All of Human History in the Wombs of Elizabeth and Mary

[spauline]

What if the little events of the months of St Elizabeth and Mother Mary’s pregnancies and births are a microcosmic analogy of all of human history, that is, of all of God’s Plan of Salvation, from the Fall all the way to the end of the world and the New Creation, inclusive?

May sound crazy, but come and see!

I so hope God intended this analogy from all eternity, it would be so wonderful that God hid the mystery of the ages of His fallen world in the humble hearts and wombs of obscure women who were totally receptive to God’s will and love. That is the way that God operates: he confounds the proud and powerful and exalts the lowly. God would so conveniently do that: hide the deepest of mysteries and treasures in the most humble and obscure places.

All of Human History in the Wombs of Elizabeth and Mary

By Scott Pauline
12-22-2014

What if the little events of the months of St Elizabeth and Mother Mary’s pregnancies and births are a microcosmic analogy of all of human history, that is, of all of God’s Plan of Salvation, from the Fall all the way to the end of the world and the New Creation, inclusive?

May sound crazy, but come and see!

But before we look at the astounding Joyful Mysteries analogy, we need to review the days of creation analogy as the Divine Plan as well. Toward that end, several ECFs see the days of creation as a metaphor for the ages of the recreation of man, or his redemption. St Methodius of Olympus, like Augustine, says five ages are of the old law. He goes on to elaborate on the New: the sixth is designated to the Church, in which she labors to work against heretics. The seventh is the “Millennium of rest”, and the eighth is the eternal New Creation (Note, patience, this will not be chiliasm, which we all know is condemned by the Church, nor will it be dispensationalism in the sense of our over-conservative, separated brethren in error. It is simply recognizing that whereas God always judges a person by charity, regardless of time or place in history, nevertheless, history evolves over phases of spiritual attributes).

So, again, remembering the apocalyptic creation days analogy–that each day of Creation symbolizes an age of the re-creation of the world in God’s Salvation History, and also that each day, as you can see below, has 2 parts: the first part of each day being spiritual darkness and second part spiritual light (“Evening came, morning followed”)–the correlation of all God’s Plan can be mapped out as follows, where the beginning phases follow Augustine’s delineation in On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed and the ages of the Church are correlated by common sense:

OT

Day 1:
Darkness: Fall
Light: Flood

Day 2:
Darkness: Babel
Light: Confounding of Tongues, Formation of Hebrew People (Abraham)

Day 3:
Darkness: Egypt Enslaves
Light: Exodus, Red Sea, King David

Day 4:
Darkness: Pre-Exile wickedness of Jews
Light: Exile, Repentance, Restoration to Holy Land and Temple

Day 5:
Darkness: OT Antichrist Antiochus
*Light: *First Coming of Christ

NT

Day 6:
*Darkness: *Pagan Rome Persecutes
*Light: *Catholic Christendom, Doctrinal Development

Day 7:
Darkness: Intermediate Gentile Secular Apostasy [today]
Light: Minor Chastisement, Gentile Renewal, Our Lady’s Age of Peace

Day 8:

*Darkness: *Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist
*Light: *Second Coming of Christ

Now, seeing that, again, each day has two parts – darkness, then light – so 8 days X 2 parts per day = 16 total parts

This would make all 16 parts as follows:

OT

(Day 1)

1. Darkness: Fall
2. Light: Flood

(Day 2)
3. Darkness: Babel
4. Light: Confounding of Tongues, Formation of Hebrew People (Abraham)

(Day 3)
5. Darkness: Egypt Enslaves
6. Light: Exodus, Red Sea, King David

(Day 4)
7. Darkness: Pre-Exile wickedness of Jews
8. Light: Exile, Repentance, Restoration to Holy Land and Temple

(Day 5)
9. Darkness: OT Antichrist Antiochus
10. Light: First Coming of Christ

NT

(Day 6)
11. Darkness: Pagan Rome Persecutes
12. Light: Catholic Christendom, Doctrinal Development

(Day 7)
13. Darkness: Intermediate Gentile Secular Apostasy [today]
14. Light: Minor Chastisement, Gentile Renewal, Our Lady’s Age of Peace

(Day 8)
15. Darkness: Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist
16. Light: Second Coming of Christ

…

 

[spauline]

…

Now, let us analyze the world history in the creation days analogy, looking closer at the parts. In effect,* I intend to correlate the months in St Elizabeth’s and Our Lady’s overlapping pregnancies to the parts of the creation days analogy above, arguing that the months of the pregnancies are in fact an analogical metaphor of all of salvation history! *Sound crazy? Just come along for the ride!

Much of this is straightforward when we examine the pivotal points in the pregnancy months with what will be pivotal points in the creation days analogy.
To start off, let us look at the pregnancy months pivotal points, when we consider it a timeline, where the beginning is 0 and the unit is a month.

0 - Beginning: St Elizabeth conceives

(5, 6) - Mary conceives ( (5,6) here refers to the interval on the number line with endpoints 5 and 6. 5 of course marks the end of the 5th month, 6 the end of the 6th month. Hence, Mary conceives somewhere between 5 and 6 on the number line, since she conceives* in* the sixth month)

9 - Birth of St John the Baptist

(14, 15) - Birth of Christ (Mary conceived in the sixth month after St Elizabeth conceived, so she gives birth in the sixth moth after St Elizabeth gives birth, or in the fifteenth month overall [9 + 6 = 15]. But 15 on the number line is, like 6 was the end of the 6th month, is the end of the 15th month)

The correlations are perfect from inspection! Let us simply walk through the creation days analogy. Note, part 1 of the history is really the period of time between 0 and 1 on the number line, part 2 is between 1 and 2, and so forth, so we have a rule: part n is between n-1 and n on the number line.

The Creation Days Analogy:

Creation Days: 0-6: The Beginning of human history: man falls and doubts God’s offer of love, after which substantial, miraculous Divine discipline begins in human history, God “acting on behalf” of the just through supreme Divine interventions: The Flood, Babel, the Patriarchs’ direct connection to God, the Exodus, mainly up to king David, who arise in the midst of the 6th part of history, that is, somewhere in (5, 6)

Pregnancy: 0-6: Zachariah doubts the angel’s message and is miraculously chastised by discipline, struck dumb. This is the main situation for rest of St Elizabeth’s pregnancy, but especially the first six months, when, also, St Elizabeth says, while entering seclusion, “The Lord is acting on my behalf.” In the sixth month, that is, somewhere in (5,6), Mary conceives the ultimate fruit of the Davidic kingdom, Christ, by the very words of the Angel: “God shall give him the throne of his father David, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

**Creation Days: 7-9: **The completion of Old Testament activity, which is primarily prophetic in nature, with basically far less great Divine Intervention than in the first six phases: Great miracles like the Flood and Exodus give way to the testimony of the Prophets, who are calling the Jewish people to greater fidelity. Chastisement or hardship, while perhaps foretold, is no longer miraculous but man-made (the Exile, Maccabees). It is also a time of waiting and watching for Messiah.

**Pregnancy: 7-9: Here, too, **the shift goes away from the miraculous discipline on Zachariah to a wonderful expectation and dialogue, of a waiting, rejoicing and anticipating relationship between St Elizabeth and Mother Mary, till the birth of St John the Baptist at the threshold of months nine and ten, that is, the very dividing line between the end of month nine and the beginning of month ten.

**Creation Days: 9-10: **The ninth part of human history is the final phase of OT activity, Maccabees. After this darkness passes, the tenth part of human history inaugurates a New Dispensation: Jesus Christ enters human history the first time, and the New Covenant history commences.

****Pregnancy: 9-10: ****At the very end of month 9, leading into month 10, St Elizabeth gives birth to the culminating prophet of the Old Testament that is the literal heralding of the New Testament Messiah: St John the Baptist. This all the more makes appropriate to see St John as the OT activity itself: it develops for nine phases, nine months, to prepare for the New, at his birth.

**Creation Days: 15: **In the 15th epoch of human history, man is totally wicked, it is the night, and he can no longer come back to God, the Great Apostasy. With this comes the supreme Tribulation of human history, within which, at an hour we do not expect, the Christ comes again! Christ comes early, for the sake of the elect, implying that if He waited for practically incurable iniquity to run its course, the unjust would martyr the elect and then destroy themselves. God wishes to spare a remnant and so comes early. Hence, whereas the Second Coming and New Creation are technically part 16 of history, that is, beyond history, this part 16 actually interrupts part 15.

****Pregnancy: 14-15: ****As we have seen, somewhere within the month 15 overall (9+6), in the darkness of the night watch, Mary gives birth to the Christ, which, by our very traditional Advent reflections, IS a type of the Second Coming.

It all fits perfectly! Amazing or what?