Thursday 13 July 2017

St. Michael's Lent, the 2017 Solar Eclipse, and the Angel of the Sixth Seal



The Stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi

There is yet another striking coincidence concerning the date of the upcoming solar eclipse on 21st August, 2017 involving a 40-day period of penance in Catholic tradition. As we have already noted, the fact that this eclipse takes place on the feast day of Our Lady of Knock recalls the First World War eclipse of 1914, which not only fell on the date of 21st August, but also directly crossed the site of ancient Nineveh, recalling the sign of Jonah mentioned by Christ during his discourse on the binding of Satan. In my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: The Final Passover of the Church, I use this fact to bolster the hypothesis that the opening of the scroll of the Apocalypse by the Lamb of Revelation (the entire focus of the silent Knock apparition itself) took place at the turn of the 20th century, at the beginning of the period of Satan's greater power foretold in the vision of Pope Leo XIII, setting in motion a chain of events which would lead to the Second World War, the Jewish Holocaust and restoration of Israel. This in turn has paved the way for the future conversion of the Jews, which must take place before the Second Coming of Christ.

According to the biblical chronology established by St. Bede the Venerable (who was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1899), we can determine that this period of the unbinding of Satan occurred at the end of the Sabbath Millennium discussed by the Early Church Fathers - which consisted of a prophetic week of millennia beginning from the biblical date of Creation. So Pope Leo XIII's vision of the convergence of a host of demons upon the Eternal City of Rome directly parallels the armies of Satan surrounding the camp of the saints at the end of the thousand years described in Rev 20:

When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea. (Rev 20:7-8)

(For a more in-depth analysis, see the recent posts The Sign of Jonah and the Binding of Satan, Pope Leo XIII and the Unbinding of Satan, and Our Lady of Knock and the Opening of the Sealed Book.)

We have already noted how the 2017 solar eclipse occurs 40 days before the Jewish feast of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), on 29th/30th September, 2017. According to Jewish tradition, the month of Elul marks a 40-day period of repentance before the feast of Yom Kippur, and was the time during which Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai after the incident of the Golden Calf, in order to prepare for the reception of the second set of tablets containing the Decalogue.

Given the fact that the date of Yom Kippur this year falls on the feast of St. Michael and the Archangels (Michaelmas), there is yet another disparate period of 40 days of repentance coming into play around the time of the solar eclipse, this time rooted in a long-standing Catholic tradition. Although it is not widely celebrated today, there is a custom in Catholicism dating back to the Middle Ages known as St. Michael's Lent, which was a 40-day period of fasting in preparation for the feast of Michaelmas, lasting from the Solemnity of the Assumption on 15th August to Michaelmas on 29th September. We should note that while the period of St. Michael's Lent actually extends to 45 days, it is still held to be a symbolic 40-day fast in keeping with Lent itself. If we are to count 40 days back from Yom Kippur/Michaelmas on 29th-30th September this year, we arrive at the date of the solar eclipse itself on the Feast of Our Lady of Knock, 21st August, 2017, rather than the Solemnity of the Assumption.

While the practice of St. Michael's Lent has largely fallen out of use today (being kept only by a few Franciscan groups), it was vastly more popular in medieval times. The most famous adherent of St. Michael's Lent was St. Francis of Assisi, who practised this custom annually. Indeed, St. Francis received his stigmata while he was on spiritual retreat to observe St. Michael's Lent on Mount La Verna (Alverna) with three of his Franciscan brothers. The Stigmatization of St. Francis occurred when he received a vision of a crucified seraph, and although the exact date was not stipulated by his earliest chroniclers, it was said to have taken place around the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on 14th September, 1224, just two years before his death. The Stigmatization of St. Francis was commemorated in a feast day of its own on 17th September, before being removed from the General Calendar in 1969. However, as we shall see, there is good reason to believe that St. Francis actually received the stigmata on the 15th of September - the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (which commemorates when the Blessed Virgin partook of the suffering of her Son).

Below is an excerpt from St. Bonaventure's Legenda Minor:

Two years before Francis, the faithful servant of Christ, gave his soul back to God, he was alone on the top of Mt. Alverna. There he had begun a fast of forty days in honor of the archangel Michael and was immersed more deeply than usual in the delights of heavenly contemplation. His soul became aglow with the ardor of fervent longing for heaven as he experienced within himself the operations of grace.
As he was drawn aloft through ardent longing for God one morning near the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and was praying on the mountainside, he saw what appeared as a seraph with six bright wings gleaming like a fire descending from the heights of heaven. As this figure approached in swift flight and came near the man of God it appeared not only winged but also crucified. The sight of it amazed Francis and his soul experienced joy mingled with pain. He was delighted with the sight of Christ appearing to him so graciously and intimately and yet the awe-inspiring vision of Christ nailed to the cross aroused in his soul a joy of compassionate love.
When the vision vanished after a mysterious and intimate conversation it left Francis aglow with seraphic love in his soul. Externally, however, it left marks on his body like those of the Crucified as if the impression of a seal had been left on heated wag. The figures of the nails appeared immediately on his hands and feet. The heads of the nails were inside his hands but on top of his feet with their points extending through to the opposite side. His right side too showed a blood-red wound as if it had been pierced by a lance, and blood flowed frequently from it. Because of this new and astounding miracle unheard of in times past, Francis came down from the mountain a new man adorned with the sacred stigmata, bearing in his body the image of the Crucified not made by a craftsman in wood or stone , but fashioned in his members by the hand of the living God.
(Legenda Minor of St. Bonaventure, de Stigmatibus sacris, 1-4; ed. Quaracchi, 1941; pp202-204)

Many commentators have debated whether or not Gal 6:17 suggests that St. Paul had bore the stigmata, and tradition in the Early Church is silent on this matter. So the Stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi is widely regarded as the first instance of this miraculous phenomenon in recorded history.

The fact that St. Francis had borne the five visible wounds of Jesus on his own body led the Church Doctor St. Bonaventure to conclude that he should be associated with the angel of the sixth seal in the Apocalypse, who bears "the seal of the Living God":

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree. I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.” (Rev 7:1-3)

Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) explains St. Bonaventure's prophetic interpretation of the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi in his 1971 book The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure:

Even more important, however, is another event - the Stigmatization - which stood as something unique and unparalleled; it all but cried out for an interpretation. Such an interpretation offered itself on the basis of Apoc. 7, 2. Had not the seal of the living God - the figure of the crucified Christ - been impressed on the body of the Saint? Does not the image of the Apocalypse acquire here its real coloration and significance? As for the full actuality and the moving probability of this interpretation, this was to come in the encounter of this event with the entirely independent prophecy of the Abbot of Fiore who had in brilliant words predicted the coming of the angel with the seal of the living God. He had seen in this angel the novus dux de Babylone and the universalis pontifex sanctae Hierusalem. He would receive "full freedom for the renewal of the Christian religion". In view of the amazing coincidence of the particular factors, it is no longer surprising that the identification of Francis with the angel of the Apocalypse should have become an historico-theological axiom of practically unimpeachable certitude.
(Ratzinger, J. The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, p35)

St. Bonaventure departed from the mainstream Patristic view that the Elijah to come was to be a literal return of the biblical prophet from heaven, by associating St. Francis himself with this figure. As Fr. Ratzinger states:

Francis had called himself the "Herald of a great King." Taking this as a point of departure, Bonaventure sees Francis as the eschatological praeco Dei, as the resurrected John the Baptist. The word "Herald," which was originally used without any theological significance, easily provides a bridge to a new theological interpretation in which the word is applied to one who in fact is a "Voice crying in the desert." This one is the Herald of the Kingdom of God which has come upon us. From here, a further connection is obvious: The Lord Himself had called John the returned Elias (Mt. 11, 1; also Mk. 9, 12ff., and Lk. 1, 17). Consequently the two figures remain related to each other forever.
For this reason, when Francis has been designated as John the Baptist, it is only natural that he should be seen as Elias as well. The two names are used interchangeably to express the same idea.
But this alteration of names is not without significance, for the name of Elias points more clearly to an eschatological dimension than does the name of John the Baptist. The prophecy of Malachy, which was so important in the New Testament, was connected with the name of Elias, and not with that of John. "Behold, I send you the prophet Elias, before the great and terrible day arrives..." (Mal. 3, 23). From this citation, it is fully clear what Bonaventure means when he says: In Francis, Elias has appeared.
(Ratzinger, J. The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, pp32-33)

While it has subsequently become apparent that St. Francis could not possibly be one of the Two Witnesses of Rev 11 - the Elijah to come, as St. Bonaventure appears to suggest, it certainly seems plausible that the great saint of Assisi prefigures this eschatological restorer of the Church. In fact, as we shall see, it appears that the Stigmatization of St. Francis provides us with an essential interpretative key for understanding the prophecy of the angel of the sixth seal, who is commissioned to mark the inhabitants of the earth with the seal of God at the end-time - symbolising the future restoration of the Church by the Two Witnesses.

In Rev 7:2, we are told that the angel of the sixth seal ascends from "the rising of the sun". The symbolism of the east here, as the location from where the angel ascends from "the rising of the sun" is the same as which lent itself to the ancient practice of ad orientem worship, with a focus on the new dawn at the return of Christ. However, the fact the angel of the sixth seal arises from within the sun itself alludes to a later passage in the Apocalypse, concerning the angel seen standing in the sun, who issues the summons for the eschatological banquet and the battle of Armageddon:

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.” And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. (Rev 19:17-19)

As I have argued in the previous post The First World War and the Angel Standing in the Sun, the above passage concerning the summons to the eschatological banquet and the angel seen standing in the sun appears to be the key point of scriptural allusion in the occurrence of the Miracle of the Sun on 13th October, 1917. When we look to the origins of this passage concerning the eschatological banquet in the Book of Ezekiel, we find that this event is described in the context of the restoration of the land of Israel after the rise of Gog and Magog at the end of the Millennium of Rev 20:

“As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, ‘Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth—of rams, of lambs, and of he-goats, of bulls, all of them fat beasts of Bashan. And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you. And you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors,’ declares the Lord GOD. “And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.
“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name. They shall forget their shame and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid, when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies' lands, and through them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.”
(Ezek 39:17-29)


So, the passage in Rev 19 which describes the angel standing in the sun calling for the eschatological banquet is recapitulated again in Rev 20, when the armies of Satan encompass the City of God at the end of the thousand years. The fact that the root Old Testament material here found in the Book of Ezekiel combines the rise of Gog and Magog at the end of the thousand years with the future restoration of Israel is greatly important to understanding the true significance of the historical events which unfolded at the beginning of the period of Satan's greater power/"little while" of the Apocalypse.

When we turn back to examine the passage concerning the angel of the sixth seal in greater detail, we find that this figure is responsible for the cessation of hostilities first unleashed during the appearance of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse during the opening of the sealed book. The forces of chaos are temporarily restrained by four angels in order to allow for the sealing of the saints:

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree. I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.” (Rev 7:1-3)

The four angels who hold back the destructive forces symbolised by the "four winds of the earth" are one and the same as the Four Living Creatures, who restrain the appearance of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse until the opening of the seven seals. These are the four cherubim that were seen by the Prophet Ezekiel at the Chebar Canal, a tributary of the River Euphrates - the location where the four fallen angels are bound in Rev 9:

Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. (Rev 9:13-15)

As Fr. Ratzinger points out, St. Bonaventure took careful note that the sixth figure in each of the series of septets found in the Apocalypse were all interrelated:

As regards their content, the seven series of seven in the Apocalypse are identical with one another according to the view of Bonaventure. Each one points to the same thing in a different way; namely, the seven-staged course of church history. Consequently, the sixth figure of each series offers a new insight for the solution of the problem of the future. This interpretation of the various schemata leads to surprising results for Bonaventure, and often gives him cause to point out to his listeners the wonderful harmony of Scripture.
(Ratzinger, J. The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, p26)

So, it is no coincidence that the  location of the River Euphrates once again resurfaces during the appearance of the angel with the sixth bowl plague, who, like the angel seen standing in the sun in Rev 19, is predominately involved with the assembling together of the nations of the earth for the Battle of Armageddon. 

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.  (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”)  And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
(Rev 16:12-16)

As I have previously argued at some length in the post Our Lady of Mount Carmel: The Visions of Fatima and the Battle of Har Megiddo, the prophetic significance of the visions seen by the shepherd children of Fatima during the occurrence of the Miracle of the Sun not only recalls the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel (prefiguring the ministry of the Elijah to come), but it also heavily alludes to the Battle of Armageddon, since Mount Carmel is itself the "Mount of Megiddo" - which is the meaning of the Hebrew word Armageddon (Har Megiddo). So it is surely beyond coincidence that the shepherd children saw the Virgin Mary appear as Our Lady of Mount Carmel during the Miracle of the Sun on October 13th 1917, within a month of the publication of the Balfour Declaration calling for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine; or that the Battle of Megiddo in 1918 took place just under a year later, the consequences of which led to the land of Palestine falling under the British Mandate, which eventually resulted in the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

Sr. Lucia describes the vision of Our Lady of Mount Carmel during the Miracle of the Sun as follows:

We reached the holmoak in the Cova da Iria. Once there, moved by an interior impulse, I asked the people to shut their umbrellas and say the Rosary. A little later, we saw the flash of light, and then Our Lady appeared on the holmoak."What do you want of me?"
"I want to tell you that a chapel is to be built here in my honour. I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes".
"I have many things to ask you: the cure of some sick persons, the conversion of sinners, and other things..."
"Some yes, but not others. They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins."
Looking very sad, Our Lady said:
"Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended."
Then, opening her hands, she made them reflect on the sun, and as she ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.
Here, Your Excellency, is the reason why I cried out to the people to look at the sun. My aim was not to call attention to the sun, because I was not even aware of their presence. I was moved to do so under the guidance of an interior impulse.
After Our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands. When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Dolours. Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done. This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel.
(Fatima in Lucia's Own Words, pp172-173)

Of course, the significance of Armageddon can not be confined to the Battle of Megiddo in 1918; since the primary layer of interpretation here relates to events which unfold at the end of the world itself. Prophetically important historical events have a tendency to repeat themselves in cycles of microcosm/macrocosm however, and the events which occurred at the beginning of the period of Satan's greater power foreshadow those that will recur in the future. The tendency of prophecy to repeat itself in fractal-like patterns is of especial significance to us here, in the fact that the feast
day of the second-most famous stigmatic in history besides St. Francis himself - St. Padre Pio, is celebrated on 23rd September - the date of the occurrence this year of what has become known as "the sign of Woman Clothed with the Sun".

One of the signs associated with the War in Heaven at the end of the period of Satan’s unbinding is that of a Woman adorned with the sun, with the moon at her feet, crowned by 12 stars, crying out in the travails of child-birth. On 23rd September 2017, a unique heavenly sign will appear in the constellation Virgo which corresponds exactly with the description of the Woman Clothed with the Sun. (See Patrick Archbold's excellent article on this upcoming phenomenon here). The constellation Virgo will have the sun rise directly behind it, with the moon at its feet, crowned by twelve stars (the nine stars of Leo, as well as a conjunction of the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars). Nine and a half months previous to this event (the gestation period of a late-term baby), Jupiter, the king planet had entered the womb of Virgo on 20th November 2016 (the feast of Christ the King). Jupiter will exit from the “womb” of Virgo, or be “born” on the exact day of the appearance of this sign corresponding to the vision of the Woman Clothed with the Sun.

This event will take place 33 days after the Great American solar eclipse on August 21st 2017 – the feast of Our Lady of Knock. The United States has not witnessed a solar eclipse crossing its entirety from coast-to-coast since 8th June, 1918 – towards the end of the First World War. So, while the First World War opened with a solar eclipse over Nineveh, it closed with a solar eclipse over America, the like of which has not been seen in almost 100 years. This pattern of Nineveh/American eclispes is echoed at the other end of the "little while" given to Satan, once we taken into consideration the total solar eclipse over Nineveh at the end of the second Millennium on 11th August 1999 - the feast of St. Clare of Assisi, who was sometimes titled alter Franciscus (another Francis), because of her insistence of a strict adherence to the rule of St. Francis by the Order of Poor Clares. 
However it is in St. Padre Pio himself whom we find the greatest parallel to St. Francis of Assisi; as not only did he bear the five visible wounds of stigmata, but he was also Christened Francesco Forgione before taking the name of Pius when joining the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (a Franciscan order). If anyone other than St. Clare of Assisi deserves the title of alter Franciscus, it is St. Pio of Pietrelcina; and if anyone else in history prefigures the angel of the sixth seal the same way in which St. Francis did for St. Bonaventure, we find it in this great Italian mystic who also bore "the seal of the Living God".

Just over a month after the American solar eclipse of 1918 took place, St. Padre Pio offered himself up as a victim soul as a means of petitioning for the end of the First World War on 27th July, 1918. A few days later, between 5th-7th August 1918, St. Pio experienced a transverberation during a vision of Christ, who pierced his side with a flaming lance, leaving a physical wound. On 8th August 1918, the Allies began the Hundred Days Offensive, which ultimately resulted in the declaration of the Armistice on 11th November, 1918.

St. Padre Pio experienced another vision of the Wounded Christ on 20th September 1918, after which he was permanently left with the five visible wounds of the stigmata, in the most renowned example of this phenomenon since St. Francis of Assisi himself. This was timed to coincide with the Battle of Megiddo, which began on 19th September, 1918 (the feast of Our Lady of La Salette). The Battle of Megiddo was the Allies' final offensive of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War, and took place between 19th-25th September 1918. The resounding victory of the Allied forces here directly led to the British Mandate over Palestine, and ultimately resulted in the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948. We should also note that it was during a canonical coronation of Our Lady of La Salette on August 21st 1879 that the Blessed Virgin appeared at Knock. And when she appeared at La Salette, the Blessed Virgin took the form of Our Lady of Sorrows, which was also displayed during the vision of the Miracle of the Sun in 1917.

In Rev 12, the sign of the Woman Clothed with the Sun, who is crowned with 12 stars, alludes to the birth of the people of Israel from the Twelve Tribes of the sons of Jacob, as seen in Joseph's prophetic dream:

He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”  (Gen 37:9)

The eleven stars bowing down to Joseph, along with the Patriarch himself, form the Twelve Tribes of Israel, to whom the angel of the sixth seal is sent to inscribe with the Seal of God:

And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed,
12,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
12,000 from the tribe of Asher,
12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali,
12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
12,000 from the tribe of Simeon,
12,000 from the tribe of Levi,
12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun,
12,000 from the tribe of Joseph,
12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Rev 7:4-12)

The great sign seen in heaven  in Rev 12- the sign of the Woman adorned with the sun, recalls the words of the Prophet Isaiah concerning the asking for a sign either as "deep as Sheol" or as "high as heaven", which is given as a virgin conceiving and bearing a Son:

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isa 7:10-14)

So as well as foretelling the birth of Christ from the womb of the Blessed Virgin, this sign of a Virgin conceiving and bearing a son could also be seen "as high as heaven", alluding to the "great sign seen in heaven" itself. The cries of the Woman in the anguish of childbirth also echoes a later passage in Isaiah concerning the rebirth of the land of Israel:

“Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son.
Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?”says the Lord; “shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?”says your God. “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,
all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” (Isa 66:7-11)


This parallels Jeremiah's prophecy of the rebuilding of "virgin Israel" following the Babylonian captivity (which foreshadows the restoration which must take place at the end of time):

Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall take your tambourines, and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy the fruit. For there shall be a day when sentinels will call in the hill country of Ephraim: “Come, let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.”
(Jer 31:4-6)

The fact that St. Padre Pio was stigmatized at the very start of the Battle of Megiddo - which would eventually lead to the rebirth of the land of Israel, does appear to factor into understanding the significance of the prophecy of the angel of the sixth seal, which must be viewed through the prism provided by the example of St. Francis himself. While the symbolism of the angel of the sixth seal cannot be confined to the events of the stigmatization of St. Francis and St. Padre Pio alone, they both seem to provide an essential interpretative key to understanding the future implications of this figure, whom St. Bonaventure equated with the Elijah to come. We are told that the angel of the sixth seal appears from the "rising of the sun", which is recapitulated by the angel seen standing in the sun in Rev 19, who calls for the gathering together of the armies of the earth during the eschatological banquet. As we noted earlier, Ezek 38-39 tells us that the eschatological banquet takes place during the restoration of Israel and rise of Gog and Magog, which according to Rev 20 occurs at the end of the "thousand years", or Sabbath Millennium.

If the prophecy of the angel of the sixth seal rising from the sun in Rev 7 and the angel seen standing in the sun in Rev 19 are indeed related to the Miracle of the Sun itself, then the fact that Padre Pio experienced his stigmatization less than a year later, towards the end of the First World War, appears to suggest that these events are closely connected. Indeed, the end of the First World War was a central component of the second secret of Fatima: "The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pope Pius XI." Given that St. Padre Pio's request to offer himself up as a victim to achieve the end of the war was accepted by heaven through his transverberation and conferral of the stigmata, we can only be left to conclude that his ministry was an extension of Fatima itself. It is this aspect of the life of St. Padre Pio that we can see the various affinities with the angel of the sixth seal, which is worth revisiting here again:

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree. I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.”
(Rev 7:1-3)

The four angels who hold back the four winds of the earth parallels the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who are restrained by the Four Living Creatures until the opening of the sealed scroll by the Lamb of Revelation. As I have already argued at length in my book, the opening of the scroll with seven seals is the catalyst which sets the entire events of the eschaton into motion, and is recapitulated in Rev 20 by the unbinding of Satan to seduce the nations of at the four corners of the world into gathering for war at the end of the thousand years.

When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea. (Rev 20:7-8)

So the release of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are represented in Rev 20 by the nations at the four corners of the earth, which are one and the same as the four angels bound at the River Euphrates to kill a third of "the people" in Rev 9:14-15. When we examine this in light of several other passages in the Old Testament, we can determine that it is a third of the Jewish people that is set to be destroyed by these four angels, rather than a third of humanity. The exact location of their release is given as the intersection of the Chebar Canal/Khabur River on the River Euphrates, which is found at modern Deir ez-Zor - the site of the single largest concentration camp during the Armenian Genocide, which was perpetrated by Ottoman Turkey from 1915 onwards, at the very beginning of the First World War. So many corpses were deposited in the River Khabur by the Ottomans that their skeletal remains actually shifted the course of the water (see here).

It was at this scene of utter destruction that the Prophet Ezekiel witnessed his vision of the resurrection of the people of Israel from the valley of dry bones in Ezek 37, which symbolises the restoration of Israel following a state of devastation described during the release of Gog and Magog in Ezek 38-39. The Armenian Genocide is widely recognized by historians as providing Nazi Germany with the blueprint for annihilating a third of the world's total Jewish populace during the Holocaust.

The havoc that is unleashed upon the world by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is temporarily suspended by the angel of the sixth seal to allow the inhabitants of the earth to be sealed with the mark of God upon their foreheads. Those who do not bear this mark are killed by the locusts which emerge from the abyss in Rev 9, when it is opened by the angel holding the key at the end of the thousand years in Rev 20:1. When we compare this passage with its origins in Ezek 9, we find that it is the inhabitants of Jerusalem without this mark that are slain by the locusts of Revelation during a new Passover of the Jewish people.

While the activities of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being temporarily suspended by the angel of the sixth seal is chiefly concerned with the events that take place at the end of the period of Satan's unbinding, it appears that this event is reflected in microcosm at the end of the First World War through the intervention of St. Padre Pio. These prophetic events ripple outwards, extending to the end of time, when the angel of the sixth seal will mark the inhabitants of the earth with the seal of God during the New Pentecost. But just as the peace brought about after the First World War proved to be only a temporary lull before the storm brought about during the rise of Nazi Germany, the time of quiet brought about by the shout of the angel of the seven thunders after the sounding of the sixth trumpet will be similarly short-lived before the arrival of the Antichrist. As St. Bonaventure states:

"... no one knows how long that time of great peace will last since "when they said 'Peace and security,' then suddenly destruction came upon them" (Matt 24:21). The seventh time or age, that of quiet, begins with the shout of the angel who "swore through Him who lives forever and ever that there would be no more time; but in the days of the seventh angel the mystery of God will be completed" (Rev 10:6-7).In the sixth age three things take place - excellence of victory, excellence of teaching, and excellence of the prophetic life.... In this age there ought to come a life through an order which will possess the prophetic life. This age is double. Just as in the Lord's Passion there was first light, then darkness, and then light, so it is necessary that first there be the light of teaching and that Josiah succeed Hezekiah, after which came the tribulation of the Jews through their captivity. It is necessary that one ruler, a defender of the Church, arise. He is either still to come or has already come. (He added: Would that he has not already come!) After him will come the darkness of tribulations..."

It was said to the angel of Philadelphia, the sixth angel: "He who is holy and true, who has the key of David, who opens and no man closes, closes and no man opens, says this - 'I know your works, and behold I have placed an open door before you'" (Rev 3:7). (And he said that now for the first time the understanding of Scripture would be given and that the revelation, or key of David, would be given to a person or a large group, but I think rather to a large group.)
In the seventh age we know that these things will take place - the rebuilding of the Temple, the restoration of the city, and the granting of peace. Likewise in the coming seventh age there will be a restoration of Divine worship and a rebuilding of the city. Then the prophecy of Ezekiel will be fulfilled when the city comes down from heaven (Ezek 40); not indeed that city which is above, but that city which is below, the Church Militant which will then be conformed to the Church Triumphant as far as possible in this life. Then will be the building and restoration of the city as it was in the beginning. Then there will be peace. God alone knows how long that peace shall last.
(St. Bonaventure, Collation 16:17-19. Translated by McGinn, B. Visions of the End, pp199-200)

As St. Augustine taught, the period of the unbinding of Satan will be followed by another period of binding in order to allow the goods of the strong man to be plundered during the Second Coming of Christ, when the Lord will come like a thief in the night:

And if this shall be so, his binding is to be spoken of as preceding, that there might follow a spoiling of him both bound and loosed; for it is of this it is said, Who shall enter into the house of the strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first have bound the strong one?
(St. Augustine, City of God, XX:8)

So when we look to the significance of the upcoming appearance of the heavenly sign that will take place on 23rd September, 2017 (the feast of St. Padre Pio), it seems to be chiefly centred around the ministry of the angel of the sixth seal, who is prefigured in the persons of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Padre Pio. A ministry which must take place in a time which is situated at the end of the period of Satan's unbinding. Could the appearance of this sign corresponding to the Woman clothed with the sun in Rev 12 signify the end of the "little while" during which Satan is released upon the world? It appears to be doubly significant that one of the scriptural allusions in Rev 12 points to Jesus' words in the Gospel of John concerning the travail of a woman, which is made in the context of a "little while" during which Christ would no longer be seen:

 “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’?  Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. (John 16:16-23)

While the Gospel is veiled during the period given to Satan, obscuring the light of Christ, we will eventually be allowed to witness the glory of the Risen One at the end of this "little while", when the angel of the sixth seal will mark the people of the world with the seal of the Living God.

Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation and tribe and language and people. He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” (Rev 14:6-7)