On the Middle East Crisis and Jesus’ “Times of the Gentiles”
St Luke's Christological Apocalypse, Chapter 21: “And Jerusalem shall be trampled by the gentiles until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled!”
I remember reading the story well: the state of Israel had just been established, and the little boy asked his grandfather, "What happens next, Grandpa?”
The elderly man responded, “I don't know, Joey. I’ll need to get out my Bible!”
For most of us who are familiar with the modern Fundamentalist Dispensationalism and the frenzy of Darby that has pervaded Evangelical apocalyptic sensations about end time speculation for many, many decades now—talk about the middle east, the end of the world, armageddon, the literal antichrist, the third temple, the literal 7-year tribulation, the rapture, world war III geopolitical scenarios, earthquakes and other natural disasters, times and dates etc etc., one knows that a substantial portion of this incredible nonsense that has ensnared most likely millions upon millions of innocent and well-meaning conservative Protestants, the above scripture is one of the great catalysts on this unbelievable conundrum that in many ways makes Christianity in general look very foolish.
However, the reality of this obscure prophecy to Catholics doesn't necessarily make it go away because it is a blatant, very blatant, foretelling of our savior which cannot entirely be dismissed , simply because the reality of the diaspora and the modern largely reestablishment of the Jewish people's possession of the Holy Land is not necessarily something that can be fully swept under the rug with a smug preterism.
The prophecy, like it or not , simply does stand, whether a Catholic wants to admit it or not.
The issue of course for us as the faithful of the true religion of 2000 years of Christian history, is that what did Jesus really mean when he said quote unquote , the times of the gentiles? Does it mean the very end of the world, as with the absurd darbyism, or perhaps something very meaningful but not the very conclusion of human history?
Indeed, I recall that many, many years ago, shortly after the great terrorist attack of 9/11, I was making a pilgrimage to the very well-known Marian apparition site of Medjugore, and was contemplating the overwhelming plethora of even fully approved private Revelations of the blessed Virgin in modern times, as if to peruse the notion of whether the very end was upon us?
I was sharing some of my thoughts with one of the priests who was leading the pilgrimage, and he commented that there is a sense amongst many of the faithful that we are in fact in a very profound time in the history of the church, but that it is not the end of the world, but rather what can be referred to as quote on quote the end of times.
This, in fact, seems to be a greater consensus amongst knowledgeable Catholics who confront the overall most likely scenario for the history of the church painted by the aforementioned greater majority of fully approved private Revelations concerning the same, as it were, latter times of the Church.
If this were the case—and I firmly believe it is—then there can perhaps be a true interpretation of this epic and very rare occurrence in the Gospel of Jesus Christ in which he makes such an astounding prediction yet very briefly.
In this way, the quote unquote times of the gentiles, as it is termed by the Christ, can give us a window into a possible theology of a seemingly non-significant reality of a mass remigration of Jewish person's back to the Holy Land after some almost 1900 years of general separation in the same aforementioned diaspora.
In this essay, I wish to explore such a theology based upon pondering which I have had for many years now.
Before the introspection begins, we should really refresh ourselves at least with a somewhat brief encapsulation of the history of the Jewish people relative to the Holy Land since the fall of Jerusalem some 2000 years ago , which Jesus also spoke of in the context of this mysterious verse that has spawned so much misconception about the latter times of Christian history.
Let us probe it:
In AD 70, the gravely awful and vicious Roman Empire came down upon the city of Jerusalem and destroyed it. From henceforth, a great portion of the poor Jewish people were cast out largely from the holy land and went into what we now know as the “diaspora.” Hence, these physical people of God, as it were, were separated from the physical holy land that God had given them in the times of Old.
In subsequent history, especially because of grave misunderstandings and harsh biases against them because of their objective lack of conversion to the acceptance of Christ as Messiah, they suffered terribly at the hands of Christians, which included persecutions, especially the seething Spanish Inquisitions, culminating with the secular persecutive horror of Nazism, where some 6 million Jewish persons were slaughtered in concentration camps by the diabolical Nazi Regime.
In consequence of these incomprehensible tragedies, the time came in human history shortly after world war II—where those unfathomable terrors had occurred under Germany—in which the same world began to believe that a certain restoration of these poor and cherished elder brethren of ours might occur to the same physical land of beatitude which they had—for a great portion of the self-same history—been separated from for these 19 centuries or so.
Hence, the restoration of the Hebrew people to the land of Israel commenced.
However, this process was gravely and unfortunately done in certain manners that did not take into consideration the existing peoples who were already then present indigenously within Palestine. Within these misguided steps, the movement called Zionism, which is certainly not representative of the totality of modern Jewish persons, began to use violence as a means to further the quote unquote progress of the integration, which at times not only used military rule but even genocide, and even diabolically, the ousting of some almost 1 million legitimate citizens from their rightful homes in the late 1960s.
These digressing tragedies and difficulties slowly progressed to create terrible animosity between the existing Palestinian population and the aggression of the Zionists. And toward this end, some very awful knee-jerk reactions led to acts of terrorism on behalf of somewhat understandably disgruntled Arabic groups and other native Palestinians.
Since these developments of the largely second half of the 20th century, the terrible sub conflicts between the sides has persisted on and off, until now, here in the early 21st century, we have the incomprehensible culmination of the awfully sad opposition between the parties, the senselessly violent wars of the modern Middle East crisis, which we have dealt with for now several years , and which we are all keenly and sadly aware of, a cause of great lament across all of humanity at this time, crying out somehow that peace may be attained and that the terrible fighting may stop.
Towards this end, faithful Catholic Christians know that, ultimately, the only supreme solution to these grave events and situations is to the degree that humanity can embrace the fullness of gospel in this same Catholic Church. For, good Catholics understand through the perennial wisdom of our God-man Jesus Christ, that to the degree in which humanity accepts the truths and graces of the Catholic Church through the beautiful sacraments, there can be peace on earth, but that, on the contrary, to the degree that the world does not, problems will arise. For a reference, I have an article that expands upon this considerably here, entitled, Pentecost, the new Babel.
Moreover, the incredible and unbelievable modern materialistic power through science and development, can gravely amplify the consequences of errors and lack of grace relative to the Catholic religion.
Consequently, to the degree that the world does not enter the Catholic church in modern times, we may expect unfathomable horrors to come which will dwarf the world wars, up to and including, God forbid, the annihilation of entire nations , which Our beloved Lady of Fatima prophesied if the world did not pray and do penance sufficiently.
What this all reveals is that peace in the world and in all of the various places that are experiencing the horrific tragedies of war, absolutely and precisely depends on humanity’s capacity to accept the truths and graces of the Catholic Church.
This is because to the degree that man does not have peace with God, Who is an infinite Being of love with no faults or imperfections, how much more impossible will it be for man to have peace with his fellow man, who is very short of perfection and is sinful.
And yet, having the fullness of peace with God once again means having the fullness of the truth of God to have a relationship with him, to know who God is, how he relates to us, and what we must do to please him and to love him and others to the best of our abilities. And even beyond this, on our own powers, it will never take place, as our same God-man Savior and the Christ testified that, with man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.
This implies , again, grace, the perennial essence without which no human being can truly bring us into friendship with God, or maintain it, by living out the moral law in a manner which would enable the person to precisely love his Maker and his fellow creatures for their own sake and salvation. The great and primary forms of these graces are the sacraments, and, also, it is within alone this very great , spotless Bride of Jesus—which the Christ promised to be with until the end of the age—that we can possess these teachings despite any terrible sins that might be present in the hierarchy, and to always have available these wondrous and beautiful gifts of help and divine life to give us the power to live out these same virtues for the sake of the very peace that the world needs so desperately in this current hour of the human drama.
Interestingly enough , then, we have the conclusion that only to the degree that the various Christian and non-Christian religions or lack thereof are reintegrated or restored to the Catholic church, is there really any hope to bring peace on earth, at least temporarily before the final horror of the great apostasy at the end of the world.
This, profoundly, introduces to us a reality which we had not perhaps paid attention to when focusing upon this aforementioned diaspora of the mere Hebrew people, and it is this: for almost the same great age of this diaspora, that is, as we saw above, the great separation of the physical people of God from the physical land of beatitude, the Catholic church, the true spiritual Holy Land of God, has stayed the course before God in stability of spiritual place, while all the while, all of the various non-catholic religions have been ,as it were, spiritually separated during this great same time concurrently.
Here now, we can ask, could God have intended to draw a mystical connection between the physical and the spiritual in the two great parallel activities in the same great age of history?
Firmly in my heart and mind, I absolutely believe God has intended the connection and that , in fact, it is present mystically within the Apocalypse 11, on the discourse of the two witnesses, which I have wrote about quite substantially on Catholic 365. I will save the examination of that theology until towards the latter portion of our discussion.
In the meantime and in this sense, I argue that the period of the physical separation of the physical people of God from the physical land of beatitude is itself a concurrent type of the great spiritual separation of the spiritual religions from the spiritual Holy Land , the Catholic Church.
Subsequently, I argue that when the separation in the physical sense is healed, it will be on the cusp of the spiritual healing, which would mean none other than the apocalyptic reunion of Christians, which would then also mean nothing short of the reestablishment of Christendom in the entire world itself: the Triumph of Our Lady of Fatima’s Immaculate Heart , which She has prophesied will come unconditionally, with or without the chastisement we have spoken of above.
Once again, I will leave a fuller analysis of the comparison between the theology and apocalypse chapter 11, toward the end.
For now, our theology here of the conjectured reunion of Christians is strongly supported by a plethora of fully approved Private Revelation down through the centuries. More specifically, an article from The Women of Grace blog on the quote unquote end times, as it were, here, …
https://www.womenofgrace.com:8443/blog/?p=24182
Are We Living in the End Times?
… suggests that a strong possibility for the scenario of latter times for the church history is that toward the end of the world, there will occur a minor godless age and tribulation, after which will happen the very same reunion of Christians. It goes on to suggest that , quite possibly , this will lead to a period of the social reign of the Gospel and what would effectively be the attainment of the fullness of the gentiles, of which the catechism speaks as one of the first great developments towards the end, which, rather than being negative, is the first development of the end, the greater renewal of humanity, seeing as Christ did not come to condemn the world but to save it!
Here is a somewhat extended quote:
“Approved Catholic mystics (Venerables, Blessed and Saints, approved apparitions) throw considerable light on this order, by prophesying a minor apostasy and tribulation toward the end of the world, after which will occur the reunion of Christians,” Donovan writes. “Only later will the entire world fall away from Christ (the great apostasy) and the personal Antichrist arise and the Tribulation of the End occur.”
While this is not Catholic doctrine because it arises from private revelation, it does conform to what is occurring in our time, especially in light of Our Lady of Fátima’s promise of an “Era of Peace,” Donovan writes.
“This ‘Triumph of the Immaculate Heart’ (other saints have spoken of a social reign of Jesus Christ when Jesus will reign in the hearts of men) would seem to occur prior to the rise of the Antichrist. The optimism of the Pope for the ‘New Evangelization’ and a ‘Civilization of Love’ in the Third Millennium of Christianity fits here, as well.
“This would place us, therefore, in the period just before the events spoken of in the Catechism, that is, on the verge of the evangelization of the entire world. Other interpretations are possible, but none seem to fit the facts as well, especially when approved mystics are studied, instead of merely alleged ones.”
Returning again to the words of the Christ that began our discourse, His prophecy could then possibly be reinterpreted in a more theological sense as to the connection of both physical and spiritual reunion, rather than our separated brethren’s serious errors in literalistic view.
However, returning to the terrible circumstances which we discussed earlier, it does not give us a very easy way to look at the horrors we are once again experiencing in the Middle East, a can of worms as it were. How do we interpret these things in light of what would otherwise seem to be a too rosy picture of a people who have returned to a holy land and yet, in some ways, are taking it by force and violence, causing reactive violence of terrorism in an unending exchange tossed to and fro by hatred on both sides?
In this regard , we must probe into the difficult discussion of the theology behind the Holy Land of Old and its transition into the New Covenant.
Let us commence the analysis:
The Father gave the Jewish people a covenant that contained myriads of pictures of what would really matter but which were , in and of themselves, not what were truly salvific.
This was necessary to meet a beginning world where it was at, much like how a child must first learn by illustration before graduating to more profound ideas in written form without pictures.
But when God would send the Incarnate one, he would then unveil to his people, and also to the whole world , that a great portion of those quote unquote pictures were only meant to foreshadow what would really matter , and that when that happened, what ultimately took place is that a great portion of this prefiguring people would not be able to handle it, that they would unfortunately choose to cling to the pictures as ends unto themselves.
This situation is the great problem of the Holy Land, since the Father instituted the Holy Land as a mere picture of what would first be the spiritual Kingdom of the Catholic Church on earth, and then it's ultimate fulfillment in heaven
Since the Jewish people misunderstood this, it was inevitable that they would lose the very possession of what they had lived for through the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the resulting diaspora.
But now, in the beginning of the intermediate times of the church today, evidently, they are being reunited but in a manner in which, again, at least for Zionists and their sympathizers, they still feel that this land is something to be grasped at of its own volition as they had had back in the time when the Romans ripped it from them.
This error is unfortunately bringing us to the precipice of terrible things that have already happened and that may get unfathomably worse.
This is not to say that the inexcusable and unfathomable horror that was October 7th somehow does not matter or does not warrant some sort of military response to end the possibility of any further terrorism from the diabolical Hamas, but it also calls into question what has been unfortunately what most people would agree to be an incomprehensively disproportionate response to the sack of terrorism in the form of many thousands of more deaths of innocent civilians in Palestine, perhaps not fully intended, but nonetheless a collateral as it were, in an attempt to eliminate the terrorism.
I do however feel that somehow at this time in history, through these horrors and the outcry of the world, the general Zionists will learn that where you live does not have to dictate how you worship, and that somehow a peaceful mechanism can be integrated. Unfortunately , it may take something apocalyptic to attain this, which is scary.
Once again it is a spiritual problem because they are taking the Holy Land as an end unto itself , when, in reality, as Jesus revealed to the woman at the well, the time was then coming and been already there , and for now 2,000 years, that we worship God in spirit and in truth; it does not need to be in Jerusalem nor Jacob's mountain nor in any deliberate physical place except where the Holy Eucharist resides, which is anywhere in the world and in any Orthodox or Catholic Church tabernacle.
Hence, a great portion of the poor Jewish people are still clinging , as it were, to the old Holy Land, as if this is the ultimate place they need to be to find the fulfilled worship of God.
But alas, I believe that we can have a great hope in this age in the relationship between the Jewish people and the church, that this first great hurdle of the unnecessary relevance of geography towards true worship and place of holiness, can be overcome, so that peace can be brought to the many places of war through this reconciliation and opening of eyes to a great mystery.
And now, finally, we are at a point where we can try to correlate on discourse thus far with the scripture in Apocalypse chapter 11.
For all practical purposes, and to set the stage, it would be who was simply the place most of the sacred text in quote here:
And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and it was said to me: Arise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that adore therein. 2 But the court, which is without the temple, cast out, and measure it not: because it is given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city they shall tread under foot two and forty months: 3 And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. 4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks, that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if any man will hurt them, fire shall come out of their mouths, and shall devour their enemies. And if any man will hurt them, in this manner must he be slain.
6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and they have power over waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they will. 7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast, that ascendeth out of the abyss, shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. 8 And their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually, Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord also was crucified. 9 And they of the tribes, and peoples, and tongues, and nations, shall see their bodies for three days and a half: and they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in sepulchres. 10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry: and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt upon the earth.
11 And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them. 12 And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them: Come up hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud: and their enemies saw them. 13 And at that hour there was made a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell: and there were slain in the earthquake names of men seven thousand: and the rest were cast into a fear, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
Given all of our development thus far, the correlation is not really difficult but is rather common sense.
Firstly, we know that for one great symbolic period, the holy city is being trampled by the gentiles.
In a succeeding text, and for another great symbolic period, God gives a time for the so-called quote on quote two witnesses to preach to the world.
The first connotation is simply to take the trampling of the holy city by the gentiles at face value, which is to say, Christ’s declaration that the city of Jerusalem will be trampled literally by the gentiles until the reinstatement of the Hebrew people there, or, again, the times of the gentiles being fulfilled.
This leaves the two witnesses discourse to be figurative, and in this, it can mean the witness of the church to the gospel for a first great, substantial age of illumination, and even, if it were possible, a certain quote unquote illuminative way of the church , as if she might apocalyptically walk the way of the saint, or the three ways of Catholic spirituality. Moreover, the witness could either be the church as a whole, or, more precisely , if we needed to be specific, the two great forms of the Word of God from which all truth ultimately springs out like a well of wisdom and revelation: the oral and written words of God, or the scripture and tradition.
Now we can argue that because the duration of these time periods are the same, if even quantified in different manner, that each of these sets of events are occurring simultaneously, which is to say concurrently.
This is in part because the first period is described as 42 months, and the second period is described as 1,260 days.
By Jewish time, the durations are the same as follows: by tradition, the Jewish month is exactly 30 days, so that 42 months is precisely by Jewish time, 42 * 30 =, again, 1260 days exactly.
And yet, also, 42 months is actually three and one half Jewish years. For those familiar with biblical symbolism in apocalyptic literature, three and one half is a symbol of great imperfection or tribulation and stress. This is because 3 and 1/2 is half of seven, so that, since seven is the number of perfection, half of seven symbolizes great imperfection.
Hence, the time periods are not only the same but also indicate great periods of imperfection and stress in human history.
Too, since the two witnesses’ discourse is , as it were , figurative in nature, so the texts that describe how attempts to harm them return precisely back to the attacker in nature and degree, can image spiritual assaults on the witness of the church, which is to say, heresies, schisms, infidelity, apostasies etc.
This is because, as we saw above and according to perennial Church teaching, even to deny or to assault the truth witnessed by the church brings intrinsically spiritual harm to the person who commits these very acts in the very same nature and degree of the heresy, the schism, the errors etc.
Yet, note also that for the time being, the two witnesses do not die or are even harmed in and of themselves.
However, the time comes when quote unquote they have finished their testimony.
Here, something profound emerges in terms of possible literal prophecy associated with Christ's words before: the time at which quote on quote the two witnesses cease their testimony must concurrently also be when Jerusalem is no longer being trampled, since, as we have seen immediately above, the events are respectively concurrent.
Astoundingly, since we know that Jerusalem was finally recaptured by the Jewish state in around 1967, this was amazingly commensurate with the proximity of the closing of the second Vatican council.
Indeed, the second Vatican council in no wise intended to change anything from the 2000 year legacy of Catholic doctrinal development, but rather decided to represent, in a most beautiful and more positive manner, the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all its fullness, to a world desperately in need of it and that yet was on the cusp of rejecting it radically through what has been once again what we have seen to be in the last generation, a minor godless age.
This onset of a truly Godless age in the wake of a serious misappropriation of what was a wonderful council, would then easily fit with the so-called beast that comes up from the abyss and murders the two witnesses.
Interestingly also, the Navarre Bible commentary on the book of Revelation, which seeks, amongst other ways , to view the apocalypse through the lens of a certain idealism, sees in apocalypse 11 a discourse of a possible time or times within the age of the church, in which all seems dead, in which the church is in a great crisis, and much of the world has rejected her.
Note here that, the two witnesses are now quote on quote dead and no longer alive, as with the first great period in which they preach. Also, note that, the duration of the period in which they are deceased and lie dead in the streets of the evil place—where the world celebrates their demise, shows them no respect in a burial, and even sends gifts to one another that their consciences are no longer pricked—lasts for only three and a half days versus years , as if to imply that the godless time is a much shorter period than the greater age of doctrinal development that still left some spiritual life in the world before the apostasy of our own day.
Next in the scene of course is their resurrection and the fear it brings upon the world that sees them. Clearly a chastisement which is beginning to manifest to them the consequences of their listening to the church in all of its doctrinal in sacramental facets, which is precisely what we dealt with in the beginning sections of the essay, which is to say that, to the degree that the world is not embrace the teachings and graces of the church, grave consequences will fall upon humanity.
Consequently, I believe that we can declare a great corollary and counterpart to St Paul's exclamation on the conversion of the Jewish people that has yet to wait at the end of the world:
For, if the Jewish people's rejection of the Gospel has meant the salvation of the gentiles, what will their acceptance mean except Resurrection from the dead?
So too then:
For, if the great loss of Christian unity has meant a great loss of faith in the gospel in the world, what will the reunion of Christians mean except the fullness of the kingdom of God on earth in this side of the end of time!!