A lot of people have been contacting me recently, to ask my thoughts on the recent eruption of Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Islands, on 19th Sept, 2021 - the feast of Our Lady of La Salette. Some are worried that this could potentially result in the cataclysm that Sr. Lucia seen in a vision, during an apparition of Our Lady in 1944. It was during this apparition that the Blessed Virgin instructed Sr. Lucia to write down the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima. During a recent podcast with Fr. Richard Heilman and Doug Barry, I tried to explain how I'm not expecting the catastrophe seen in Sr. Lucia's 1944 apparition anytime soon, because of the significance of the katēchon of 2Thes 2:6-7 - the "restraining force" which holds back the appearance of the Antichrist. See around the 41 minute at this link: The Katechon and the Binding of Satan .
In my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: The Final Passover of the Church, I argue that Sr. Lucia's vision of the angel touching the earth with a flaming lance is connected with the eschatological earthquake described in Rev 16:
The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. (Rev 16:17-19)
I felt my spirit flooded by a light-filled mystery which is God and in Him I saw and heard: the point of the flame-like lance which detaches, touches the axis of the earth and it [the earth] shakes: mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants are buried. The sea, rivers and clouds leave their bounds, they overflow, flood and drag with them into a whirlpool, houses and people in a number unable to be counted; it is the purification of the world from the sin it is immersed in. Hatred, ambition, cause destructive wars
(Sr. Lucia, Tuy, 1944. See Sr. Lucia's official biography by the Carmelites of Coimbra - A Pathway Under the Gaze of Mary)
The event seen by Sr. Lucia in her 1944 Tuy apparition is specifically connected with the fall of "Babylon", which is symbolized by an angel throwing a millstone into the sea in Rev 18:21:
Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: "With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again."
This scriptural passage is in turn associated with the "great mountain, burning with fire" which St. John seen being thrown into the sea in Rev 8:8. In my book, I attempt to demonstrate that this burning mountain is closely associated with the seven burning mountains described in the Book of Enoch, which are identified with the Canary Islands. (See the blog post The Seven Burning Mountains of Enoch and the Canary Islands for further details).
As I state in the above podcast, I don't think that the events described in Sr. Lucia's 1944 vision will happen anytime soon, since they are concerned with the very end time itself. In the Book of Revelation, the fall of "Babylon" is directly connected with the rise to power of the Antichrist, who ascends to world dominance as a result of the power vacuum created by the downfall of the world's leading superpower. The appearance of the Antichrist is in turn held back by the katēchon - the "restraining force" mentioned by St. Paul:
Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. (2Thes 2:5-8)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church associates the katēchon with the conversion of the Jews, thus identifying this "restraining force" with the ministry of the Prophet Elijah.
Since the Ascension Christ's coming in glory has been imminent, even though “it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority”. This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are “delayed”. The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by “all Israel”, for “a hardening has come upon part of Israel” in their “unbelief” toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles", will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all". (CCC 673-674)
Since the Catechism identifies the katēchon with the prophetic ministry of the Two Witnesses of Rev 11, then the appearance of the Antichrist can only take place once this "restraining force" has been removed. St. Paul states that the conversion of the Jews will only take place after the "bringing in of the fullness of the Gentiles", once the Gospel is proclaimed to the ends of the world:
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” (Rom 11:25-27)Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matt 24:12-14)
As I argue in my book, the bringing in of the fullness of the Gentiles during the proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth can only happen at the end of the short time of Satan. In the above podcast, I attempt to explain that the duration of the short time of Satan appears to be associated with the 120 years described in Gen 6:3:
When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. (Gen 6:1-4)
According to the Book of Enoch, the Nephilim were the offspring of the Watchers - the fallen angels who were bound in Tartarus at the ends of the earth, at the location of the seven burning mountains. The Book of Enoch tells us that it was from this location that the waters of the abyss issued forth to bring about the events of Noah's flood:
And from thence I went to another place of the earth, and he showed me a mountain range of fire which burnt day and night. And I went beyond it and saw seven magnificent mountains all differing each from the other, and the stones thereof were magnificent and beautiful, magnificent as a whole, of glorious appearance and fair exterior: three towards the east, one founded on the other, and three towards the south, one upon the other, and deep rough ravines, no one of which joined with any other. And the seventh mountain was in the midst of these, and it excelled them in height, resembling the seat of a throne: and fragrant trees encircled the throne. And amongst them was a tree such as I had never yet smelt, neither was any amongst them nor were others like it: it had a fragrance beyond all fragrance, and its leaves and blooms and wood wither not for ever: and its fruit is beautiful, and its fruit resembles the dates of a palm. Then I said: ‘How beautiful is this tree, and fragrant, and its leaves are fair, and its blooms very delightful in appearance.’ Then answered Michael, one of the holy and honoured angels who was with me, and was their leader. And he said unto me: ‘Enoch, why dost thou ask me regarding the fragrance of the tree, and why dost thou wish to learn the truth?’ Then I answered him saying: ‘I wish to know about everything, but especially about this tree.’ And he answered saying: ‘This high mountain which thou hast seen, whose summit is like the throne of God, is His throne, where the Holy Great One, the Lord of Glory, the Eternal King, will sit, when He shall come down to visit the earth with goodness. And as for this fragrant tree no mortal is permitted to touch it till the great judgement, when He shall take vengeance on all and bring everything to its consummation for ever. (1Enoc 24; 25:1-4)
And after that he showed me the angels of punishment who are prepared to come and let loose all the powers of the waters which are beneath in the earth in order to bring judgement and destruction on all who abide and dwell on the earth. And the Lord of Spirits gave commandment to the angels who were going forth, that they should not cause the waters to rise but should hold them in check; for those angels were over the powers of the waters. (1Enoc 66)
And He will imprison those angels, who have shown unrighteousness, in that burning valley which my grandfather Enoch had formerly shown to me in the west among the mountains of gold and silver and iron and soft metal and tin. And I saw that valley in which there was a great convulsion and a convulsion of the waters. And when all this took place, from that fiery molten metal and from the convulsion thereof in that place, there was produced a smell of sulphur, and it was connected with those waters, and that valley of the angels who had led astray mankind burned beneath that land. And through its valleys proceed streams of fire, where these angels are punished who had led astray those who dwell upon the earth. (1Enoc 67:4-7)
So the binding of the fallen angels is closely associated with the 120 years described in Gen 6, which in turn parallels the period of the unbinding of Satan at the end of the "thousand years". Since St. Augustine of Hippo associated the period of Satan's unbinding with the "Sabbath Millennium" discussed by the Early Church Fathers, this concept is in turn related to the jubilee rest at the end of every 50 year cycle instructed in Lev 25:
Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what growsof itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. “‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property. “‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. (Lev 25:8-15)
Once we apply St. Augustine's insight into the significance of the Sabbath Millennium to the chronology of St. Bede the Venerable, using the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament, as opposed to the Greek Septuagint, the end of the "thousand years" of Rev 20 can be calculated to the Great Jubilee Year of the Incarnation in the year 2000:
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man — meaning by the strong man the devil, because he had power to take captive the human race; and meaning by his goods which he was to take, those who had been held by the devil in various sins and iniquities, but were to become believers in Himself. It was then for the binding of this strong one that the apostle saw in the Apocalypse an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a chain in his hand. And he laid hold, he says, on the dragon, that old serpent, which is called the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,— that is, bridled and restrained his power so that he could not seduce and gain possession of those who were to be freed. Now the thousand years may be understood in two ways, so far as occurs to me: either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a Sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he calls the last part of the millennium — the part, that is, which had yet to expire before the end of the world — a thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fullness of time. (St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God, Book XX Chap 7).
He says also: And he will cause a mark [to be put] in the forehead and in the right hand, that no one may be able to buy or sell, unless he who has the mark of the name of the beast or the number of his name; and the number is six hundred and sixty-six, Revelation 13:14, etc. that is, six times a hundred, six times ten, and six units. [He gives this] as a summing up of the whole of that apostasy which has taken place during six thousand years. For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. Genesis 2:2 This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; 2 Peter 3:8 and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year. (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book V Chap 28)
This thus ties in perfectly with the vision of Pope Leo XIII, in which he was told that Satan would be granted a period of greater power. If the Sabbath Millennium is connected with the significance of the biblical jubilee years, it is worth noting that a jubilee of 120 years (50 x 120) makes up to a total of 6000 years - the exact length suggested by the biblical chronology, according to the calculations of James Ussher, the 17th century Anglican Archbishop of Armagh. Since the jubilee was also a time of Sabbath rest, then it makes sense that the period during which God's Spirit would not abide with humanity in Gen 6:3 is connected to the period of the short time of Satan. It is also worth noting that in the original Hebrew text of this portion of Genesis, it states that the Spirit of God would not abide with humanity until the end of the "olam" (age). In Jewish tradition the olam ha-zeh (this age) is contrasted with the olam ha-ba (the age to come), which is the time of the messianic kingdom. So there is certainly a sense of millennial thinking in this section of Genesis.
In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered. Adesto itaque, Dux invictissime, populo Dei contra irrumpentes spirituales nequitias, et fac victoriam. Arise then, O invincible prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and bring them the victory.
The Italian architect Giuseppe Sacconi won the prize to design the monument to King Victor Emmanuel II in 1884, which he modeled in the image of the recently discovered Pergamon Altar. This is none other than the "Throne of Satan" described in Rev 2:13. Again, it is no coincidence that Pope Leo XIII experienced his vision at the exact moment in history that a shrine made in the image of the Pergamon Altar was being erected in the city of Rome, in the wake of the capture of the Papal States. After its discovery in 1879, the actual Pergamon Altar was transported to Germany and reconstructed in Berlin in 1900, right at the very beginning of the period of Satan's greater power.
The Vittariano, or Monument to King Victor Emmanuel II
The Pergamon Altar
Even though there is no immediate threat of the chastisement foreseen by Sr. Lucia in her 1944 Tuy apparition, it still appears to be of considerable significance that Cumbre Vieja would erupt at the end of this 120 year period associated with the short time of Satan, on the feast of Our Lady of La Salette. This is especially significant, since the location of the Canary Islands is so closely linked with the location where the Watchers are kept in chains until judgement day, according to the words of St. Peter:
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.(2Pet 2:4-9)
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day...They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” (Jude 5-6; 13-15)
As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. (Matt 24:37-39)
Could this volcanic eruption at a site closely linked with the location of the chaining of the fallen angels described in the Book of Enoch be yet another sign that the time of Satan's unbinding has now drawn to a close? If so, it is deeply significant that this eruption occurred on the feast day of Our Lady of La Salette, since Melanie's Calvat's longer 1879 version of her secret closely echoes the contents of Sr. Lucia's 1944 Tuy apparition:
“At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror, for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced the vault of the heavens. Paris will burn and Marseilles will be engulfed. Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost."
We can take comfort in the fact that these chastisements still lie some time off in the future, after the period of the restoration of the Church, which Sr Lucia was also shown during the apparition of Our Lady in 1944:
Afterward I felt in the increased beating of my heart and in my spirit a quiet voice which said: ‘in time, one faith, one baptism, one Church, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic. Heaven in eternity!’ This word, ‘Heaven,’ filled my heart with peace and happiness, so much so that, almost without realizing it, I continued to repeat for some time: Heaven, Heaven!’
