2020: The Silence in Heaven and the Opening of the Seventh Seal

Even though we are still in its early stages, the year 2020 has turned out to be one of the most memorable in living memory. It has also brought about a unprecedented change in the praxis of the Roman Catholic religion.  For the first time in the history of Christianity, churches have fallen into silence worldwide. While the Mass continues to be celebrated by the world's priests and bishops in unison with the Pope, the churches have been robbed of the physical presence of the laity, who comprise the bulk of the worship offered towards the Most Holy Trinity, in keeping with the observance of the Sabbath.  This will be the first Easter since the Resurrection of Christ that the lay faithful will not be able to share in full communion with the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is one of the precepts of the Catholic Church.

As long time readers of this blog will already be aware, I had noted that this year stood out as being of some major prophetic importance in my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: The Final Passover of the Church.  This was chiefly because this year marks the end of a 120 year countdown associated with the vision of Pope Leo XIII, which began at the turn of the 20th century. While it was long thought that the period of Satan's greater power would only last for the duration of a century, Kevin Symonds has recently unearthed the real historical facts behind this vision in his book Pope Leo XIII and the Prayer to St. Michael. 

A fresh batch of information has been brought to light thanks to Symond's research, including additional material emanating from the eyewitness testimony provided by Fr. Pechenino, and a homily on Pope Leo's vision attributed to Cardinal Pedro Segura y Saenz. Among these new findings we find the surprising fact that the earliest accounts of this vision records that Satan had actually requested a period of 50-60 years in which to destroy the Church, rather than 75-100 years.  This closely corresponds to the visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, who was also shown that Satan would be unchained from the Abyss 50-60 years before the year 2000.  In my book, I put forward the hypothesis that while this period of 50-60 years had began around the year 1900, it needs to be doubled, given the fact that this vision is directly based on the trials of Job, and that Satan had been granted two separate attempts in which he was allowed to test God's prophet, in the hope he would eventually deny Him.  You can view a podcast below, where I attempt to give a brief sketch of this theory to Fr. Richard Heilman and Doug Barry, which was coincidentally timed to correspond with the very beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019. It is definitely worth re-watching in light of current events:

This event, which has gone on to every person on the planet, appears to have been ominously foretold by Sr. Agnes Sasagawa exactly 40 days previous to the outbreak, in a private revelation which closely corresponds with the instruction to adorn sackcloth and ashes given by the Prophet Jonah to the inhabitants of Nineveh. In Unveiling the Apocalypse: The Final Passover of the Church, I argue that the 50-60 years requested by Satan during Pope Leo's vision was actually only Satan's first attempt to destroy the Church. If we compare this prophecy with its primary inspiration in the Book of Job, the exact manner in which Satan tests Job is comprised of two distinct parts.  In his first attempt, Satan claims Job's children by tearing down the house of their elder brother. After Satan's first attempt fails, he then comes back to request another chance to destroy Job's faith, this time by afflicting the prophet himself with a plague of terrible sores:

And the LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.   

(Job 2:2-10)

So if the prophecy of Leo XIII corresponds with the trials of Job, it would follow that Satan would have returned before the throne of God to request another attempt to destroy the Church after the period of 50-60 years had elapsed, this time by changing tack - manifesting a plague of sores upon the Church itself, rather than the physical destruction of its children through war. Such an interpretation would explain why there was such a sudden swerve in the middle of the 20th century, going from the two world wars in the first half, to the modern apostasy in the second, which yielded not only great changes within the Church itself, but also saw the rise of the sexual abuse crisis, as well as the worldwide resurgence in occultism brought about by the New Age Movement.

We can find some evidence to support this hypothesis in Symond's work, which contains the account of the vision of Pope Leo given by Cardinal Segura, who provides an additional detail about Satan's first request of 50-60 years, stating that "God granted that period and said they would talk again at a later time…" (Symonds, K. Pope Leo XIII and the Prayer to St. Michael, p50).  This strongly suggests that the conversation between God and the Devil would be continued after the failure of the first attempt, just like during the trials of Job.  And if Satan was granted a further period of 50-60 years during this second attempt, this would bring the total amount of time up to 100-120 years, which is much more in line with the more well known version of this prophecy, and this revised figure fits much better with the actual unfolding of historical events.

The beginning of this time period appears to have been signified by Pope Leo's consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1899, which was requested by Christ Himself when He appeared to Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart in 1898.  This parallels the 100-year time period between the request to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart during Christ's apparition to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the beginning of the French Revolution.  This interpretation identifies a major turning point in the period of Satan's greater power (when blemishes would be manifested on the Church itself) at around the year 1960, which ties us into the significance of Our Lady's words concerning when the Third Secret should have been originally published. 

Satan's request of 50-60 years to destroy the Church is also extremely similar to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich's prophecy of the unbinding of Satan towards the end of the world, which she seen during a vision of the binding of Satan during Christ's Descent into Hell:

In the centre of Hell I saw a dark and horrible-looking abyss, and into this Lucifer was cast, after being first strongly secured with chains; thick clouds of sulphureous black smoke arose from its fearful depths, and enveloped his frightful form in the dismal folds, thus effectually concealing him from every beholder. God himself had decreed this; and I was likewise told, if I remember right, that he will be unchained for a time fifty or sixty years before the year of Christ 2000. The dates of many other events were pointed out to me which I do not now remember; but a certain number of demons are to be let loose much earlier than Lucifer, in order to tempt men, and to serve as instruments of the divine vengeance. I should think that some must be loosened even in the present day, and others will be set free in a short time.

Blessed Emmerich's vision can therefore be completely reconciled with the vision of Pope Leo XIII if we are to understand the period of the unbinding of Satan above as lasting for 50-60 years, starting at an unspecified date before the year 2000, rather than taking place 50-60 years before the turn of the millennium.  This would mean that the 50-60 year timeframe mentioned by Blessed Emmerich is one and the same as the period of Satan's greater power, rather than placing the unleashing of the Devil at around the years 1940-1950.  Interpreted in this way, the true meaning of Blessed Emmerich's words would be "he will be unchained for a time [period lasting] fifty or sixty years before the year of Christ 2000".

It is perhaps no coincidence then that the year 1899 was marked by the extremely rare occurrence of an alignment of all seven of the classical planets known to the ancients, which I argue in my book marked the opening of the Abyss at the end of the "thousand years". The seven classical planets are represented in Rev 1 as the seven stars held in the hand of Jesus, which are also the "keys to the Abyss":

In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (Rev 1:17-20)

This year, which will mark the end of the 100-120 period of the unbinding of Satan is similarly marked by an alignment of all seven of the classical planets, which will take place on July 4th, 2020. In my book, I forward the hypothesis that Pope Leo XIII's vision of the period of Satan's greater power and the short time of Satan's unbinding in Rev 20 correspond to the opening of the scroll sealed with seven seals in Rev 5. The unleashing of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse at the opening of the seven seals corresponds with the unfolding of the world wars of the 20th century, and culminates in the opening of the seventh seal, which is marked by the silencing of the Four Living Creatures, who constantly give glory to God:

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. (Rev 8:1-5)

The constant hymn of praise that the Four Living Creatures offer towards God in eternal worship represents the liturgy of the Church, which until now, constantly gave praise to Christ somewhere in the various Churches dispersed around the world:

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come!” (Rev 4:8)

For the first time in the history of Christianity, the song of the Four Living Creatures offered in the Church liturgy has fallen into eerie silence. It is surely of no coincidence that the simultaneous closure of world's churches has occurred at the very tail end of this 120 year period, bringing the sequence of the opening of the scroll with seven seals to a gripping finale, which awaits the sounding of the seven trumpets.