of exodus and numerous other times in deuteronomy joshua judges first samuel second samuel first kings first chronicles second chronicles psalms jeremiah you get the point even in the new testament it's mentioned especially in hebrews and the book of revelation now the best description of the ark is actually exodus chapter 25 and i was gonna type out a paragraph and read it to you and then i found a beautiful video it's only two minutes so let's start right away by watching this video as it explains to you what is the ark of the covenant and they shall make an arc of acacia wood two and a half cubic shall be its length a cubit and half its width and a cubit and a half its height and you shall overlay it with pure gold inside and out you shall overlay it and shall make on it a molding of gold all around you shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them in its four corners two rings shall be on one side and two rings on the other side and you make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark that the ark may be carried by them the pole shall be in the rings of the ark they shall not be taken from it and you shall put into the ark the testimony which i will give you you should make a mercy seat of pure gold two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width and you should make two cherubim of gold of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat make one cherub at one end and the other cherub at the other end and you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it one piece with the mercy seat and the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above covering the mercy seat with their wings and they shall face one another the faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark and in the ark you should put the testimony that i will give you and there i will meet with you and i will speak with you from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubim which are on the arc of the testimony about everything which i will give you in commandment to the children of israel so what a great description of that passage of the bible talking about how the ark was made now did you catch the fact that our lord commanded that the images be carved so they're graven images and placed on the ark so the first point is so much for the protestant argument about carving images right the point is the carving of the images is forbidden for worship of those images he was not commanding the israelites to worship the cherubim angels they were worshiping god and it's the same with catholics we have statues to help us lift our hearts to god by the example of what the statues represent okay here this ark is a man-made object that's the other complaint we always get as catholics oh man made anything i can't be into man-made anything i can't be into man-made prayers i can't be into man-made statues well this is god making it man-made he's saying i want you to make it so please this man made is not always evil this is how god works he asks man to make this beautiful holy object so here we have a man-made object that is intrinsically holy to the jews this the ark of the covenant all right the bible says as i said before that the israelites were in the desert for 40 years this is when the ark was made all right it was constructed in the 40 years in the desert and it was used all the way until the destruction of the first temple and we'll talk about that so the ark was the most important symbol of the jewish faith by far and served as the true manifestation of god on earth it's the same with our tabernacle in the catholic church that's our ark of the covenant we'll talk more about that so god loved his people and wanted to be close to them so he chose to do it in a very special way this ark of the covenant all right the building of the ark let's talk about this now the ark was created one year into the exodus so after they left egypt the jews were in the desert for one year according and then they were told by god to create this ark listen to this according to the pattern that you see he told this to moses i want you to create this thing this image this arc according to the pattern you see do you notice a similarity here to something else saint faustina make the image according to the pattern that you see we'll talk about this so anyway let's look at our next slide all right here is the mountains very important last week we talked about noaa that was the mountains of ararat even though this says mount ararat most people say that i got many angry emails that i didn't say mountains of ararat i said mount ararat i apologize so the first one is noah on mount the mountains of ararat next moses you can see on the screen mount sinai and then we will have jesus on mount zion the new jerusalem all right let's talk about this because when moses ascended mount sinai for 40 days and 40 nights the lord commanded him quote let them make me a sanctuary that i may dwell in their midst according to all that i show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and all of its furniture so you shall make it exodus 25. now according to the pattern saint faustina the very first entry of saint faustina's diary the very first words that you open up passage paragraph number one says this and this is powerful stuff it is a poem that begins with the statement o eternal love you command your sacred image to be painted and the next stanza declares oh sweet jesus it is here that is the in the image that you established the throne of your mercy hmm you know what father seraphim used to say god rest his soul that this was a reference to the most important item in the sanctuary that moses was commanded to ins to construct and furnish according to the pattern he saw in heaven that was seen by him on the mountain it's the ark of the covenant and what was the seat of mercy the cover with its golden lid called the mercy seat this is what saint faustina meant when she said the throne of your mercy god actually told the israelites i am going to come and sit on the top of the ark of the covenant this is my throne of mercy it's called the mercy seat this is why father seraphim developed and designed the largest monstrance in the world in the chicago area and it's the two cherubim angels like you saw facing each other on top of the mercy seat this is actually when god spoke to the israelites he came down and he sat on the ark of the covenant and spoke to the israelites and it's called the mercy seat and this is what saint faustina was referring to in the first paragraph of the diary wow you can't make this up this is incredible and so we're going to talk today about this ark and its connection with mercy all right let's look at our next slide here is the mercy seat so you see the ark of the covenant the lid is the mercy seat and god would come between the two cherubim angels so it was upon this lid that father seraphim used to always talk that the blood of propitiation or atonement was sprinkled on that lid in atoning sacrifice for sin which quote now we're going to go to the bible taking away our sins father seraphim would say turns aside god's wrath now saint john in the bible first the letter of john emphatically states quote this is from scripture christ himself is the propitiation for our sins and not not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world you recognize that that's the chaplet of divine mercy in atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world the chaplain of divine mercy is in the bible the bible is referring to the ark of the covenant and the ark of the covenant is referred to by saint faustina through the mercy seat it's all connected man you just want to jump up on the rooftop and scream this stuff because this is why you are a mirian helper this is why i'm a mirian of the mecca of conception this is why i'm a priest and this is why you are watching this right now because this is our faith incredible all right let's keep going because this is good stuff here that was first john chapter 2 verse 2. our lord inserted a part of this passage into the chaplet of divine mercy all right let's keep going so the the ark is a gold covered remember give your best to god people criticize the catholic church oh you could have given that money to the poor instead you put a gold in the church that's judas judas was the one that says don't waste that valuable stuff on jesus we could give it to the poor give the best to god so they made it out of gold all right it is gold covered so this is what people say how dare the church do this it's what god commanded give your best to him and the best is gold so it was a wooden chest with a lid cover of gold described that we just heard in the book of exodus this golden lid called the mercy seat as i just said is where god appeared right it had two golden cherubim angels right on the sides looking at each other god was said to have spoken to moses from between these two as i just said so the ark is very important all right now let's talk about when it was built it was built about three thousand years ago by a man named uh bizzallo who is the son of yuri all right uh bazalel bezello now let's take a look at our next slide hopefully these people in the uh audience here today will be able to see the slides all right here's a picture of the breakdown of the ark you can see the cherubim angels right the mercy seat we just talked about there's the crown at the top of the ark there's the poles that they slid through the rings so that they could carry the ark and then the base is the ark itself and we'll talk about what was in that in a minute now the ark was roughly five foot by three foot by three foot depending upon cubits but some people say cubit is bigger than the 18 inches so it actually is closer to four foot by two and a half by two and a half all right but that doesn't matter the point was it was mainly created to house the ten commandments this is what god asked them to do so the first tablets containing the ten commandments are they the ones in there no what happened to the first tablets the ten commandments that god gave to moses he broke them he came down from mount sinai and saw the the israelites worshipping the golden calf and he smashed the tablets and so he smashed them so what happened moses had to go back up the mountain it's like your child when you break something go back up and fix it so they had to fix this tablets that were broken because the golden calf so moses went back up the mountain and got a second set of tablets right but you didn't remember that from catechism and these remained intact and they were put into the ark all right now the next let's go to our next slide what was in the ark let's talk about this the contents of the ark we'll look at right now on your screen now if you see on your screen the first thing here was the manna or the bread from heaven that's on the left side of the ark you can see on your screen there was a jar that held the bread what is that manna a precursor to the eucharist all right so the contents of the ark many theologians say like the church fathers are personified as jesus christ so what is the manna the manna is the holy eucharist all right next what's in the middle there it's a rod it looks like a pole that was aaron's staff aaron's staff or his rod was a sign of the priesthood now aaron's rod is a personification as jesus becoming the eternal priest right and then finally on the right are the tablets of the commandments the tablets of the law jesus himself will become the new law written in our heart not in stone but the jews started with it written in stone all right moses was also commanded to construct a tabernacle so stay with me here this could be the most confusing part of the talk as it gets a little confusing i'll try to explain this as best i can so you have the ark itself okay inside the ark is the manna the bread from heaven precursor to the eucharist you have aaron's staff which is a poll which represents the priesthood jesus will become the new high priest and you have the tablets with the ten commandments written in stone which will be jesus writing them on our hearts now moses was also commanded to construct a tabernacle or a sanctuary a place to worship called the tent of meeting and i'm gonna show you a cool video that's gonna walk you through 3d a view of that temple or the i'm sorry the tabernacle now this tent of meeting in which the ark would be housed all right was covered with a veil so let's understand this so you have the ark itself and the ark is put into a larger place of worship called the tabernacle now it was covered the ark then after it was finished and the ark was built the glory of god came down in a cloud now this is important it was called the shekinah right it basically covered the tent of meeting was god's presence he came down in a cloud and the glory of the lord filled the tabernacle you guys can come in it filled the tabernacle this is exodus chapter 40. okay now the verb for to cover the verb to cover is also the same verb to overshadow like we did with mary and we'll talk about that and the metaphor of a cloud was used throughout the you guys can come in you can come in the metaphor that was used in the bible to represent the presence of god was always given as a cloud or overshadowing and we're going to see this with mary okay we're gonna see this all right so now let's look at our next slide here is a picture this is the tabernacle you see it as a beautiful place of worship it basically was a portable temple okay this place of worship you see you have an outer gate kind of like an outer realm that is the tabernacle the inside they worshipped and inside that little separate building is where we have the ark of the covenant this tabernacle was a portable temple they took it with them around the desert alright the tabernacle was basically 30 cubits long 10 cubits wide and 10 cubits high basically 45 feet by 15 feet by 15 feet and it was god's method of achieving continuous communication with the israelites now let's watch our next slide that shows inside that you see where the cutaway version is that shows inside the place of worship notice the menorah that's the lit candles of the jews but on the far upper right what do you see a cloud descending down upon the ark of the covenant okay that is what we have the tabernacle is god's way of communicating and he brought the the cloud down to be present with the people now let's watch an awesome video it's only three minutes long let's watch an awesome video regarding this tabernacle [Music] oh [Applause] me foreign [Music] foreign [Laughter] [Music] since [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] foreign okay so isn't that an amazing video that shows you inside the tabernacle and the main part inside the tabernacle is this most holy place and that's where the ark of the covenant was which is a precursor to the holy of holies in the main temple so it's the tabernacle out in the desert is a traveling temple you have the outer courts in the temple and then as it gets more into the inside you get holier and more reverent areas until you get to the center the holy of holies and that's where only the high priest was allowed to go we'll talk about that so all together on mount sinai moses received instructions regarding the ark of the covenant and also the tabernacle or this tent of meeting in addition altars the menorah you know the candle the oval candle with the jewish seven candles on it the menorah and other sacred objects now the liturgy of the old covenant centered on the sanctuary where god dwelt with his people now why were they telling you all this because it leads to this sanctuary that i'm standing in now called the catholic church it's powerful the heart of this sanctuary or the tabernacle is the ark of the covenant the ark of the covenant you had that outer gate then you had the building inside that then inside that building you had a little special room and inside that was the ark of the covenant it was like those games you had as a children you kept open up the people heads and there would be another person inside this is getting into the core now inside the ark we said where the tablets the staff and the manna this is important the ark of the covenant housing holding the manna is like our tabernacle holding the eucharist you see that inside the ark of the covenant was the man of the bread from heaven inside our tabernacle is the true bread from heaven you know i saw a well-known protestant preacher evangelical preacher as the biggest church in the united states and i happened to be looking for ewtn one night and he was on very much he never read to the word catholic but it was very clear he was talking to and he says you cannot put god in a box and there are some religions that put god in a box and he went on to criticize this this is scriptural we're not putting god in a box god has said build me a tabernacle and place it in there and i will come this is the misunderstanding of our catholic faith and so this is important it's very important so our sanctuary is very important okay so um inside the ark we said was the bread and our tabernacle is like the ark of the covenant it has the true bread and our sanctuary what's a catholic sanctuary i'm standing in it a sanctuary is the area around the altar okay so you have the tabernacle up here then you have the sanctuary here which is the place where the priest offers worship sacrifice now check this out our sanctuary is like their tabernacle it was the larger area surrounding the the ark of the covenant it's like our larger area surrounding our tabernacle like our ark of the covenant now our sanctuary is like their tabernacle their place of offering where the priest goes in and makes sacrifice what happens at every mass i the priest makes sacrifice now the ark had a cover as we said known as the mercy seat or the atonement cover also known as the throne of god that's amazing and inside our tabernacle or our ark of the covenant is the throne of god now once the ark was moved into that special room and in the temple called the holy holies in the tabernacle was called the most holy place inside the tabernacle and later in the temple it was accessible only once a year once a year and only by one person you ever hear of the jewish feast yom kippur yom kippur is that feast the day of atonement it was the one day of the year the high priest could go into the holy holies where the ark was in the old desert and where the high priest would go into the temple to ask forgiveness and offer sacrifice in there on the sins atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world for all of israel how do we know this leviticus 16 chapter 2. now you know i don't know what's very interesting all right let's look at this divine mercy sunday fulfills yom kippur this is let's look at our next slide this is a picture of the lamb the day of atonement where the lamb was sacrificed and all of sins and punishment was forgiven what happens on divine mercy sunday gives us forgiveness of complete all sins and punishment is all wiped away so actually the jewish feast of yom kippur the day of atonement the one day of the year where the priest could give sacrifice and receive you the people complete forgiveness of all sins and punishment that is fulfilled in divine mercy sunday this is amazing and so as you see on your screen it's the true lamb being sacrificed all right our church is like their temple the full place of worship is like the outer courts of the temple so the people that are here we have about 30 people here they're like in the outer courts of the temple the inner court the sanctuary and then the high point the tabernacle is just like the jews oh well i don't need catholic mass father that's man-made man-made yeah it's man-made by the direction of god man-made is because god told man to make it but not man-made because man said i'm not going to listen to god i'm going to do it my way by people saying that i don't go to church because it's man-made that's doing it man-made you go to church you're doing it by directive of god and we don't understand that all right so this is important all right so our church is like the temple our church is based on the old testament nobody knows this i mean even all the way down to this day of atonement being fulfilled let's look at our next slide even the menorah that's the one two three four five seven candles right the oval shaped or half semi-circle i guess this is like the tongues of fire at pentecost all of our church is fulfilled fulfilling the old testament worship show me a protestant worship or any non-catholic christian worship that captures what we are reading now in the old testament none our catholic faith does all right let's keep going what was the role of the ark of the covenant all right spiritually the ark was the manifestation of god's physical appearance here on earth he said i want to dwell with my people make me this ark make me this temple make me the or this tabernacle make me this temple it's the shekinah presence of god god's presence is frequently seen as i said as a cloud and god's cloud came down we talk about this in the bible exodus 24 16 it's throughout the new testament the cloud by pillar fire by night and pillar of cloud during the day the israelites were led the ark was constantly accompanied by clouds that's the presence of god and when the high priest entered into the okay check this one out when the high priest entered into the holy most holy place where the ark was on yom kippur the day of atonement which has been fulfilled by divine mercy sunday he did so in a cloud of incense the priest would have a cloud of incense what do we do at the catholic mass the priest has incense yet everybody says oh my gosh look at the pagan worship pagan worship read how the jews worshiped god in a cloud of incense wow it just baffles my mind this is similar to our priests during worship during the mass so the ark is so important here in fact it even factored into battles right all right we said that the ark was carried by the israelites for 40 years in the desert right practically though god used the ark to guide them to show them where he wanted them to go or when he wanted him to travel when the jews crossed into the holy land all right did you know that the waters of the jordan river we always know about the red sea right the red sea parted and they were able to get through the red sea do you also know that with the ark leading the way because when the red sea parted they didn't have the ark the jews got out of egypt the red sea parted they escaped egypt but there was no ark now the jews have the ark and when they're entering into the promised land guess what the jordan river parted and they walked through the jordan river now this is interesting because the jordan river split like the red sea and allowed them through this is joshua 3. so let's look at our next slide the most dramatic however of all demonstrations of the power of this ark was probably the walls of jericho what did they do they circled around the walls and the walls fell blowing horns and carrying the ark joshua chapter 6. so basically the jews when they would march they would carry the ark one mile ahead of the army that's quite a ways they would march one mile ahead of the army now what happened was they would take the ark into battle and they would count on victory but god sometimes lets us get thumped on a little bit all right the ark one time they took into battle against the philistines and what happened they got beat they were defeated and the philistines took the ark so they lost it but the philistines after stealing the ark had a lot of misfortune they people got tumors there were plagues they were overrun by mice they got boils on their bodies so the philistines returned it they brought the ark back now it was back in their possession so here comes the the jews they they start to settle in and solomon who is solomon the son of david he builds the first temple in jerusalem this is around a thousand bc about a thousand years before jesus and it says the glory of god descended into the temple now in solomon's temple there was a special room now this place of most holy place of worship becomes the holy of holies and it housed the ark and that's where solomon worshiped the ark after he had a dream that god would give him wisdom first kings chapter 3. so let's look at our next slide because in it in 586 or 587 bc the babylonians destroyed the temple solomon's temple you can see it on your screen there's no record of what happened to the ark after that so after the babylonians destroyed the first temple no record was kept now second maccabees which is a bible important part of the bible because it was part of the original canon until martin luther took it out ii maccabee says it should remain unknown until the time that god should gather his people again together and receive them unto his mercy we're back to saint faustina and mary before her so let's talk about this all right it gets really interesting now now we get to the good part my next slide is my good friend steven ray and we're going to show you a slide at the end where you can join us for a pilgrimage that stephen and ray are taking in the footsteps of paul we're going to cruise the mediterranean and visit all the ancient places saint paul did we're going to show you that contact information at the end here but stephen ray talks about something called typology this is basically typology means something is a symbol of something else what do i mean gospel of luke in the gospel of luke there are many marvelous things that only a knowledgeable jew would understand all right one of the things that they would have understood is typology what is that all right a type for typology is a person thing or event of the old testament that foreshadows something in the new testament all right it's like a taste of something or a hint of something that will be fulfilled in the new testament most of it is jesus right now saint augustine that's why he said the new testament is hidden in the old and the old testament is revealed in the new ah paul says that adam was a type of christ who was to come the main man all right that's romans 5 14. early christians understood that the old testament was full of this typology all right that fulfilled that were fulfilled in the new testament let's go to a couple examples i'm just going to give you a couple here all right peter talks about noah's ark as being a type of baptism cleansed by water paul explains that circumcision is a type of also consecration like baptism jesus uses the bronze serpent he talks about the bronze serpent being lifted in the desert right of moses this was a type of cross a typology of the cross that was to come to heal people because it says raise the bronze serpent on a cross and it'll heal people that's a typology of christ on the cross that will save people the passover lamb this prefigures the sacrifice of christ old testament passover lamb new testament christ is the lamb paul says that abraham considered that god was able to raise men from the dead so you remember isaac abraham's son he was basically speared death on the third day of their travels jesus was speared death on the third day so you see the connection now the biggest of all is mary the typology of mary in the ark of the covenant buckle your seat belts if you don't believe mary has any role i got a comment the other day on the line online that says what does mary have to do with anything i hope whoever wrote that god bless you i'm not i'm not criticizing you at all i think that's great that you're engaging that you're writing i i saw the comment and i responded ask jesus and so the question said what does mary have to do with anything i'm about to tell you well steve reyes because i'm going to borrow a little bit from him he did a great job here all right now the church fathers say the ark of the covenant is a figure of mary's womb right a figure of mary's womb that bore the living torah what's torah the first five books of the bible now in the annunciation account of the first chapter of luke gabriel says the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you what did we talk about a few minutes ago the cloud overshadowed the people the cloud was god and his power overshadowed the people so the overshadowing by god's glory in the sanctuary and in the temple was only a typology a pre-figure of the supreme overshadowing that god was going to do over mary this overshadowing by which the word would become flesh it's easy to miss this there's a parallel here between the holy spirit overshadowing the ark and the holy spirit overshadowing mary he overshadowed the ark with the law written in stone he overshadows mary with the law now in the flesh the word was law in the old testament the word is now flesh that's the gospel of john the word became flesh the connection between the ark of the old covenant as a dwelling place of god and mary is now the new dwelling place of god but instead of just spiritually she's now the dwelling place of god physically and spiritually this is amazing let's look at our next slide here we go mary the ark of the new covenant basically this is the church fathers this is the icons like jesus body replacing the temple because jesus said my body is the temple mary's body replaces the old ark mary's body replaces the old ark she is the new ark so that's an amazing icon an icon is a window a picture god wanted his law with the ark of the old covenant to be housed in a perfect container so we can take the slide down now let's just think about how this happened god wanted his law on tablet on stone to be housed in a perfect container covered with gold if that's the case how much more would he want his very son the true word the living word to have a perfect dwelling place if god took up residence in a wood box how much more will god take up residence in the womb of a human person that it would need to be perfect if the box needed to be perfect because of the stone law the word of god in stone how much more would the womb of mary need to be perfect because it's actually housing the flesh of god now not just the stone but the flesh you would make her perfect if you were god mary is the living shrine of the word of god so it must be pure any shrine that houses the word of god like the ark has to be pure not profaned in any way now we're going to get to the interesting story that everybody always break brings up the guy who touched the ark of the covenant and god killed him people don't get that why did god kill that poor guy that touched the ark of the covenant let's look at this the ark was separated protected from any profane contact that's why only the high priest could enter into the holy of holies once a year on yom kippur prostrate himself and offer sacrifice only he could touch it the others held it on poles at a certain point what happened the oxen stumbled and uzza who was the poor guy touched the ark to steady it so the oxen stumbled and he grabbed the ark to steady it now okay would i have done the same thing probably i'm not criticizing poor ooza but what happened was he was struck dead the fact that the ark of the covenant could not be touched by unconsecrated hands human hands is a figure of the holiness required of the true ark of the covenant mary that she couldn't be touched by any in pure way with unconsecrated hands if uzo was killed because he touched the ark containing the tablets of the law with unconsecrated hands what must the sanctity of mary b to carry the word of god in her womb she had to be spotless by god's own directive the ark of the covenant couldn't even be touched mary's the new ark of the covenant no man's profane hands unconsecrated could touch her in an impure way this also provides an argument for the fittiness of mary's perpetual virginity if the ark was separated from all profane contact it is fitting that mary's womb which is the true ark that bore the son of god should also not be touched by any man it's a doctrine of perpetual virginity now let's get into the good stuff saint uh stephen ray tells us about let's talk about mary's visit to elizabeth all right after poor uzza was struck dead right when he touched the ark david was afraid king david and david said how can the ark of thy lord then come to me basically god you just killed this guy for touching it yet the ark comes to me how is that possible so the words of david or how could the ark come to me so what david did in humility is he left the ark in the hill country of judea for three months guess what mary is the new ark she went up into the hillside country of judea for three months to visit elizabeth we are told that david danced and leapt in front of the old ark of the covenant and everyone shouted for joy then after that david took the ark to jerusalem second samuel chapter six now compare david and the ark to luke's account of the visitation let's look on our screen in those days mary arose and went with haste to the hill country to the city of judah and she entered the house of zechariah and greeted elizabeth and when elizabeth heard the greeting of mary the babe leapt in her womb that's john the baptist and elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb hear the hail mary prayer there and why is this granted me that the mother of my lord holy mary mother of god right should come to me that's the words of david how is it the ark comes to me david says and elizabeth says how is it that the mother of my lord the new ark comes to me for behold when the voice of your greeting came to my ears the babe in my womb left for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the lord luke chapter 1 39-45 all right here's what's amazing the place where elizabeth lived ian karam and the place where the ark was left by david abu ghrash are very close together they're very close you could walk them they basically were in the same place mary and the ark were both on a journey to the same hill country in judea for three months this is our lord bringing salvation to the people when david saw the ark he rejoiced as i just said and said how could the lord come to me elizabeth says those same words i just pointed out luke is telling us something here now let's go to our next slide because here's a picture of david when he approached the ark he shouted out and danced and leapt in front of the ark and look what he's wearing there he's wearing an ephod the clothing of a priest nobody knows this this is very interesting when mary approached elizabeth let's look at our next slide when mary approached elizabeth john the baptist also lept in her womb the very same word scott hahn says for lept is danced so both john the baptist and david danced or lept before the ark of the old covenant for david the ark of the new covenant for mary this is what we see on the screen mary is that new ark all right now john was from the priestly line of aaron so basically john the baptist just like david wearing the priestly attire and dancing john the baptist is leaping or dancing in the womb and he's also in the line of priests both leapt and danced in the presence of the ark we mentioned that the house would that kept the ark for three months or maybe i didn't was blessed and what did elizabeth say to mary she used the word blessed three times her home was certainly blessed by the presence of mary just like the home where david left the ark was blessed by the presence of the ark wow when the old testament arrived in the same way when mary arrived they both were greeted with shouts of joy the very word for cry that's used for elizabeth's greeting is a rare very rare greek word meaning the same type of shout that david gave amazing then david took the ark where to jerusalem where god's presence and glory was revealed in the temple guess what mary after leaving elizabeth and went home she ended up in jerusalem just like david just like the ark of the i should say just like the ark of the covenant mary ends up in jerusalem where she presents god now incarnate in the temple not just the presence in the ark but now in the person she is a precursor of the ark of the covenant she's the new ark in the ark of the old covenant god came to his people in a spiritual way now in the ark of the new covenant god dwells with his people as i said physically in the ark the law of god was described in stone as i said now in the new one mary's womb puts god into flesh in the ark we had the urn of manna the bread from heaven that kept people alive in the desert and mary's womb is the true bread the eucharist the bread of life that brings eternal life and the ark was the rod of aaron the proof of the true priesthood now in mary's womb we have the actual high priest himself wow all right now get near the end here god bless you hang in there revelation chapters 11 and 12. let's start with 11 19. john makes a surprising announcement he says quote then god's temple in heaven was opened notice that god's temple in heaven was opened and the ark of his covenant was seen within the temple what i had just described what did john say immediately after seeing the ark of the covenant he basically says okay so get this god's temple in heaven was opened this is john talking and he saw the ark of the covenant that was seen within the temple his very next words are what what did he next say let's go to our screen and a great sign appeared in the sky a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars she was with child revelation 12 this woman is mary this has to be the ark that he was talking about it was revealed by god to john because it says she was with child and this man will rule over the nations she was seen bearing the child it says she will bear the child who will rule the world with a rod of iron revelation 12 5 well who's going to rule the world jesus and who's the woman that says bore that child it doesn't say but it doesn't take a brain surgeon or a scientist to figure out mary so where is mary in the bible right there later it says the devil went out to persecute the woman's offspring that's us christians this seems to indicate that mary is somehow the mother of the church as well and it says so revelation 12 17. it is a teaching that has been taught by christians for centuries since ancient times centuries before martin luther rewrote it so god bless all of you who are watching that will say and write to me what does mary have anything to do with anything god bless you mary has a whole lot to do with everything this is how the christian church sought for 1500 years please i beg of you just think about that for a moment all those who say i'm not in the man-made well if you follow the reformation you're into man-made religion christ established the catholic church and it was this way how they saw mary in typology since the beginning that only changed 1500 years later so we're going to do just throw away the first 1500 years they don't matter they don't mean anything we just erase them that's what our cancer culture is trying to do right now in our world they're trying to erase our founding fathers it's the biggest mistake you can make our society is falling into the exact same problem erase your past you are not on the right path you learn from your past now let's keep going let's talk about what tim staples said a good catholic apologist he said as with the ark of the covenant which perpetuated special graces to the people meaning from the ark came special graces of the people the new ark mary also perpetuates graces to the people this is why we call her mediatrix of grace yes it's still debating in the fifth marine dogma but it makes sense since the ark of the covenant was created pure inside and out and set aside for a divine purpose think about this the ark of the covenant was created pure inside and out and set aside for a divine purpose where nobody could even touch it so too mary the ark of the new covenant was likewise created pure inside and out and set aside for a divine purpose to house god just like the old ark how's the law she houses god in his flesh let's look at our next slide and i apologize i i don't know if we got that scripture passage up there revelation but that's okay i read it our next slide backs the immaculate conception the doctrine of the immaculate conception mary is kept pure for a special purpose in god's plan just like the ark of the covenant for a thousand years christians have used this analogy to explain how mary was saved well you say mary didn't need a savior you catholics say mary was without sin so you catholics say marian doesn't marry didn't need a savior please if you're listening and your family or friends confront you with that question because many of us don't know how to answer it if we are saying mary was without sin we are accused of saying mary didn't satan need a savior no suppose tim staples says a man falls into a pit and someone reaches down and pulls him out of the pit basically he's been saved that's what god does to us when he forgives our sins we stumble we fall into the pit god forgives us we're saved now he says imagine a woman walking along and she too is about to fall into the pit but at that very moment somebody grabs her and holds her back so she doesn't fall into the pit she would have she too has been saved just in a different way she has been saved from the pit in a more profound way she's not taken out of the pit she was prevented from falling into it in the first place and falling into the mud puddle this illustrates how the preservative redemption of mary meaning she was redeemed preserved and therefore redeemed and us human redemption which is after we sin through forgiveness are not uncompatible you know why they're both due to god god is the savior of both whether god's cleansing me from sin after i fall into the pit or god is holding mary from falling into the pit in the first place they both require a savior so please understand that that's the beauty one of the beautiful things of our faith all right to finish now what happened to the ark is kind of interesting we're done explaining the significance we're done explaining the meaning we're done explaining the connection with mary we're done explaining how it was built what it stood for we however want to answer the question or at least try what happened to the ark all right there's a couple theories one of them involves a mountain called mount nebo now let's take a look at your slide this is the top of mount nebo see the people there again let's go back to second maccabees chapter two verse four again maccabees in the original canon of the bible written about 100 bc it basically says that the prophet jeremiah okay being warned by god before the babylonian invasion took the ark and all that was with it wrapped around it called the tabernacle he also took the altar of incense and he buried them in a cave on mount nebo informing those of his followers who wish to find the place that it should remain unknown and i already read this when i read it again quote until the time that god should gather his people again together and receive them unto his mercy this is amazing so mount nebo is described in deuteronomy 34 as the site from which moses views the promised land the next time it's seen is the book of revelation in the sky god's temple in heaven was opened and the ark of his covenant was seen within the temple the great sign in the sky was a woman with 12 stars wow so we've already finished all the good parts of this talk but i think this last part is kind of interesting it's just a little food for fact or fun facts some believe the ark of the covenant is in rome the ark of the covenant is said to have been kept in the basilica of saint john the latter john lateran surviving the pillages of rome you know when you learn your studies do you know that it says rome fell in 476 a.d do you know that actually rome fell 66 years earlier in 410 by a guy named alaric a-l-a-r-i-c my name is a-l-a-r here's the interesting thing he came from the western banks of the danube my family comes from the western banks of the danube so is there a connection that i might be related to this guy i don't know but you know what if it was able and what he did in opening the door to rome so that christianity could spread even farther by falling rome to paganism that the pagan part of rome fell maybe sometimes god allows bad things because he'll bring a greater good so if that was the fall of the paganism of rome and yet christianity then began to flourish maybe god's hand was in it i don't know i don't know if i want to claim that he was my relative or not but something kind of interesting now it was lost again from saint john lateran when the basilica was burned now some people say that the mercy seat remember we explained as the top of the ark of the covenant the mercy seat is still in rome because they have something that looks like it that actually has blood stains on it and many say that that stain of blood was from the high priest sprinkling the blood on the day of atonement which we explain to you is basically what divine mercy sunday is wow all right let's look at our next slide some believe it was in egypt here you see king tut that's the opening of king tut's tomb in 1922. when they opened king tut's tomb in 1922 they found a processional ark and some said they thought that might be the ark of the covenant but some scientists say the dimensions don't exactly match so therefore it may not be we don't know but i think the most interesting one is the ethiopian orthodox church they claim an interesting story they say the ark remained in the first temple this is fact until the destruction at the hand of the babylonians we talked about this the first temple was destroyed by nebuchadnezzar you probably heard that name nebuchadnezzar he was a leader of the babylonians that conquered the first temple what happened we know afterwards is unknown but one account says something interesting it says that solomon who is he we said the son of david foresaw this destruction of the temple in 586 bc and set aside a cave near the dead sea in which josiah hid the ark now one of the most fascinating possibilities is that this ethiopian church and christians have the ark today let's take a look at our next slide this is the ark of the covenant in oxum ethiopia all right in oxum ethiopia it is believed that the ark is currently being held in the church of saint mary of zion guarded by a single monk known as the keeper of the ark they say that they acquired the ark during the reign of solomon when his son now who solomon son of david he had a child with the queen of sheba so solomon the son of david has this child with the queen of sheba menelik and his mother the queen of sheba well anyway this son of solomon stole the ark on a visit to jerusalem and while the ark is now claimed to be there and i'm not supporting this please don't send me letters telling me that the ark is gone forever and there's theological reasons yes that's true i am not saying that this is the ark okay please i'm not saying but it's an interesting story because the ark was brought out centuries ago in christian holidays and it was amazing to the people and had many graces but they've not done so for several years because the very volatile volatile volatile political situation there the claim is now impossible to verify because nobody but this one monk is allowed into the tent kind of sounds like the high priest and the holy of holies right now what's interesting was in december of 2020 this last year it was reported that defense forces the military of eritrea which is a country there and a mahara their militia attacked the church of our lady of zion with the purpose of getting the ark but no information has ever been released no status no update again i'm not saying this is the ark i'm not just saying it's an interesting claim finally there are others that say the ark may even be buried inside the temple mount you know in jerusalem you see the big golden dome that's built on the temple mount the islamic mosque that's built on the temple mount some are saying that the ark of the covenant is buried there but we'll never know because no excavation is allowed why do i bring this all up it doesn't matter because we are christians and our faith comes from the jews so in that sense it does matter but whether the ark is buried or whether the ark was destroyed doesn't matter because it was fulfilled by jesus christ as they the law now becoming flesh and by mother mary who instead of the ark of wood and gold housing the law we now have mary's womb housing the flesh so i want to finish with the role of the ark today if you were to ask any young kid the ark of the covenant maybe for my generation they would probably point out this let's look at our next slide indiana jones and the raiders of the lost ark right ironically the ark is most famous today as the subject of that 1981 film what was it it was a film called indiana jones and the raiders of the lost ark it tells of a hero that's harrison ford right his attempt to prevent the ark from falling into the hands of the nazis they would harness its power because they believed it that electrical power because the guy that touched it died so they thought it had electrical power they wanted to harness this power for evil so indiana jones is trying to prevent it from falling into the hands of these evil nazis now there's no evidence that hitler ever had an interest in the ark but the movie does a very good job of capturing the mystique of the ark it's sacred it's holy so if a piece of wood is sacred and holy how much more is the womb of mary sacred and holy well father i don't know that for sure that's why we need faith so god bless you and hopefully now you'll understand just a little bit better the role of the ark of the covenant i know i threw a lot at you today god bless you and you know i want to finish with this little kind of cute cartoon if you see the cartoon let's have dale put it up on the screen here's a picture of god in the clouds handing with a big hand down the ten commandments and there's moses saying i can't believe he made me climb all the way up here just to save on shipping i put that up there because our mirian helper center that's what kills us the most is shipping so god bless all of you we hope you'll join us next week because the saturday that we're celebrating next week is the immaculate heart of mary and we're excited to talk to you next week about the triumph of the immaculate heart and what you need to know but until then just a couple last things we talked a lot about god's mercy today let's look up on your screen you can get my book it's a book that captures all the connections between the mass and god's divine mercy you can get this for any donation father i don't have any money you know what any donation even a dollar if you really can't email me i'll send it to you for free if you really really can't afford it but you can get us at thedivinemercy.org udm for understanding divine mercy or call us at 800-462-7426 now before we go god bless all of you for being part of our marian family and if you're watching this and you're not yet part of our marian family there is no cost and it takes but 10 seconds on your screen you can see mic prayers dot org as a great way for you to be able to join us and to see what it means to be part of mary's family as a marian helper again no cost takes 10 seconds to do it please visit micprayers.org and now finally i would be remiss mentioning stephen ray if i didn't tell you about a pilgrimage we're doing together he's a good friend of mine i would love to have you join us i'm only able to do one pilgrimage a year basically but this is a great opportunity for you to join us we are going to be going on the footsteps of saint paul this is a cruise of the mediterranean october 14th through october 24th 2021 this year so if you want to join me i'd love to meet you spend time with you you can call 413 and peter my assistant is actually at his desk right now so you can reach him or if you rather do it online visit marion.org pilgrimages now finally i'm doing one more and that is in june of next year 2022 you can see on your screen with deacon harold silvers a great guy and on june 30th to july 2nd of 2022 we are visiting the shrines of france so we ask you to same number you can call peter today he's there for the next few hours i think he's there to four o'clock and that is for another about another four hours 413-298-1303 or visit marion.org pilgrimages so god bless all of you thank you for joining us remember we're open now you can come live to these talks but god bless you we're so happy you could be with us and keep us in your prayers know that each and every one of you are in our prayers as well and don't forget today is the first saturday so you can in just uh 40 minutes i'm gonna go change and we're gonna do first saturday's devotion live streamed right here on our youtube channel and it's gonna be the first saturday i'm going to walk you through what you need to do to get this incredible grace that mary demands of us so please join us at one o'clock which is 40 minutes or 39 minutes from now and we'll walk you through it's only going to be an hour so we hope you stay with us until next week may almighty god bless you the father the son and the holy spirit amen

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 54,704

Rating: 4.9230046 out of 5

Keywords: Divine Mercy, Mercy, Jesus, Christ, Marian, priest, catholic teaching, spiritual, spirituality, grace, pray, prays, praying, chris alar, alar, fr. Chris, fr. alar, Catholic, Church, God, fr. chris alar, divine mercy, mary, sacraments, salvation, faith, judgement, heaven, state of grace, cubits, 40 days, covenant, sinai, ark, ark of the covenant, ten commandments, 10 commandments, mercy seat, tabernacle, temple, blessed virgin, typology, John the baptist, king david, solomon, israelites, jews, moses, uzzah, leapt

Id: l2kUpy67NWM

Length: 80min 56sec (4856 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021