How about this: the Mysterious Threes:
There are those mysterious threes all over the Gospels: Jesus falls three times, and in the third, he cannot raise himself again. Three times St. Peter denies him, and three times he is reconciled (“Peter, do you love me?”) Jesus speaks to Mary Magdelene three times at the Tomb, and only in third does she recognize him. Joseph and Mary look for Jesus for three days and three nights before they find him. Jesus prays three times to let the cup pass in the Garden of Geths., but in the third he is able to accept.
I find this interesting because the Catholic spirituality way of the saint has three stages: the purgative, the illuminative and the unitive. Only in the unitive does the saint finally be able to fully accept whatever God’s Will is. Also interesting that in the anlaysis of Jewish history and proposed Catholic history, the Jews and the Church go through “3 days”, each with their proper parallels. In the first day, they go through the persecution of the “purgative” senses (Egypt, pagan Rome), but they are both delivered into a kingdom (Israel, Catholicism). and while in the kingdoms, there is indeed great “illumination” (the prophets, the doctrinal development of the Catholic Church). And in each case, the illumination is gradually resisted, culminating in a sort of darkn night of the soul, in which the respective Jew and Gentile are utterly oblivious to the word of God. But there is a chastisement in both cases (Babylon, our potential Minor Chas), leading to the vindication of the illumination and the restoration / “unitive” phase (Jewish return to Holy Land / the Reunion of Christians and great restoration of Catholic faith in world), which is followed by the ultimate sacrifice, martyrdom, under the associated Antichrists (in OT, Antiochus, in NT, the end of world AC), followed by the crossing of the threshold (with the saint, heaven, with the Jews, the first Coming of Christ, with the Church, the Second Coming of Christ).
So, I’m thinking, this may be precisely how the Jews come to recognize Christ in the “third day”. The RCC will say, don’t you see that this is deja vu for you? Everything YOU went through, we went through! (“Amen, Amen, I say to you, it will all be fulfilled…”). Mabye just a coincidence, but it is interesting. After three days and three nights (three ages of the Redemption of the Gentiles), Mary and Joseph (the Jews) finally find Jesus in the Temple, and they ask him, “Son! Why have you done this to us. We have been searching for you in sorrow these three days?” And Jesus will say (to the Jews), “Well, duuuh?! What were you thinking? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business? [Redeeming the Gentiles in three ages just as I redeemed you in your three ages]?”
Hence, with Mary Magdelene,
Jesus asks a first time, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.” Again, in the days of the Early Church, amidst dispersion, the Jews are lost. They say to themselves, “The Messiah was supposed to come. But he didn’t. I do not know where he is.”
Jesus asks a second time, “Woman, why are you crying?”
This time, she still doesn’t recognize Jesus, but she suspects that this man may be able to help her, “Sir, if YOU know where they have taken him, then please tell me in order that I may go and annoint him.” So then, even now, as the catastrophes mount, the Jews still do not recognize their Messiah, but they at least many times hold the holier of Christians in esteem, and, as Birch points out, even though it will not be the “fullness of the Jews” of the very end, nevertheless, he indicated many mystics forsee some Jews converting in the aftermath of the minor tribulation.
But, finally, a third time, Jesus speaks, “Mary!” And her eyes are opened! Hence, in the final trial, when the Gentiles are radically and irrevocably departing from the Gospel in the times of Antichrist, the Church shall say, “Don’t you get it? This is the parallell of the third and final age that YOU went through.” So then, the Jews can see it! Yes, everything we went through, the Gentiles did! That’s it. Our Messiah has indeed been “about his Father’s Business” for three ages, and only now in the last one do we find him!
Just some things I’ve been thinking about.
