Phillip, the faith of Modern Christians before the Great Chastisement was so weak that very few believed Adam and Eve were actual individual people or that Methuselah and the other Patriarchs lived 800 to 969 years. If Paradise, where Adam and Eve lived before the Fall, was just a particularly lush material place, then it is difficult to believe that Adam existed on a higher spiritual and material level than he did after the Fall. But if the ethereal Paradise is accepted, the superior nobility of character, the greater stature of mankind can be imagined as a remnant of this lost glory even after the Fall from Paradise. The decreasing longevity of the patriarchs from Adam to Jacob would suggest that as actual sins increased over time, the stature and nobility of man, and therefore, his longevity, decreased in proportion to the loss of innocence of the human race. Adam, Cain, Seth, Methuselah, and all those mentioned did live to great ages. Men were of a stature beyond the imagination of later times. The visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich, the 19^th Century German nun who lived for 22 years on the Eucharistic Host alone, envisioned the history of those who descended from Adam until the death of Christ. Reading of her visions later will help us grasp man's former nobility of stature and reveals much to us of these mysterious times.
          "Tell me about her. I am curious, Father."
          "Anne Catherine Emmerich was born on September 8, 1774, at Flamske, near Koesfeld, Westphalia, in West Germany, and became a nun of the Augustinian Order on November 13, 1803, in the Convent of Agnetenberg at Dulmen (also in Westphalia). She died on February 9, 1924. Although of simple education, she had perfect consciousness of her earliest days and could understand the liturgical Latin from her first time at Mass.
          During most of her later years she would vomit up even the simplest food or drink, subsisting for long periods almost entirely on water and the Holy Eucharist. She was told in mystic vision that her gift of seeing past, present and future was greater than that possessed by anyone else in history.
          From the year 1812 until her death, she bore the stigmata of Our Lord, including a cross over her heart and wounds from the crown of thorns. Though Anne Catherine Emmerich was an invalid confined to bed during her later years, her funeral was nevertheless attended by a greater concourse of mourners than any other remembered by the oldest inhabitants of Dulmen.
          Her mission in life seems to have been to suffer in expiation for the godlessness that darkened the "Age of Enlightenment" and the era of the Napoleonic wars, a time during which she saw her convent closed and her order suppressed by Napoleon.
          During the last five years of her life the day-by-day transcription of her visions and mystical experiences was recorded by Clemens Brentano, poet, literary leader, friend of Goethe and Gorres, who, from the time he met her, abandoned his distinguished career and devoted the rest of his life to this work. The immense mass of notes preserved in his journals forms one of the most extensive case histories of a mystic ever kept."
          People were too scientifically enlightened for such a wonderful book to become popular reading, Phillip. Noah’s Ark was also a fable in the popular imagination. Noah

took 100 years to build the Ark, amid the jeers of unbelievers. This massive ark was found at 17,000 feet above sea level on Mount Ararat in the earliest times and as late as the 20^th Century. History records many sightings of it there, even before the time of Christ.
          I first heard an eyewitness account from a man who was taken to it during World War II by its traditional guardians, the Kurds. He said that as he stood before it, encased in blue ice and broken in half, an awesome spiritual presence seemed to guard it. He saw many artifacts, some kept by Kurds as relics in their homes, which had come from inside the Ark. They testified to its occupation by humans and animals.
          The Catholic Czar of Russia, Nicholas II, sent two companies of soldiers to examine the ark. They measured it to be exactly those dimensions found in Genesis, 80 x 50 x 30 cubits.
          "What is a cubit, Father?"
          It is the length from a man’s elbow to his fingertips. Which makes for a handy ruler. The Russian soldiers entered the Ark, gathering detailed information. Their report was later suppressed by the Communists, who assassinated Nicholas and his family, and took over Holy Russia, which was 98% Catholic.
          I remember saying to a friend in 1998, "You find a massive boat, measuring the exact dimensions given in Genesis for Noah’s Ark at 17,000 feet, much of it encased in solid blue ice, and you have to ask, how did it get up there if it wasn’t floated to that great height? No race of men were ever so stupid that they would build a boat that far from water and forest, dragging huge pieces of lumber up an incredibly high, rugged, steep mountain to there construct a useless boat that would never float.
          And there was evidence of a recent massive flood in the stratigraphy of that area of the world. But, as a geologist, I also had to ask, how could water materialize to create a worldwide flood to 17,000 feet above sea level? The answer most probable seemed to be the near collision of a fiery comet with the earth that released much heat, melting the two polar ice caps, while causing by evaporation of ocean waters a huge amount of water vapor, which precipitated massive rains. An earth-wide tidal wave caused by the comet’s passing could have carried a floating object to an even greater height than the added water from the melted ice caps could account for. We had already supposed such a comet as the destroyer of the dinosaurs and many other species in the Cretaceous Age, 430 million years BC. If God used a celestial comet to punish the world 13 years ago, Phillip, why not in the ancient past? Of course, this speculation is not meant to suggest that God could not have miraculously brought about such a flood. The only inconceivable thing to me is that God would lie to us about such a Flood in Holy Scripture.
          "Why did Christians lose their faith in the truth of Scripture, Father?"
          Caught in the pride of life, Man casts off sacred truths that God has given us for a warning and an instruction, just as he would throw away the peel of an orange. There is nothing more amazing in the history of the world than this careless conceit and mockery by man. It is like the vomiting of a drunken brute lying in the gutter of ignorance.
          "Father, another question?"
          "Yes, Son."

          "If the universe was created in seven days, as it tells us in Genesis, and Adam was created on the 6^th day, and he lived around 5000 BC, how could rocks on earth be 430 million years old or the earth be 4.6 billion years old?"
          They could not be that old if the "days" of creation are to be interpreted as meaning twenty-four hour days. But if that use of "day" referred to an indefinite period in God’s time, as expressed in, "a 1000 years is as a day to the Lord," then neither a 6 billion year old earth nor a 9 billion year old universe is challenged by Scripture. Trying to make the earth 7000 years old or even 20,000 makes an absolute joke out of geologic and astronomical facts. Phillip, in Scripture, phrases like, "in the day of Abraham" are used. This "day" referred to an indefinite time, not just 24 hours. Man has always used such an expression, even in the 20^th Century. The true interpretation of Scripture is not a mechanically literal interpretation that does not need the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or the common sense and knowledge that man is given by God otherwise.
          The order in which Creation came about in Genesis agrees with the sequential order with which astronomical objects appear and fossils of creatures appear. And the nine-mile thick layer of sedimentary rock found on the earth would easily take the estimated 630 million years (not 6 days) to be deposited at the observed rate of sedimentation for those various kinds of rock, which the earth is always forming by weather erosion and deposition. To form a mere 100 feet of sandstone or carbonate rock would take tens of millions of years.
          The diabolical human agents had their phony wise men interpret Scripture non-literally when it suited their aims and literally, as in this case, when that suited their aim – which was, in either case, to make the Bible seem unbelievable to intelligent, educated men.
          "So the enemy posed as Protestant fundamentalists defending Scripture against atheistic evolution?"
          Exactly so, Phillip. How better to lead men away from the many valid philosophical and scientific reasons why Evolution is an error, while making a pseudoscientific case for the unreasonableness of the creation account in Scripture. Christians are made out to be ignorant diehards, spurning scientific facts. A phony criterion for creating a false Christian identity was also cultivated by such unnecessary and foolish beliefs, as well as the pride and arrogant ignorance necessary to sustain such an identity.
          "I can see where the devil’s agents reaped a nice harvest by that fraud, Father."
          Before advanced science, this matter of the seven days may have been accepted as a possible interpretation by most in the Church out of simple ignorance of the scientific evidence to the contrary. For there is nothing impossible in God creating all things in seven 24-hour days. In fact, some theologians think the universe was created in eternity, in which case time has no relevance. But with all the geological evidence in, it was mainly the Fundamentalists or Protestant literalists who expounded this belief in the 7 days in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. They considered this a chance to stand out against popular opinion and the scientific establishment as valiant men of faith, a feather in their cap, with another sign that they alone were true to God’s word, which they limited to their interpretation of the Protestant Bible, as edited by Martin Luther and others, while leaving the whole problem of the Divine Authority on

Earth needed to compile Scripture to begin with and then rightly interpret it totally unsolved.
          Each heresy needs some exclusive, doctrinal error to separate it from other heresies and from the whole truth. The devil often creates heresy by pitting one lie against another greater lie, in order to make it appear good. For example, the Fundamentalists were one of the last Protestant sects manufactured, and they preached much that countered the moral laxity and theological corruption of the liberal or modernist heretics of their day, who were themselves, of course, another creation of the enemy. But this did not validate the principles of Fundamentalism. It just gave Fundamentalists a convenient scapegoat to flail with righteous indignation.
          One disproof of Evolution was the second Law of Thermodynamics which declared that all material things, life forms included, will inevitably disintegrate or return to dust if an outside energy source does not actively inform them. This means that nothing can continue to exist as it is except by the creative energy of God.
          Similarly, the law of dissolution and death is seen in all protest movements to the Divine Church; for they continue to divide and disintegrate because the outside energy source of God's Holy Spirit does not inform them with truth and life. God’s Church He continually fills with Life. It is not equivocally divided against itself, but remains one, integral and unchanged over time. And this is one proof of its being divine.
          By maintaining the preposterous seven 24-hour days of creation scenario, the Fundamentalists, initially at least, led by the enemy’s agent provocateurs, fueled the rush of many, who couldn’t buy this story, towards godlessness and into the camp of the Evolutionists. This was probably a well-planned maneuver by the atheists. Why else did it receive so much Press, which the enemy controlled almost totally. Another sign of the enemy's hand was that this Fundamentalist error of literalism was too readily assigned as the position of all those who believed in Creation.
          "Father, I agree that all this is a little more than suspicious."
          The question of creation versus evolution does not depend on a time frame anyway, Phillip. So the whole 7-day issue as framed was phony. A God who can bring all into existence can do so in time or eternity, and if in time, in 9 billion years or 2 seconds. What God could not do, however, is give concrete evidence of the ancient age of the universe in order to deceive us, while actually creating it in seven days. So, unwary Christians were steered towards the vortex of confusion, which eroded faith. In the latter times, logical thought, solid syllogistic arguments were considered junk food for the ancients.
          "How deep and pervasive this darkness seemed to be, Father. I am eager to begin the historical review of the world you promised to tell."
          You are right in pulling me back, Phillip. Your father is a great wanderer. I tend to screw my mind into problems in order to get to the roots, and then I wake up and wonder how to return to the trail I was following.
          I remember Phillip laughing heartily at this confession, and it gave me a glimmer of joy, which helped me continue on with renewed vigor.
          Let’s try to follow the essential thread or theme of history before Christ. This theme was the Promise, Son, the promise of a Redeemer, as first recorded in Genesis 3: 15. When speaking to the serpent (the devil), God said: "I will put enmity between you and the woman (Mary, the Mother of God) between your seed (Lucifer and the wicked)

and her seed (Jesus Christ and, by adoption, His followers); she shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for her heel." The Woman is Mary the Mother of God and, therefore, the Mother of the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ and the mother of God’s People. She crushes the head of Satan in every age through the power of her Son and His adopted brethren, her spiritual children. By the way, any Bible which has "he" in place of "she" in this passage is a corruption of the original.
          This promise of a holy offspring was repeated throughout history, Phillip, to Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, etc., because the Redeemer was also to be of their offspring in the flesh as patriarchs in the genealogical lineage of Christ. Spiritually, God’s People were always defined by their belief in and hope in the doctrine of this Great Promise as one given first to Adam by God Himself. The acceptance of this Promise was the root of Divine Faith, which was fulfilled in Faith in Jesus Christ and all He taught. By this root of Faith the Patriarchs were saved through the Baptism of Desire.
          And God said to Noe, "All that are on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you." God makes a solemn agreement and promise here with Noe, the just man, ‘serve me all the days of your life, and I will give life (that is God’s Life) to you and those descendants who follow your example in justice, which is obedience to My Law.’
          "Is this covenant and promise repeated in every generation then between God and those who know, love and serve Him?"
          Yes, Phillip, for He says to us, ‘obey My Law, My Word, and I promise you Heaven through the mediation of My Son.’ The People of the Promise are hated through the Envy of those who know they will not to obey God’s Law and to serve Him, even as their spiritual Father, Lucifer, also refused. Therefore, these reprobates, as such, cannot enter into the professed agreement or covenant with their Lord and Master. They are cut off from this living thread of history, though they may pound against the great hull of this Ark of the Covenant as they flounder in the terrible seas, drowning forever in its wake, as it passes over the ocean of time.
          In envy and hatred they war against the good, seeking to steal all goods from them, as if they could really enjoy them. This issue is the pulse of history on which we will try to keep our fingers. The good are robbed of their goods, their earthly peace and even their life. This theft causes pleasure in the reprobates, but eternal life in those who will not forsake their eternal goods in order to save these earthly goods stolen from them. This fidelity and perseverance of the elect, by the grace of Christ, is in a manner the "heel" that crushes the enemies’ head, that is, his pride.
          "And is not the great example of fidelity, Father, when Mary said, "I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word."
          You remember your lessons well, Phillip. And just as Mary’s fidelity and obedience caused her to be chosen to bear the Life of God within her, so too the follower of Christ carries on the life of God himself through those works that depend on his Faith in Christ.
          The "Sons of God", the term Genesis used for the spiritual progeny of Able and Seth, were keenly aware of what had been lost by Adam, their grandfather and great-grandfather. They must have personally spoken with Adam for up to 900 years! Oral tradition was so powerful a vehicle that all was only written down, finally, in the time of Moses, who wrote the first five books of Holy Scripture.

          Organized religion began soon after the Fall; for we read in Genesis "at this time men began to call upon God," a standard Hebrew phrase for worship. Cain and Abel offered sacrifice, calling upon God. But God answered only the just man, Abel. Cain, the firstborn, who did not "do well," was envious of Able. Envy is hatred of the good of another, which good is seen as an evil because the one who hates does not have that good.
          "But if I do not have some good, it does not make that good an evil, for I desire it as a good."
          But the envious hate that good they cannot have under the aspect of it being in the possession of another. Envy is the great sin which gives birth to many others. Next to pride itself, it is the greatest sin, I believe, and one that often exists undetected in the hearts of sinners. In wisdom 2:23 we read: "God created man incorruptible (before the Fall Adam would not have died) but by the envy of the devil, death came into the world."
          It must be remembered, as the Patriarchs well knew, that Adam spoke with God in the Garden. Therefore, what Adam passed on was of tremendous, most sacred authority.
          Oral tradition was powerful, for Adam spoke with Methuselah, who knew Sem, who lived in the days of Abram, whose son Isaac was a contemporary of Moses' father, Amram, so that only six persons might keep up the memory of thing that happened 2500 years before.
          These Patriarchs, known as the Sons of God, were those to whom God entrusted the Word of God, historically, literally, figuratively, physically, and spiritually. Those who mocked them were called the "Sons of Men," descended spiritually and probably physically for the most part from Cain. Notice, Phillip, that in Genesis it was after the "Sons of God" took the "Daughters of Men" in marriage that "the wickedness of man on earth was great" and God decided to send the Flood. In mixing good with evil, the good is contaminated.
          The bond of charity, which is the action of the Holy Spirit, unites God and the just man – but only through the merits and salvation of Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity become Man. Charity, the divine Love of God for God, the Personification or Spirit of the Love of the Father for the Son and of the Son for the Father, is the fire and breath of Life itself. Because of this Love, alone, all things came to be and live in existence. To have this Love is to have Sanctifying Grace, that is, God’s Life. Having it, man has the Promise of eternal life, the pearl of great price, for which a man will sell all that he has to obtain.
          The Promise of a Redeemer, and therefore, of this Divine Eternal Life was physically carried through ancient history to Christ's birth in the generative power of certain just men, and was called the Blessing for a Holy Offspring. This Blessing would bear final fruit in the Immaculate Conception, that is, the special, non-carnal generation of Mary, the Mother of God, the spotless, pure vessel, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle of the Promised Redeemer, who was the Mystical Fruit of the Tree of Life, which stood in the center of the Garden of Eden. For Mary offered to Jesus the material of purified and perfect human life, which God then animated with His Life. This union of God and Man in one person could not have taken place without the Blessing which provided the pure and perfect human mother.
          The body cannot be left out of Redemption, Phillip, for man is, by God’s design, a composite being made of both body and soul, matter and spirit. Their separation is, by

definition, death. They are lost together or saved together. This is why the Resurrection of the body is a necessary doctrine of Christianity.
          Mary made the offering of her immaculate body and soul to God, in behalf of mankind and in union with the charity of all just men of all times, for she was the perfection of all humanity, and therefore, the perfect representative of human good and the receptacle of God’s Life, God’s Mercy, God’s Goodness, Power, Knowledge, Wisdom … The Blessed Virgin Mary was God’s gift to us, His chosen Tabernacle. Though pretending to be truly Christian, any sect denigrates, de-emphasizes, dishonors or ignores the place of the Virgin Mary in Redemption is known to be a work of the devil, her mortal enemy, who wishes to generate insult to the Goodness of God and His means of Redemption.
          Phillip, the whole idea of Religion, of a Divine Liturgy (ritual of the word) is that man notes what God had done and what God wishes man to do in serving and worshipping Him. God wishes us to humbly intercede through His Saints, whom He has fashioned and used to bring us, in every age, to Salvation. His greatest instrument, promised to us in the beginning (in Genesis) is the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God! God demands that we use her to come to Him, just as He humbled Himself to come to us through her, His own creature. We must be like Him in humility. Therefore, in these end times, the devil was conquered only through the invocation of the Blessed Mother of God, that is, by the means God had supplied us. Our praying the Holy Rosary and wearing the Brown Scapular of Mt. Carmel (her habit), and through devotion to her Immaculate Heart we were united with her in prayer before God, she whom God could not refuse because she knew His Will. Those who invoked the intercession of Mary through the celebration of the Divine Mysteries contained in the Mass and the other devotions comprised the Army that defeated the antichrist and "crushed the head of the serpent" in the latter times.
          Those who were led away from the Church by the wiles of Satan’s agents had rejected Mary and the prayer of the Rosary, Mary’s Psalter, the parts of which we find recorded in Scripture itself. The Hail Mary prayer is virtually complete in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel: vs. 28 "And the angel being come in said to her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women." And the next line of the psalter reads, "and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." Vs. 31 says "Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus." The last lines of the Hail Mary are "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death." What person, who would seek the prayers of his neighbor in a time of need, could object to these lines.
          Consider how proud the devil is. Humiliation crushes him. And what humiliated him even more than being shown that God would become the God-Man and rule over him was that God would choose His Mother from among mere humanity to be the instrument for His first Advent and the crushing of Satan's head (which is synonymous with his pride).
          It takes true humility to recognize the Mother of God as God’s chosen instrument of salvation and, therefore, the Co-Redemptrix of Mankind, just as it takes true humility to accept the Divine Church, bearing its imperfect human crew and passengers, as God’s instrument for our Redemption.

          "It has always been taught, 'Outside the Church there is no salvation', Father. Why is it so hard for our pride to accept God's mediation to us through the Church and its priests and through Mary and the Saints?"
          Phillip, if your brother comes and tells you to do a work for me, is it harder for you to bear this than if I had come and commanded you myself?
          "It would be harder for my pride to bear it coming from my brother, Father."
          Then so too human pride pretends that it is too good to be approached by God's chosen instruments. Even when the owner of the vineyard sent his son, they killed him. What the proud will not admit, Phillip, is that they would secretly, at least, reject God the Father in person, if they would reject His Holy messengers and instruments. This is why they too will be condemned on the last day -- for the parable ends: 'what do you think the owner of the vineyard will do when he sees what these evil ones have done?'
          Here is another mystery for you to ponder, Phillip, one which a certain tradition hands down to us: though Man was created in time, on the 6^th day, the Mother of God must have existed in God from eternity. Femininity and motherhood represents fertility, the place in which something good can be planted and there be nourished and grow to viability. Is Mary eternal Wisdom incarnate as the language of the Book of Wisdom may suggest? For Wisdom is the perfect virtue that receives and nourishes, like a mother, the truth and love of God’s life.
          Let us return from our digression.
          "I love your digressions, Father. When you wander I experience the freedom of wondering. I see myself on a great journey, an adventure, led by the Spirit. Where I go I do not know. But I know I am led by God. My Faith breaks through all fear of the unknown; for I believe with all my heart that what I come to see on this journey will be a blessing to me."
          Tears welled in my eyes. I secretly wiped them away and waited to regain a steady voice before continuing. "And the skeptic would ask how you knew that you were being led by God and not by an evil spirit of error.
          "And I would answer him, when you are led by the Holy Spirit you know not where you go or how but that you are led by Him you do know, for He comes from within you, and not from without as would the imposter."
          This is called infused knowledge, Son. As good an answer as I could have given.
          The just, whom Mary represented before Christ were the Patriarchs and especially those who had passed on the Blessing. For remember, there would be enmity between the devil and "her" seed, that is, Mary’s seed, which also, by extension, means the just offspring of Eve whose end of fulfillment would be in Mary’s Immaculate Conception -- which led to the divine offspring. The New Eve, which name means "mother of all the living", is the Virgin Mary, truly the Spiritual Mother (since she is the Mother of the Saviour) of all the living, that is, of all those who have or will ever gain eternal life, which is the life of Her Son, which He gave to all who would believe in Him. He said, ‘I will give you my flesh to eat and my blood to drink so that you will have life within you that will never die.’
          Adam and his descendants knew they were under the sentence of death, for God had said to Adam, "In the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, since out of it you were taken; for dust you are and unto dust you shall return." In and of himself, as a mere creature, man is mortal. Nor does he even exist without God. It is God who is the end man was made to enjoy, who holds out to him super-natural life,

the life of God, which is not material or temporal. Man was made for union (Love) with God, and without a reunion after Adam's sin and separation from God, he cannot be happy; that is, he cannot arrive at his true end, the true reason why he exists, his final cause for being.
          To enter into the Covenant of the Promise Adam and all the just had to have Faith that they would live forever and not die spiritually if they rejected the works of the flesh, the lusts of their now fallen nature, a lust that appeared to be life. The spiritual descendants of Cain’s type did not have this Faith; therefore, they did not reject these works of lust.
          The great act of faithful work that God asks of each man who wishes to be saved is to hold his natural life, which has fallen from grace, in subjection to the supernatural life of God, which in the end will redeem his natural life and restore it and even elevate it above its original glory. But this requires a leap of faith, from the visible here and now to the invisible hereafter, seen through belief in the Word of God. We must reach up for God’s life.
          "So, by submitting our fallen nature to the God-Man's Nature, we will reestablish ourselves in the right order of Creation, Father?"
          In a higher order, actually, Son. God asks us to believe what we cannot see. This only is Faith. For the Beloved that we can see is not the subject of faith and hope but is the possession of enjoyment. Our joy on earth is contained in the Promise of our Faith. That Faith is, by analogy, the Ark of the Covenant that carries the hope and the promise of eternal life, the seed of Eternal Life. The tabernacle of the altar at Mass is made to resemble the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments. And the Ark was traditionally made to resemble the ark of Noe, in which God passed over him and those in it during the Flood. But in this tabernacle of the altar is Eternal Life Itself, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, hidden under the "veil" of the appearance of bread and wine. This veil is the test that continually exercises our Faith, which is not in seeing but in believing, on the Word of God. We cannot see this Life under the veil. It is ours only by Divine Faith, not the human faiths of those outside the True Church; for human faith is too weak to believe in the veiled Word of God, which is the only way the Word of God comes to us in this life. For no one in this life can look upon God as God and live.
          Those who eat the Holy Eucharist without Faith, eat as if it were only what it appears to be, bread and wine; and they eat and drink unto damnation, as Scripture declares.
          "Father, do you think Protestants and Neo-Protestants or Modernists rejected the Eucharist and the role of the Mother of God and her glory because they could not humble themselves before these mysteries?"
          Yes, Phillip, I do. Pride balks at submission to a superior, but so much more to one inferior by nature, as bread is to God or as a woman is to a man. Many who tested God by their protest of His way demeaned the dignity of women. Only the People of God throughout history have honored women as they should be, without giving them authority over men. But the devil errs one way or the other, either by enshrining woman as a lustful goddess of love, or in modern times, as man's equal or even superior, or by degrading her as man's slave, as in times past. God confounded these errors with His Holy Mother.

          The role of woman was perfected in Mary. Being the weaker vessel, the helpmate of Man, Eve should not have led Adam by suggesting he eat of the forbidden fruit. This was not her place; a woman’s place is to follow. And so, "to Adam God said, ‘Because you have listened to your wife (instead of Me) … cursed be the ground because of you; in toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life…’ And to Eve God said, ‘he, your man,’ "shall have dominion over you." The weakness of Eve is in every woman, and it rebels against this corrective command of submission, which God gave for the good of woman and of man. The devil has always sought to use this rebelliousness to snare mankind and snatch away eternal life. The arrogance of woman under Satan’s influence appeared literally, stark naked, in the latter times, Phillip.
          It is also good to recall in this matter what God said, "It is not good that the man is alone; I will make him a helper like himself." Woman was created to follow man and help him, and she was made from man. This implies, as we are taught, that she is, in some sense, incomplete while he is complete though both need the help of the other. Woman is contained in man, not the other way around. Even genetic evidence shows this subjugation in the material order. (Female = 2 "x" chromosomes; Male = one "x" and one "y" chromosome. The male has what the female does not, but not vice versa.)
          "So you are saying, Father, there is both a created primogeniture in man, a natural superiority and authority and also a divinely commanded authority for the subjection of woman to the leadership and rule of man."
          Yes. And rebellion and sin ensue when this order is broken, as the 20^th century so sadly proved. But this subjection of woman is not to be understood as an arbitrary, despotic, total subjugation of woman to man; for spiritually, woman stands beside man before God, for both were made in God's image and likeness. But, the hierarchical order God does establish must be honored, or there will be evil to contend with.
          "Father, several hours ago you seemed ready to read to me from the Life of Christ by Sr. Emmerich. My interest wishes to lead you …"
          … from my wanderings. Thank you again, Phillip – no, I mean it. Thank you. We could be here till the end of the world if you fail to reel me in once in a while.
          What I am about to read to you does not have a substitute, for these are the words of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich describing what God showed only her in vision and understanding concerning our first parents. Phillip, this is the dramatic question of all history, the answer to which determines man’s actions: Will man allow himself to be impregnated by God’s Life; will man be passive to God’s creative power; or, will man try, in vain, to seize the active role and try to rule himself and creatures by his own self-guided will. Will he be like Eve or like Mary, like Adam or like Christ?
          Consider this analogy, Son, as a preface to our readings. If I have a son who follows my direction, my will in all good things, I will give him authority and possession and enjoyment over all I have. He will be the instrument of my power and my will, an extension of me; so that in a certain sense I will share with him the very life within me. But if I have a son who is self-willed, disobedient to my will, deaf to my direction, or dull in heeding it, I cannot use him as my own instrument. I will give him a corrective penance and only what he needs to sustain life so his pride will not soar even higher; for I want him, in yearning to live without the earthly comforts he tends to love too much, to return to me, as the prodigal son did in the parable Jesus preached. For my heart yearns

for what I have pro-created. This is how God had to treat with our first parents and the whole human race.
          Let me read this true, mystical vision of our first parents:

          Paradise is still in existence, but it is utterly impossible for man to reach it. I have seen that it still exists in all its splendor. It is high above the earth and in an oblique direction from it, like the dark globe of the angels fallen from heaven.
          I saw Adam created, not in Paradise, but in the region in which Jerusalem was subsequently situated. I saw him come forth glittering and white from a mound of yellow earth, as if out of a mould. The sun was shining and I thought (I was only a child when I saw it) that the sunbeams drew Adam out of the hillock. He was, as it were, born of the virgin-earth. God blessed the earth, and it became his mother. He did not instantly step forth from the earth. Some time elapsed before his appearance. He lay in the hillock on his left side, his arm thrown over his head, a light vapor covering him as with a veil. I saw a figure in his right side, and I became conscious that it was Eve, and that she would be drawn from him in Paradise by God. God called him. The hillock opened, and Adam stepped gently forth. There were no trees around, only little flowers. I had seen the animals also, coming forth from the earth in pure singleness, the females separate from the males.
          And now I saw Adam borne upon high to a garden, to Paradise.
          God led all the animals before him in Paradise, and he named them. They followed him and gamboled around him, for all things served him before he sinned. All that he named, afterward followed him to earth. Eve had not yet been formed from him.
          I saw Adam in Paradise among the plants and flowers, and not far from the fountain that played in its centre. He was awaking, as if from sleep. Although his person was more like to flesh than to spirit, yet he was dazzlingly white. He wondered at nothing, nor was he astonished at his own existence. He went around among the trees and the animals, as if he were used to them all, like a man inspecting his fields.
          Near the tree by the water arose a hill. On it I saw Adam reclining on his left side, his left hand under his cheek. God sent a deep sleep on him and he was rapt in vision. Then from his right side, from the same place in which the side of Jesus was opened by the lance, God drew Eve. I saw her small and delicate. But she quickly increased in size until full grown. She was exquisitely beautiful. Were it not for the Fall, all would be born in the same way, in tranquil slumber.
          The hill opened, and at Adam’s side arose a crystalline rock, formed apparently of precious stones. At Eve’s lay a white valley covered with something like fine white pollen.
          When Eve had been formed, I saw that God gave something, or allowed something to flow upon Adam. It was as if there streamed from the Godhead, apparently in human form, currents of light from forehead, mouth, breast, and hands. They united into a globe of light, which entered Adam’s right side whence Eve had been taken. Adam alone received it. It was the germ of God’s Blessing, which was threefold. The Blessing that Abraham received from the angel was one. It was of similar form, but not so luminous. Eve arose before Adam, and he gave her his hand. They were like two unspeakably noble and beautiful children, perfectly luminous, and clothed with beams of light as with a veil. From Adam’s mouth I saw issuing a broad stream of glittering light, and upon his forehead was an expression of great majesty. Around his mouth played a sunbeam, but there was none around Eve’s. I saw Adam’s heart very much the same as in men of the present day, but his breast was surrounded by rays of light. In the middle of his heart, I saw a sparkling halo of glory. In it was a tiny figure as if holding something in its hand. I think it symbolized the Third Person of the Godhead. From the hands and feet of Adam and Eve, shot rays of light. Their hair fell in five glittering tresses, two from the temples, two behind the ears, and one from the back of the head.
          I have always thought that by the Wounds of Jesus there were opened anew in the human body portals closed by Adam’s sin. I have been given to understand that Longinus opened in Jesus’ Side the gate of regeneration to eternal life, therefore no one entered heaven while that gate was closed.
          The glittering beams on Adam’s head denoted his abundant fruitfulness, his glory, his connection with other radiations. And all this shining beauty is restored to glorified souls and bodies. Our hair is the ruined, the extinct glory; and as is this hair of ours to rays of light, so is our present flesh to that of Adam before the Fall. The sunbeams around Adam’s mouth bore reference to a holy posterity from God, which, had it not been for the Fall, would have been effectuated by the spoken word.

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          Adam stretched forth his hand to Eve. They left the charming spot of Eve’s creation and went through Paradise, looking at everything, rejoicing in everything. That place was the highest in Paradise. All was more radiant, more resplendent than elsewhere.
          In the centre of the glittering garden, I saw a sheet of water in which lay an island connected with the opposite land by a pier. Both island and pier were covered with beautiful trees, but in the middle of the former stood one more magnificent than the others. It towered high over them as if guarding them. Its roots extended over the whole island as did also its branches, which were broad below and tapering to a point above. Its boughs were horizontal, and from them arose others like little trees. The leaves were fine, the fruit yellow and sessile in a leafy calyx like a budding rose. It was something like a cedar. I do not remember ever having seen Adam, Eve, or any animal near that tree on the island. But I saw beautiful noble looking white birds and heard them singing in its branches. That Tree was the Tree of Life.
          Just before the pier that led to the island, stood the Tree of Knowledge. The trunk was scaly like that of the palm. The leaves, which spread out directly from the stem, were very large and broad, in shape like the sole of a shoe. Hidden in the forepart of the leaves, hung the fruit clustering in fives, one in front, and four around the stem. The yellow fruit had something of the shape of an apple, though more of the nature of a pear or fig. It had five ribs uniting in a little cavity. It was pulpy like a fig inside, of the color of brown sugar, and streaked with blood-red veins. The tree was broader above than below, and its branches struck deep roots into the ground. I see a species of this tree still in warm countries. Its branches throw down shoots to the earth where they root and rise as new trunks. These in turn send forth branches, and so one such tree often covers a large tract of country. Whole families dwell under the dense foliage.
          At some distance to the right of the Tree of Knowledge, I saw a small, oval, gently sloping hill of glittering red grains and all kinds of precious stones. It was terraced with crystals. Around it were slender trees just high enough to intercept the view. Plants and herbs grew around it and they like the trees bore colored blossoms and nutritious fruits.
          At some distance to the left of the Tree of Knowledge, I saw a slope, a little dale. It looked like soft clay, or like mist, and it was covered with tiny white flowers and pollen. Here too were various kinds of vegetation, but all colorless, more like pollen than fruit.
          It seemed as if these two, the hill and the dale, bore some reference to each other, as if the hill had been taken out of the dale, or as if something from the former was to be transplanted into the latter. They were to each other what the seed is to the field. Both seemed to me holy, and I saw that both, but especially the hill, shone with light. Between them and the Tree of Knowledge, arose different kinds of trees and bushes. They were all, like everything else in nature, transparent as if formed of light.
          These two places were the abodes of our first parents. The Tree of Knowledge separated them. I think that God, after the creation of Eve, pointed out those places to them.
          I saw that Adam and Eve were little together at first. I saw them perfectly free from passion, each in a separate abode. The animals were indescribably noble looking and resplendent, and they served Adam and Eve. All had, according to their kind, certain retreats, abodes, and walks apart. The different spheres contained in themselves some great mystery of the Divine Law, and all were connected with one another.
          I saw Adam and Eve walking though Paradise for the first time. The animals ran to meet and follow them, but they appeared to be more familiar with Eve than with Adam. Eve was in fact more taken up with the earth and created things. She glanced below and around more frequently than Adam. She appeared the more inquisitive of the two. Adam was more silent, more absorbed in God. Among the animals was one that followed Eve more closely than the others. It was a singularly gentle and winning, though artful creature. I know of none other to which I might compare it. It was slender and glossy, and it looked as if it had no bones. It walked upright on is short hind feet, its pointed tail trailing on the ground.. Near the head, which was round with a face exceedingly shrewd, it had little short paws, and its wily tongue was ever in motion. The color of the neck, breast, and under part of the body was pale yellow, and down the back it was a mottled brown very much the same as an eel. It was about as tall as a child of ten years. It was constantly around Eve, and so coaxing and intelligent, so nimble and supple that she took great delight in it. But to me there was something horrible about it. I can see it distinctly even now. I never saw it touch either Adam or Eve. Before the Fall, the distance between man and the lower animals was great, and I never saw the first human beings touch any of them. They had, it is true, more confidence in man, but they kept at a certain distance from him.
          When Adam and Eve returned to the region of shining light, a radiant Figure like a majestic man with glittering hair stood before them. He pointed around, and in few words appeared to be giving all things over to them and to be commanding them something. They did not look intimidated, but listened to

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him naturally. When he vanished, they appeared more satisfied, more happy. They appeared to understand things better, to find more order in things, for now they felt gratitude, but Adam more than Eve. She thought more of their actual bliss and of the things around them than of thanking for them. She did not rest in God so perfectly as did Adam, her soul was more taken up with created things. I think Adam and Eve went around Paradise three times.
          Again I saw Adam on the shining hill upon which God had formed the woman from a rib of his side as he lay buried in sleep. He stood alone under the trees lost in gratitude and wonder. I saw Eve near the tree of Knowledge, as if about to pass it, and with her that same animal more wily and sportive than ever. Eve was charmed with the serpent, she took great delight in it. It ran up the Tree of Knowledge until its head was on a line with hers. Then clinging to the trunk with its hind feet, it moved its head toward hers and told her that, if she would eat of the fruit of that tree, she would no longer be in servitude, she would become free, and understand how the multiplication of the human race was to be effected. Adam and Eve had already received the command to increase and multiply, but I understood that they did not know as yet how God willed it to be brought about. I saw too that had they known it and yet sinned after that knowledge, Redemption would not have been possible. Eve now became more thoughtful. She appeared to be moved by desire for what the serpent had promised. Something degrading took possession of her. It made me feel anxious. She glanced toward Adam, who was still quietly standing under the trees. She called him, and he came.
          Eve started to meet him, but turned back. There was a restlessness, a hesitancy about her movements. Again she started, as if intending to pass the tree, but once more hesitated, approached it from the left, and stood behind it screened by its long pendent leaves. The tree was broader above than below, and its wide leafy branches drooped to the ground. Just within Eve’s reach hung a remarkably fine bunch of fruit.
          And now Adam approached. Eve caught him by the arm and pointed to the talking animal, and he listened to its words. When Eve laid her hand on Adam’s arm, she touched him for the first time. He did not touch her, but the splendor around them grew dim.
          I saw the animal pointing to the fruit, but he did not venture to snap it off for Eve. But when the longing for it arose in her heart, he broke off and handed her the central and most beautiful piece of the clustering five.
          And now I saw Eve draw near to Adam, and offer him the fruit. Had he refused it, sin would not have been committed. I saw the fruit break, as it were, in Adam’s hand. He saw pictures in it, and it was as if he and Eve were instructed upon what they should not have known. The interior of the fruit was blood-red and full of veins. I saw Adam and Eve losing their brilliancy and diminishing in stature. It was as if the sun went down. The animal glided down the tree, and I saw it running off on all fours.
          I did not see the fruit taken into the mouth as we now take food in eating, but it disappeared between Adam and Eve.
          I saw that while the serpent was still in the tree, Eve sinned, for her consent was with the temptation. I learned also at that moment what I can not clearly repeat; namely, that the serpent was, as it were, the embodiment of Adam and Eve’s will, a being by which they could do all things, could attain all things. Here it was that Satan entered.
          Sin was not completed by eating the forbidden fruit. But that fruit from the tree which, rooting its branches in the earth thus sent out new shoots, which continued to do the same after the Fall, conveyed the idea of a more absolute propagation, a sensual implanting in self at the cost of separation from God. So, along with disobedience, there sprang from their indulgence that severing of the creature from God, that planting in self and through self those selfish passions in human nature. He that used the fruit solely for the enjoyment it affords, must accept as the consequence of his act the subversion, the debasement of nature as well as sin and death.
          The blessing of a pure and holy multiplying out of God and by God, which Adam had received after the creation of Eve was, in consequence of that indulgence, withdrawn from him; for I saw that the instant Adam left his hill to go to Eve, the Lord grasped him in the back and took something from him. From that something, I felt that the world’s salvation would come.
          Once on the Feast of the Holy and Immaculate Conception, God gave me a vision of that mystery. I saw enclosed in Adam and Eve the corporal and spiritual life of all mankind. I saw that by the Fall it became corrupted, mixed up with evil, and that the bad angels had acquired power over it. I saw the Second Person of the Godhead come down and, with something like a crooked blade, take the Blessing from

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Adam before he had sinned. At the same instant, I saw the Virgin issuing from Adam’s side like a little luminous cloud, and soaring all resplendent up to God.
          By the reception of the fruit, Adam and Eve became, as it were, intoxicated, and their consent to sin wrought in them a great change. It was the serpent in them. Its nature pervaded theirs, and then came the tares among the wheat.
          …Marriage is a state of penance.
          …Adam and Eve before sin were very differently constituted from what we, poor, miserable creatures now are. With the reception of the forbidden fruit, they imbibed a material existence. Spirit became matter; flesh, an instrument, a vessel. At first they were one in God, they sought self in God; but afterward they stood apart from God in their own will. And this self-will is self-seeking, a lusting after sin and impurity. By eating the forbidden fruit, man turned away from his Creator. It was as if he drew creation into himself. All creative power, operations, and attributes, their commingling with one another and with all nature, became in man material things of different forms and functions.
          Once man was endowed with the kingship of nature, but now all in him has become nature. He is now one of its slaves, a master conquered and fettered. He must now struggle and fight with nature – but I cannot clearly express it. It was as if man once possessed all things in God, their Creator and their Centre; but now he made himself their centre, and they became his master.
          …Man was created to fill the choirs of the fallen angels. Were it not for the Fall of Adam, the human race would have increased only till the number of the fallen angels was reached, and then the world would have come to an end. Had Adam and Eve lived to see even one sinless generation, they would not have fallen. I am certain that the world will last until the number of the fallen angels has been filled, until the wheat shall have been reaped from the chaff.
          …The first man was an image of God, he was like heaven; all was one in him, all was one with him. His form was a reproduction of the Divine Prototype. He was destined to possess and to enjoy earth and all created things, but holding them from God and giving thanks for them. Man was however free; therefore, was he subjected to trial, therefore was he forbidden to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.
          …Mankind at first numbered two, then three, and at last they became innumerable. They had been images of God; but after the Fall, they became images of self, which images originated in sin.

          Sr. Emmerich saw the Blessing for a pure and holy offspring, which was given to Adam and taken back before his Fall "descending from first-born to first-born, and always transmitted with a sacramental action … I saw the transmitting of this Mystery through the ancestry of Jesus Christ down to Joachim and Anne (the parents of the Virgin Mary) the purest and holiest couple who ever existed …" "in order that Mary might be as pure and stainless in her conception as was Eve upon coming forth from the side of the sleeping Adam." "I saw Mary become the living Ark of God’s New Covenant." As the Mother of Christ, she is the mother of His Church, the Bride of Christ wherein His Holy Union with Mankind resides.
          Phillip, the living Ark after Christ’s death is the One, Holy, Catholic Church, which bears within it, Jesus, the salvation of the whole world. By its seven sacred acts, the Sacraments, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son works through the Church to save us. Mary bore Christ within her as His Mother, but the Church is united to Christ as a bride to the groom, so that other Christs (Christians) are borne of this union. The Church bears children of the Promise in those who are conceived by it in Baptism. The Church was conceived when on the cross Jesus gave to His disciple John His own Mother, and to Mary, John. It was born when the lance pierced Jesus' Sacred Heart. And this Holy Catholic Church made its epiphany or was manifested on Pentecost Day when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and Mary.
           As I spoke those words I looked at Phillip with love. It seemed that we were spiritually elevated in a holy moment. I remember the sweet and mysterious silence that followed. Then we must have fallen asleep before the glowing coals of the hearth.

          The next morning was especially cold. We huddled close to the fire with our cups of tea in both hands. "What I am now to tell you, Phillip, may shock you somewhat. It is a mystery I have tried to prepare you for yesterday. Let your Faith precede you as I explain the Blessing. The Blessing for a pure and holy offspring was the preserved actuality of the original plan of God for mankind to conceive offspring without carnal intercourse. This Blessing finally came to fruition in the Immaculate Conception of Mary by Joachim and Anne, her parents, without carnal intercourse being involved. Let us read again from The Life of Christ by Sr. Emmerich.

          "When Anne had long besought God not to separate her from Joachim, her pious husband, although he had been pleased to deprive her of children, an angel appeared to her. He hovered above her in the air. He told her to set her heart at rest, for the Lord had heard her prayer; that she should on the following morning go with two of her maid-servants to the Temple of Jerusalem; that there under the Golden Gate, entering by the side of the valley of Josaphat, she should meet Joachim, who was even now on his way thither, that Joachim’s offering would be accepted that his prayer would be heard, that he (the angel) had appeared also to him. The angel likewise directed Anne to take some doves with her as an offering, and promised that the name of the child she was soon to conceive should be made known to her.
          Anne thanked the Lord and returned to the house. When, after her lengthy prayer, she lay on her couch asleep I saw light descending upon her. It surrounded her, yes, even penetrated her. I saw her, upon an interior perception, tremblingly awake and sit upright. Near her, to the right, she saw a luminous figure writing on the wall in large, shining Hebrew characters. I read and understood the writing word for word. It was to this effect that she should conceive, that the fruit of her womb should be altogether special, and that the Blessing received by Abraham was to be the source of this conception. I saw Anne’s anxiety as to how she should communicate all that to Joachim; but the angel reassured her by telling her of Joachim’s vision. I received then a clear explanation of Mary's Immaculate Conception. I saw that, in the Ark of the Covenant, a Sacrament of the Incarnation, of the Immaculate Conception, a Mystery for the restoration of fallen humanity was contained. I saw Anne, with surprise and joy, reading the red and golden letters of this luminous writing. Her gladness increased to such a degree that, when she arose to set out for Jerusalem, she looked far younger than before. I saw on Anne’s person at the instant the angel appeared to her a beam of light and in her a shining vessel I cannot better describe it than by saying that it was like a cradle, or a tabernacle which had been closed but was now opened, and made ready to receive a holy thing. How wonderfully I saw this, is not to be expressed; for I saw it as if it were the cradle of salvation for the whole human race, and also as a kind of sacred vessel now opened, and the veil withdrawn, I saw it quite naturally as if one and the same holy thing.
          I saw too the apparition of the angel to Joachim. The angel commanded him to take his offering up to the Temple, promised that his prayer should be heard, and told him that he should pass under the Golden Gate. At this announcement, Joachim was troubled. He felt very timid about going again to the Temple. But the angel assured him that the priests had already been enlightened with regard to him.
          … The angel now removed something from the Ark of the Covenant, though without opening the door. It was the Mystery of the Ark, the Sacrament of the Incarnation, the Immaculate Conception, the Consummation of the Blessing of Abraham. I beheld it under the appearance of a luminous body. The angel blessed or anointed Joachim’s forehead with the tip of his thumb and forefinger; then he slipped the shining body under Joachim’s garment and it entered into him, how I cannot say. He also gave him something to drink out of a glittering chalice which he held supported by two fingers. The chalice was of the same shape as that used at the Last Supper, but without a foot. Joachim was directed to take it with him and keep it at his home.

          Those who carried the Blessing and those united to them by justice are the subject matter of the Old Testament. In an unbroken genealogical thread, the history of the Sons of God and then the "People of God" begun under Moses’ leadership is recorded in the story of our salvation as a spiritual race. Noe and Abraham in Babylon, and the Israelites in Egypt were each about to be overwhelmed by the diabolical paganism around them. Satan had worked his spell on men and was set to destroy these human vessels that could, in token of their righteousness and Faith, carry the Blessing. Satan wanted to wipe out the

human transmission of the Blessing. So God Himself, in a miraculous way, comes to rescue them and to cleanse the earth of wickedness. And He did this for His remnant on the grandest scale in the "Day of the Lord," Phillip.
          "It appears, Father, that the salvation of the world has often hung upon the thread of a single man’s or single nation’s fidelity to God."
          Yes, there does seem to be this real life drama, both before and after Christ’s first advent. Likewise, the salvation of every man hangs upon the final perseverance of his fidelity to God – not necessarily flawless fidelity, but that of one who, though frail, always returns by repentance to God in the end.
          Imagine the Blessing passing from Noah to his first-born son, Sem, the father of the Semetic race from which Jesus would be born. Ham became the father of the black race and Japeth of the white race. Those few cultures in my time, Phillip, who had preserved ancient records of their genealogy could easily, even in the year 2000 AD, trace their ancestors to one of these three men. That the 6 billion people living in 2000 AD had been generated from one man in the intervening 6963 years is easily computed. Yet most modern, "educated" men in that year believed they had descended from apes!
          "Father! That men would believe that seems both laughable and sickening."
          Evolution demands such a connection, Phillip. Eventually, by its twisted thinking one must conclude that our ancestors are one-celled animals. But a great 20^th century geneticist named Glass, studying all peoples, said that all women could be traced to a single woman and all men to a later single man. The man was Noah; the woman would have been the common matriarch of the wives of Noah’s three sons. This genetic evidence disproves the "evolution" of man from a race of ape-men descended from apes. And Glass' distinct genetic line of women versus men hints at the separate creation of a first man and a first woman.
          "Apes, Father!?"
          In Scripture it is called the "operation of error", Son. When justice is willfully expelled from a soul’s life, and it lives in habitual unrepented sin, the intellect cannot apprehend the truth, for though it is naturally capable of doing so, the will, due to sin, is sick and perversely forbids reason to deliberate on or assent to the truth as the good that it really is, that is, as the truth. This is a sin against the Holy Spirit, which always involves malice, or bad will. This explains why the wicked can see but not see, hear but not hear. Wickedness blinds a man from the truth, no matter how much the truth is proved logically, or how great is the authority or sign attesting to the truth. There is a stopping of the ears, a refusal to concede even what is obvious. If God Himself stood before them performing miracles, as Jesus did, they would not believe. The problem is inside, in their mind and heart, not outside them in the lack of evidence or persuasive logic. Jesus said, ‘if they will not believe you, my followers, they will not believe me.’
          "Father, before the Second Coming was the spiritual condition of mankind like it was just before the flood?"
          Yes, but the graces given to man in the last age were much clearer and more convincing for men than at any time since Paradise, and the conflict between good and evil before the Final Judgement will be even more strikingly unequivocal, for spiritual things, as they are now, will be more manifest to the senses. And the more clear and irrefutable the truth which is rejected, the greater the evil done in rejecting it.

          "Perhaps in these latter times all will become more spiritualized, as if we were heading in the direction of Paradise where Adam and Eve were."
          Perhaps.
          "Father, some say that this time we live in and this renewed earth is Heaven, and that when Jesus came upon the clouds of Heaven, that was the final judgement."
          At this final judgement, Phillip, Apocalypse 20:11 tells us that the heavens and the earth will pass away and will be no more and that all the dead will rise, but neither of these things happened after the Second Coming of Christ. These false prophets you speak of, who say heaven is here, beware of them, for they are the kind who will lead men astray again by their errors, saying, since this is Heaven, you are now free to do as you please; you are a god. The Mormons, the New Agers and other utopian sects such as the Jehovah Witnesses prophecied similarly because their mentor, Satan, knew that this age we are in would appear wonderful. He always mocks the truth, repeating it with a twist of error. This is not Heaven, for we still labor for our daily bread. This time we live in is still a material place. Heaven is in eternity, where time and place and matter do not exist. Our only heaven here is the peace of the kingdom of Christ which reigns in our hearts and is evidenced in our mutual charity. It is a spiritual foretaste of Heaven.
          Again we are beginning to feel the call of sleep, Son. Let us retire, but awake early and hurry on through the ages with our story. Already we will have to send word to your mother by one of the shepherds that we will be delayed a week, and ask her if she needs anything in the meantime.
          After we broke fast the next morning, I pocketed a book and we walked along the mountain rim for miles. I continued to the best of my limited knowledge to summarize the view of history in which I saw the struggle of our salvation amidst the ongoing battle with the forces of Satan on earth, which would end in the "War of the Spirits," and the Second American Revolutionary War, which was part of WWIII -- one battle, a battle in which I had fought as one of the commanders under the generalship of St. Michael the Archangel.
          "Father, if Sr. Emmerich saw many interesting things in her visions of Adam and Eve, can we read more of this today?"
          Yes, I will read more about the "Promise and the Blessing which we discussed yesterday. It will help you understand much better.

          After the Fall of Man, God made known to the angels His plan for the restoration of the human race.
          I saw the throne of God. I saw the Most Holy Trinity and a movement in the Divine Persons. I saw the nine choirs of angels and God announcing to them the way by which He would restore the fallen race. I saw the inexpressible joy and jubilation of the angels at the announcement.
          I saw Adam’s glittering rock of precious stones arise before the throne of God, as if borne up by angels. It had steps cut in it, it increased in size, it became a throne, a tower, and it extended on all sides until it embraced all things. I saw the nine choirs of angels around it, and above the angels in heaven, I saw the image of the Virgin. It was not Mary in time; it was Mary in eternity, Mary in God. The Virgin entered the tower, which opened to receive her, and she appeared to become one with it. Then I saw issuing from the Most Holy Trinity an apparition which likewise went into the tower.
          Among the angels, I noticed a kind of ostensorium at which all were working. It was in shape like a tower, and on it were all kinds of mysterious carving. Near it on either side stood two figures, their joined hands embracing it. At every instant it became larger and more magnificent. I saw something from God passing through the angelic choirs and going into the ostensorium. It was a shining Holy thing, and it became more clearly defined the nearer it drew to the ostensorium. It appeared to me to be the germ of the divine Blessing for a pure offspring which had been given to Adam, but withdrawn when he was on the

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point of hearkening to Eve and consenting to eat the forbidden fruit. It was the Blessing that was again bestowed upon Abraham, withdrawn from Jacob, by Moses deposited in the Ark of the Covenant, and lastly received by Joachim, the father of Mary, in order that Mary might be as pure and stainless in her conception as was Eve upon coming forth from the side of the sleeping Adam. The ostensorium likewise went into the tower.
          … Then I saw in pictures the mystery of Redemption from the Promise down to the fulness of time, and in side pictures I saw counteracting influences at work. At last over the shining rock, I saw a large and magnificent church. It was the One, Holy, Catholic Church, which bears living in itself the salvation of the whole world.
          …At last, I saw a vision on earth such as God had shown to Adam; viz., that a Virgin would arise and restore to him the salvation he had forfeited. Adam knew not when it would take place, and I saw his deep sadness because Eve bore him only sons. But at last she had a daughter.
          I saw Noe and his sacrifice at the time in which he received from God the Blessing. Then I had visions of Abraham, of his Blessing, and of the promise of a son Isaac. I saw the Blessing descending from first-born to first-born, and always transmitted with a sacramental action. I saw Moses on the night of Israel’s departure from Egypt, getting possession of the Mystery, the Holy thing, of which none other knew save Aaron. I saw it afterward in the Ark of the Covenant. Only the High Priests and certain saints by a revelation from God had any knowledge of it. I saw the transmitting of this Mystery through the ancestry of Jesus Christ down to Joachim and Anne, the purest and holiest couple that ever existed, and from whom was born Mary, the spotless Virgin. And then I saw Mary become the living Ark of God’s Covenant.
          After some time, I saw Adam and Eve wandering about in great distress. They were no longer beaming with light, and they went about, one here, the other there, as if seeking something they had lost. They were ashamed of each other. Every step they took led them downward, as if the ground gave way beneath their feet. They carried gloom wherever they went; the plants lost their bright colors and turned grey, and the animals fled before them. They sought large leaves and wove them into a cincture for their loins. They always wandered about separate.
          After they had thus fled for a considerable time, the region of refulgent light whence they had come began to look like the summit of a distant mountain. Among the bushes of a gloomy looking plain, they hid themselves, but apart. Then a voice from above called them, but they would not obey the call. They were frightened, they fled still further, and hid still deeper among the bushes. It made me sad to see that. But the voice became more imperative and, in spite of their desire to flee and hide, they were compelled to come forth.
          The majestic Figure shining with light again appeared. Adam and Eve with bowed head stepped from their hiding places, but they dare not look upon their Lord. They glanced at each other, and both acknowledged their guilt. And now God pointed out to them a plain still lower than the one on which they stood. On it were bushes and trees. On reaching it, they became humble and, for the first time, rightly understood their miserable condition. I saw them praying when left there alone. They separated, fell on their knees, and raised up their hands with tears and cries. I thought as I gazed upon them how good it is to be alone in prayer.
          Adam and Eve were at this time clothed in a garment that reached from the shoulders to the knee, and which was girded at the waist by a strip of the inner bark of a tree.
          … Adam and Eve had been only one day in Paradise. I now see Paradise far, far off like a strip of land directly under the point of sunrise.
          … I saw Adam and Eve reach the earth, their place of penance. Oh, what a touching sight! – those two creatures expiating their fault upon the naked earth! Adam had been allowed to bring an olive branch with him from Paradise, and now he planted it. Later on, the Cross was made from its wood.
          … It was to the region of Mount Olivet that I saw Adam and Eve come. The country was very different from what it is at present, but I was assured that it was the same. I saw Adam and Eve living and doing penance on that part of Mount Olivet upon which Jesus sweat blood. They cultivated the soil. I saw them surrounded by sons. They were in great distress, and they implored God to bestow upon them a daughter, for they had received the Promise that the woman’s seed should crush the serpent’s head.
          Eve bore children at stated intervals. After each birth a number of years was always devoted to penance. It was after seven years of penance that Seth, the child of promise, was born of Eve in the Grotto of the Crib, where, also, an angel announced to Eve that Seth was the seed given her by God in the place of Abel. For a long time, Seth was concealed in that Grotto, likewise in the cave in which Abraham was afterward suckled, for his brothers like those of Joseph sought his life.

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          Once I saw about twelve people: Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, two sisters, and some young children. All were clothed in skins thrown over their shoulders like a scapular and girded at the waist. The female dress was large and full around the breast where it served as a pocket. It fell down around the limbs, and was fastened at the sides and once under the arm. The men wore shorter dresses, which had a pocket fastened to them. The skins from which their dresses were made were, from the neck to the elbow, exceedingly fine and white. They all looked very noble and beautiful in their clothing. They had huts in those days, partly sunk in the earth and covered with plants. Their household was quite well arranged. I saw orchards of low, but tolerably vigorous fruit trees. There was grain also, such as wheat, which God had given to Adam for seed.
          I do not remember having seen either grapevines or wheat in Paradise. None of the productions of Paradise had to be prepared for eating. Such preparation is a consequence of sin and, therefore, a symbol of labor and suffering. God gave to Adam whatever it was necessary for him to sow. I remember having seen men who looked like angels, taking something to Noe when he went into the ark. It appeared to me to be a vine branch stuck in an apple.
          A certain kind of grain grew wild at that time, and among it Adam had to sow the good wheat. That improved it for awhile, but it again degenerated and became worse and worse. The wild grain was excellent in those early times. It was most luxuriant further to the east, in India or China, where as yet there were but few inhabitants. It does not thrive where wine is largely made and fish abound.
          The milk of animals was drunk in those days, and they likewise ate cheese dried in the sun. Among the animals, I noticed sheep in particular. All that Adam had named followed him from Paradise, but afterward they fled from him. He had to entice them back with food, that is the domestic animals, and familiarize them to himself. I saw birds hopping about, little animals running around, and all sorts of bounding creatures, such as antelopes, deer, etc.
          The household order was quite patriarchal. I saw Adam’s children in their separate huts, reclining around a stone at meals. I saw them also praying and giving thanks.
          God had taught Adam to offer sacrifice; he was the priest in his family. Cain and Abel also were priests. I saw that even the preparation for their sacrifice took place in a separate hut.
          On the head, they wore caps made of leaves and their stalks woven together. They were shaped like a ship and had a rim in front by which they could be raised from the head. Those first human beings had beautiful skin of a yellowish tinge, which shone like silk, and their hair was reddish yellow like gold. Adam wore his hair long. His beard was short at first, but later he let it grow. Eve at first wore her long hair hanging around her; but later on she wound it around her head in a coil like a cap.
          Fire I always saw like a hidden flame, and it appeared to be in the earth. It was given to man from heaven, and God Himself taught him the use of it. They burned for fuel a yellow substance that looked like earth. I saw no cooking going on. In the beginning, the food was merely dried in the sun; and the wheat, after being crushed, was exposed under twisted covers to the heat of the sun to dry. God gave them wheat, barley, and rye, and taught them how to cultivate them. He guided man in all things.
          I saw no large rivers in the beginning as, for instance, the Jordan; but fountains sprang forth whose waters were conducted into reservoirs.
          Flesh meat was not eaten before Abel’s death.
          I once had a vision of Mount Calvary. I saw on it a prophet, the companion of Elias. The mount was at that time full of caves and sepulchres. The prophet entered one of the caves and from a stone coffin filled with bones he took up the skull of Adam. Instantly an angel appeared before him, saying: "That is Adam’s skull," and he forbade its removal. Scattered over the skull, was some thin yellow hair. From the prophet’s account of what had occurred, the spot was named "The Place of Skulls" (Calvary). Christ’s Cross stood in a straight line above that skull at the time of His Crucifixion.
          I saw that Cain conceived on Mount Olivet the design to murder Abel. After the deed, he wandered about the same spot frightened and distracted planting trees and tearing them up again. Then I saw a majestic Figure in the form of a man refulgent with light appear to him. "Cain," He said, "where is thy brother Abel?" Cain did not at first see the Figure; but when he did, he turned and answered: "I know not. He has not been given in charge to me." But when God replied that Abel’s blood cried to Him from the earth, Cain grew more troubled, and I saw that he disputed long with God. God told him that he should be cursed upon the earth, that it should bring forth no fruit for him, and that he should forthwith flee from the land in which he then dwelt. Cain responded that everywhere his fellow-men would seek to kill him. There were already many people upon the earth. Cain was very old and had children. Abel also left children, and there were other brothers and sisters, the children of Adam. But God replied that it would not

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be so; that whoever should kill Cain should himself be punished seven-fold, and He placed a sign upon him that no one should slay him…
          God pointed out to Cain a region to which he should flee. And because Cain said: "Then, wilt Thou let me starve?" – (the earth was for him accursed) – God answered no, that he should eat the flesh of animals. He told him likewise that a nation would arise from him, and that good also would come from him. Before this men ate no flesh.
          Cain went forth and built a city, which he named after his son Henoch.
          Abel was slain in the valley of Josaphat opposite Mount Calvary. Numerous murders and evil deeds took place there at a subsequent period. Cain slew Abel with a kind of club that he used to break soft stones and earth when planting in the fields. The club must have been of hard stone, for it was shaped like a pickaxe, the handle of wood.
          We must not picture to ourselves the earth before the Deluge as it is now. Palestine was by no means so broken up by valleys and ravines. Plains were far more extensive, and single mountains less lofty. The Mount of Olives was at that time only a gentle rising. The Crib Cave of Bethlehem was as later a wild cavern, but the surroundings were different.
          The people of those early times were larger, though not out of proportion. We would regard them with astonishment, but not with fright, for they were far more beautiful in form than people of a later period. Among the old marble statues that I see in many places lying in subterranean caves, may be found similar figures.
          Cain led his children and grandchildren to the region pointed out to him, and there they separated. Of Cain himself, I have never seen anything more that was sinful. His punishment appeared to consist in hard, but fruitless labor. Nothing in which he was personally engaged succeeded. I saw that he was mocked and reviled by his children and grandchildren, treated badly in every way. And yet they followed him as their leader, though as one accursed. I saw that Cain was severely punished, but not damned…
          I saw Cain’s descendants becoming more and more godless and sensual. They settled further and further up that mountain-ridge where were the fallen spirits. Those spirits took possession of many of the women, ruled them completely, and taught them all sorts of seductive arts. Their children were very large. They possessed a quickness, an aptitude for every thing, and they gave themselves up entirely to the wicked spirits as their instruments. And so arose on this mountain and spread far around, a wicked race which by violence and seduction sought to entangle Seth’s posterity likewise in their own corrupt ways. Then God declared to Noe His intention to send the Deluge. During the building of the ark, Noe had to suffer terribly from those people.
          I have seen many things connected with the race of giants. They could with ease carry enormous stones high up the mountain, they could accomplish the most stupendous feats. They could walk straight up trees and walls just as I have seen others possessed by the devil doing. They could effect the most wonderful things, they could do whatever they wished; but all was pure jugglery and delusion due to the agency of the demon…
          Henoch, Noe’s ancestor, opposed that wicked race by his teachings. He wrote much. Henoch was a very good man and one very grateful to God. In many parts of the open field, he raised altars of stone and there the fruits of the earth flourished. He gave thanks to God and offered sacrifice to Him. Chiefly in his family was religion preserved and handed down to Noe. Henoch was taken up to Paradise. There he waits at the entrance gate, whence with another (Elias) he will come again before the last day.
          Cham’s descendants likewise had similar relations with the evil spirits after the deluge, and from such connection sprang so many demoniacs and necromancers, so many mighty ones of the world, so many great, wild, daring men…
          I saw Noe, a simple-hearted old man, clothed in a long white garment. He was walking about in an orchard and pruning the trees with a crooked bone knife. A cloud hovered over him and in it was a human Figure. Noe fell on his knees. I saw that he was, then and there, interiorly instructed upon God’s design to destroy mankind, and he was commanded to build an ark. I saw that Noe grew sad at the announcement, and that he prayed for the punishment to be averted.

          Phillip, we read that God taught Adam how to offer Him sacrifice; and through Adam this teaching and priestly office was passed on to the other Patriarchs. At the time, then, the true religion of God consisted of these priests and the people they offered sacrifice for. God passed the Blessing on through these Patriarchs and priests, such as

Noe and Abraham. Melchisedech came to foreshadow the perfect priestly sacrifice of Christ. Finally, Moses placed the Blessing within the Ark of the Covenant which contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments upon which the Covenant was based, and the whole people of Israel, God’s church, carried it with them. They were assigned a priesthood by God too, first of Aaron and his sons, who then passed this holy office on to the firstborn sons of Levi. All former and future priestly offices and sacrifices took their value and meaning from Jesus, the Divine Priest and Mediator, who died upon the altar of the Holy Cross. After his death He bestowed the power of that perpetual priesthood He had established, by which all men in every age were saved, onto the Twelve Disciples. They had been ordained at the Last Supper by Christ, Who commanded them to offer the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary, bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ until the end of time for all who would believe in Him, so they could have life in them by eating His body and drinking His Blood, as He commanded in St. John's Gospel. He commissioned them and those whom they would commission in future times to teach all nations His Word and Baptize them in the name of the Trinity. He gave them the power to forgive sins: 'whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. Whatever you bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven.' (John 20:23, Matthew 18:18) This is clearly the bestowal of complete Divine Authority to the ministers of His One, Holy Church.
          "So are you pointing out that the people of God have always had a priesthood from the beginning, Father?"
          Yes, Phillip, and that where there is no priesthood, God's Church is not present. The ritual words and actions of the Mass parallel the rituals of the people of Israel and of the Patriarchs. Even the sacrifice God taught Adam prefigured the Mass in a rudimentary way. These prechristian rituals were signs and archetypes of the Bloody Sacrifice of Calvary and the unbloody sacrifice after the Last Supper, the first Mass. The prechristian rituals were advance applications for the graces that would come from the one Sacrifice of Christ.
          The Protestants, sadly, cut themselves off from the Ark by denying the priesthood Christ established. In this they lost sight of the organized, objective, divinely empowered and constituted Church, with an Apostolic succession of leadership. The Church of England and all other heretical movements that kept a priesthood, but were cut off from the Church lost touch with the Divine Priesthood and their priesthood lost all its power and died on the vine.
          From Adam on God assigned certain people to be priests, not all people. Christ did the same. If he had not, total confusion as to the identity and guidance of the Church would have begun as soon as the first heretics appeared. Eventually, the heretics had to admit that they had no leadership or guidance, for all were prophet, priest and "other christs" with his own creed, liturgy and congregation. Such chaotic fundamentalism was the inevitable, logical end of the principle of protestantism: total dis-integra-tion.
          The real meaning of the priesthood of the people or laity is that of a lower order: the offering of personal sacrifices and virtuous acts to God in union with Christ, Who joins them with His Priestly Sacrifice to make them worthy to be offered to the Father in Christ's One Sacrifice, perpetually reenacted by His priesthood.
          The principle of mediation is important to understand, Phillip. Just as a king rules a nation through various kinds of mediators and representatives, so too does Christ save

man and rule His Church through the priests He empowers. All power and good comes from Him, but he chooses to rule by delegation of His power. And if men can mediate and pray for and intercede for each other, cannot the Saints in Heaven do so for us in the Church. The power all comes from God. But who can say He cannot use creatures, or even blessed objects as channels of His grace.
           "Father, it would seem that because God had chosen these means, they would be the most effective and natural means of ministering to and saving mankind and each person in all particular circumstances and times."
          Yes, son.
          "So is it true that no one of another creed can be saved then, Father?"
          Not unless they be in the state of invincible ignorance of the true Faith. This does not mean stubborn, willful, and therefore, culpable ignorance. In such a case, they should have known the truth. But those who did all in their power to sincerely live a just life, repent of sin and search for the truth, but had not the opportunity to hear the fullness of Catholic truth preached to them, they would be saved, if they would have accepted the Faith had it been presented to them, which God alone can judge. In such cases God deals with the soul interiorly, binding them to the true Church, outside of which no man can be saved, by a Baptism of desire. But all who actually possessed the true Faith and cast it away until their death will be condemned; for this is apostasy, where one sins against the known truth, the sin against the Holy Spirit.
          Many in my day seemed to have unanswered questions that presented obstacles to their belief. One who asks seeking an answer will find the answer if there is one, but many pose questions as immovable obstacles intended to defend their present ignorance. The former is on the road to finding the true Faith or as having unconquerable ignorance, but the latter will discover nothing more than they have, which is what they wanted.
          "Father, did some ask why the Holy Sacrifice is repeated in every age, when only the one Sacrifice of Christ sufficed to save all men who would so choose.
          The anticipatory grace of the Sacrifice of Calvary flowed, in a swense, through all true Divinely ordained ritual before Christ for the benefit of those who truly worshipped God. These valid but imperfect sacrifices of God’s people were like promises which were filled after Christ's Death when He released from Limbo all these, including Adam who had died before Christ's time with a Baptism of Desire. But the Mass infinitely supercedes these pre-Christian rituals because each Mass is the ritual but actual enactment of the Bloody Sacrifice of the Cross and the unbloody Sacrifice of the first Mass conducted by Jesus immediately after the Last Supper. There was but One Sacrifice in Eternity, which is continually expressed throughout time, which does not limit or divide eternity but, rather, is informed by it.
          The Israelites, after the Paschal supper, commemorated the sacrifice of Melchisedech and Abraham, by eating unleavened bread and drinking the last cup of wine. The Israelites' sacrifice and eating of the lamb as a journey food in preparation for their escape from Egypt, prefigured the bloodly Sacrifice of Calvary, while their drinking the cup of wine after the meal with the unleavened bread prefigured the Mass, which Jesus first said with His Apostles.
          "How can a sacrifice in one time be one with sacrifices in other times, Father?"
          How can it be that with a few loaves of bread and two fishes Jesus fed 5000 families, or that the substance of bread becomes Christ’s Body and the substance of wine

becomes His Blood? It is not by the power of God, who created all things from nothing! God’s power is mysterious. And so too it is a mystery how each Mass can be the same as the one Sacrifice of Christ.
          "It is only a wonder why I wonder, Father."
          The intelligent wondering of the good at heart is a blessed wandering after the truth of God, Son. Do not be ashamed of any intelligent question, only of sheer obstinacy, of unreasonable skepticism, or of unbelief. These three are truly detestable. For to love God’s Word is to embrace mystery. Only the proud, loving to know all by their own efforts, ridicule mystery, which is the heart of Religion; for man cannot know all that God knows.
          Let us continue following history with Sr. Emmerich’s work. From her we learn that the Tower of Babel was a work of pride. It was a project taken on solely from man’s ideas, without the guidance of God; and for this reason God caused division among the tribes or families of the chief architects, who under the leadership of Nemrod had forced labor out of the descendants of Japeth and Ham and tribute out of the descendants of Sem who would not voluntarily participate. For this the Semites were called a stupid race. But Sr. Emmerich said of the father of the Hebrew language:

          Upon Heber … God cast His eyes; and amid the general disorder and corruption, He set him and his posterity apart as a holy nation. God gave him also a new and Holy language possessed by no other nation, that thereby his race should be cut Off from communication with all others. This language was the pure Hebrew or Chaldaic. The first tongue, the mother tongue spoken by Adam, Sem, and Noe was Different, and it is now extant only in isolated dialects. Its first pure offshoots are The Zend, the sacred tongue of India.

          All Languages are traced by scientists to one mother tongue. Phillip, much science supports Scripture’s so-called "myths." When I heard that astronomers had found that the universe had begun with a Big Bang from a single infinitesimally small point in space, I thought, "Why doesn’t everyone see in this the scientific evidence of God’s Creation of the Universe from nothing."
           God caused the work to cease after 30 years on the Tower of Babel – which some say was meant, in the conceit of its builders, to be so tall that another Flood could not cover it. God meant to separate families into separate tribes, which eventually became nations; for He saw that the power of Satan, working with human respect and pride and the least-common-denominator principle, was welding men together to serve a foolish purpose, spurning to consult the Wisdom of God. God, therefore, ruled against internationalism, where the good and the bad in peoples (nations) are mixed and the least common denominator, evil, is all that remains acceptable -- to the detriment of all. But the tradition of patriarchs, the fathers of nations, tends to lead back to Adam and God. While the idea that men in consensus can guide themselves alone, leads to their least common denominator – foolishness – which is the "wisdom" of Satan.
          "Do you mean that God purposely ordained that each family of that time become the beginning of a nation by causing them to speak a different language, Father?"
          Yes. Of the nations formed, their languages were related, but God allowed them to drift apart and cause a kind of natural division of understanding between people. The purpose of this was to preserve the truth, to seal off error from the truth and to prevent the leaven of hypocrisy from corrupting the whole mass of humanity. After listing all 72

sons and grandsons of Noe, God said in Genesis 10:32 "By these were the nations divided on the earth after the flood."
          God has always been against empire building, where the powerful enslave the weak, whether it is called Babylon or Assyria, Rome or Greece or the United Nations or a One-World Government or a League of Nations. Modern empire builders are the true spiritual ancestors of all those who followed Nemrod in building the Tower of Babel. Then Nemrod took the stones of Babel and built the city of Babylon. The diabolical empire emanating from this city and its "internationalist" spirit boasted that ‘we, the enlightened ones conducting the "census" are wiser than thee, oh stupid little ones, who are being counted; for you cannot see our exalted vision.’ Recognize the voice, the pride of Satan.
           Phillip, man must, as a dependent spirit, be governed and guided by a higher spirit, ultimately either by God’s Spirit or by His adversary’s spirit. This is the key to really understanding every point of human history, Phillip. History is a war for human souls by two supernatural powers. One Power is real, Creative. The other power is illusory, a mere negation of what is real, which seeks by force of threats and promises to gain "credit" as being real, and, thereby, to gain real human power at least from men of pride and passion in every age.
          "Father, I am fascinated by the image of the ancient sacrifices of the Patriarchs. Did Sr. Emmerich see these things too?"
          Yes, let us learn more about Abraham when he received from an angel the Sacrament of the Old Testament, the Blessing, which he knew only as a pledge of the promised posterity.

          I saw that in a vision he received from God the order to depart from his own country. God showed him another land, and Abraham next morning, without asking any questions, led forth all his people and departed. I afterward saw him pitching his tent in a region of Palestine which seemed to me to lie around the place where Nazareth subsequently stood. Abraham himself erected here an oblong altar of stone with a tent over it. Once when kneeling before the altar, a light descended from heaven upon him. An angel, a messenger from God, appeared, said something to him, and presented to him a shining, transparent gift. The angel spoke with Abraham, and the latter received the mysterious Blessing, the Holy thing from heaven; he opened his garments and laid it upon his breast. I was told that this was the Sacrament of the Old Testament. Abraham, as yet, knew not what it contained. It was hidden from him as from us is concealed the substance of the Most Holy Sacrament. But it was given to him as a sacred thing, as a pledge of the promised posterity. The angel was exactly of the same kind as the one that announced to the Blessed Virgin the conception of the Messiah. He was also as gentle and tranquil as Gabriel in the execution of his commission, not so hasty and rapid as I see other angels under similar circumstances. I think Abraham always carried the mysterious gift about with him. The angel spoke to him of Melchisedech who was to celebrate before him the sacrifice which, after the coming of the Messiah, would be accomplished and which should be continued forever.
          Abraham then took from a casket five large bones which he laid upon the altar in the form of a cross. A light burned before it, and he offered sacrifice. The fire burned like a star, the centre white and the rays red.
          Abraham’s sacrifice was almost accomplished when he beheld the three Angels appear on the high road. On they came in their girded garments, one after another, an even distance between them. Abraham hurried out to meet them. Bowing low before God, he saluted them, and led them to the tent of the altar. Here they let down their garments and commanded Abraham to kneel. I saw the wonderful things that now happened to Abraham through the ministry of the angels. He was in ecstasy,

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and all the actions were rapid, as is usual in such states. I heard the first angel announce to Abraham as he knelt that God would bring forth from his posterity a sinless, an immaculate maiden who, while remaining an inviolate virgin, should be the mother of the Redeemer, and that he was now to receive what Adam had lost through sin. Then the angel offered him a shining morsel and made him drink a luminous fluid out of a little cup. After that he blessed him, drawing his right hand in a straight line down from Abraham’s forehead, then from the right and the left shoulder respectively down under the breast, where the three lines of the blessing united. Then with both hands the angel held something like a little luminous cloud toward Abraham’s breast. I saw it entering into him, and I felt as if he were receiving the Blessed Sacrament.

          In this next passage, Phillip, we read of Melchesidech and the sacrifice of bread and wine that prefigured the Mass. Melchesidech represented the saving action of Christ before His coming. All had meaning and power only in reference to the future event of Christ's Crucifixion.

          When about to come for the sacrifice of bread and wine, Melchisedech sent messengers to command Abraham to make his coming known and to announce him as the King of Salem. Abraham went out to meet him. He knelt before him and received his blessing. This took place in a valley southward from the fertile vale that lies toward Gaza.
          Melchisedech came from the region where Jerusalem afterward stood. He had with him a very nimble animal of a grey color. It had a short, broad neck, and it was laden on both sides. On one was a vessel of wine, flat on the side that lay against the beast; on the other, was a box containing rows of flat, oval loaves, likewise the Chalice that I afterward saw used at the Last Supper for the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. It had cups in the shape of little barrels. These vessels were Neither of gold nor silver, but transparent as of brownish precious stones. They did not appear to me to have been fabricated by man, they looked as if they had grown. The impression made by Melchisedech was similar to that produced by the Lord during His teaching life. He was very tall and slight, remarkably mild and earnest. He wore a long garment so white and shining that it reminded me of the white raiment that surrounded the Lord at His Transfiguration. Abraham’s white garment was quite dingy compared with it. He wore also a girdle with letters similar to that worn later by the Jewish priests, and like them his head was covered with a small gothic mitre during the sacrifice. His hair was shining yellow like long glittering strands of silk, and his countenance was luminous.
          All were very grave and solemn, full of reverence for Melchisedech whose presence inspired awe. He stepped to the altar upon which was a kind of tabernacle wherein he placed the Chalice. There was also a recess in it, I think for the sacrifice. Abraham had laid upon the altar the bones of Adam which Noe had had in the Ark. They now prayed before them that God would fulfil the promise made to Adam of a future Messiah. Melchisedech spread upon the altar first a red cover, which he had brought with him, and over that a white transparent one. The ceremony reminded me of the Holy Mass. I saw him elevate the bread and wine, offer, bless, and break. He reached to Abraham the Chalice used afterward at the Last Supper in order that he might drink. All the rest of those present drank from the little vessels which were handed around by Abraham and the most distinguished personages. The bread too was passed around in morsels larger than those given at Holy Communion in the early times. I saw these morsels shining. They had only been blessed, not consecrated. The angels cannot consecrate. All that partook of the food were filled with new life and drawn nearer to God.
          Melchisedech gave bread and wine to Abraham, the former more luminous Than that received by the others. Abraham derived from it great strength and such energy of faith that later on at the command of God, he did not hesitate to sacrifice his child of promise. He prophesied in these words: "This is not what Moses upon

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Sinai gives the Levites." I know not whether Abraham also offered the sacrifice of bread and wine, but I do know that the Chalice from which he drank was the same used by Jesus at the institution of the Most Holy Sacrament.
          When Melchisedech at the sacrifice of bread and wine blessed Abraham, he at the same time ordained him a priest. He spoke over him the words: "The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at My right hand. Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech. The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent."
          He laid his hands upon Abraham, and Abraham gave him tithes. I understood the deep signification of Abraham’s giving tithes after his ordination. But The reason of its importance, I no longer recollect.
          I saw also that David when composing this Psalm had a vision of Abraham’s Ordination by Melchisedech, and that he repeated the last words prophetically. The Words, "Sit thou at my right hand," have a peculiar signification. When the eternal generation of the Son from the Father was shown me in vision, I saw the Son issuing from the right side of the Father as a luminous form surrounded by a triangle, as the Eye of God is depicted, and in the upper corner I saw the Holy Ghost. But it is inexpressible!
          I saw that Eve came from the right side of Adam, that the Patriarchs carried the Blessing in their right side, and that they placed the children to whom they delivered it upon their right. Jesus received the stroke of the lance in His right side, and the Church came forth from the same right side. When we enter the Church, we go into the right side of Jesus, and we are in Him united to His Heavenly Father.
          I think that Melchisedech’s mission upon earth was ended with this sacrifice and the ordination of Abraham, for after that I saw him no more. The Chalice with the six cups he delivered to Abraham.

          "It is beautiful, Father, the mysteries of God's Sacramental Love. Why did Melchisedech come as 'the King of Salem', Father?"
           Salem means "peace," and Jerusalem means the city of peace. Peace between God and Man is what Jesus bought by His Sacrifice, and he offered it to all believers in all times under the appearance of life-giving food, bread and wine, but substantially as divine food for the journey through the desert of this life to the Promised Land of heaven, our true Home with God our true Father. This Food is Christ's Body, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity for the life that gains us entrance to heaven is the Life of God Himself. When Jesus enters our person, we are recognizable by the Father as related to His Son, a vessel containing Him, welded to Him by the Love of the Holy Spirit, that is, the Love of God for God. Therefore, as Christians we are, by God's grace, higher than the angels, who, in created nature, are superior to us.
          The Host is manna for the soul in this earthly pilgrimage. But Faith requires forsaking belief in appearances, in exchange for belief in the substantial. Substance cannot be seen, only its accidental characteristics. God left the appearances of bread and wine as a necessary test of Divine Faith, for all merit is gained by test.
          The price of taking Innocent Blood is the Guilt of Sin and Death. But when Jesus, as the God-Man offered Himself, His Body and Blood, to the Father who loved Him, and the Father accepted it, Peace was established forever between God and Mankind. This Sacred Act is celebrated in the Mass as our Thanksgiving (Eucharist) for this Peace, the fruit of which is eaten as spiritual food from the Tree of Life which we lost when Adam descended from Paradise. Eucharist is the Food of Eternal Life, the very substance of God, the Fruit of the Tree of the Holy Cross, the Altar upon which the sins of Mankind were consumed by the Fire of Divine Love which continually ascends to the Father from the Son and descends from the Father to the Son.

           Now let me read what St. Paul says about this mysterious person, Melchisedech. He says in Hebrews 7:1-3,

          "For this Melchisedech, King of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him. To whom Also Abraham divided the tithes of all: who indeed first by interpretation is King of justice: and then also king of Salem, that is, king of peace, without Father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, Nor end of life, but likened unto the Son of God, continueth a priest forever."

          St. Paul also shows that Christ was greater than Melchisedech, who was greater than Abraham and Abraham greater than Levi, so that the sacrifice and covenant of Abraham, the Father of Faith, was greater than the sacrifice and covenant given to Moses, which was the Mosaic Law, the priests of Levi being its priestly intercessors. Thus the Old Law guarded by the Levites was meant to be superceded by the new Law of Christ, as prefigured by the sacrifice of bread and wine offered by Melchisedech and Abraham.
          Phillip, a new law is made for a new creation. In Christ, we are a new creation, a new Man, needing a new law. Law is a command or prescription based on the description of the being for whom the law expresses his proper activities and relations with other beings, including the Supreme Being. Before Christ, man was without God’s life, dependent humanity, fallen from grace, abandoned in a sense by God's chastisements and destined to return to dust. So God offers Moses’ people a Covenant – ‘Obey my law, and I will be your God’ to prepare them and us for the New Covenant, where Christ says to us, have Faith in Me, and We (the Trinity) will come to you and live in you.
          We naturally have human life as human beings, but we have the gift of divine life, because we were not born a divine being like Christ. We ruined our nature by sin; then God lent us His nature to regain what we had lost and more. We become other christs, so that our new Law is the Law of Christ, which is to love God and self and neighbor; for the nature of God is His Holy Spirit, which is Love Itself. Therefore, our New Law is an expression of the Divine Nature in the form of a command to love God and one another. Do you understand enough to repeat it, Phillip?
          "I think so, Father. The Old Man was begotten of Adam’s sinful nature; the new man was begotten by the Love of the Son of God, which is the basis and substance of the New Law – love God with your whole soul and your neighbor as yourself, for God’s sake."
           Good.
          "But, Father, I have one difficulty. When I see how the Blessing was given and taken away – even the Ark of the Covenant was stolen from Israel in Saul’s time, and Israel was later sent into captivity, and many other times they were abandoned by God to great evils. How could they or any Christian have been secure in his hope of obtaining entrance to the Promised Land of Eternal Life?
          Human beings, alone, can never be secure; but, in union with God, they can be absolutely sure of salvation. God is faithful; man is not. But if man will just turn back, God will save him. I believe, Phillip, that in God's Infinite Mercy, no man is ever condemned who would have ever turned back to God for good. God would have foreseen that conversion, and He would have extended his life. That is how absolutely and mercifully I believe God is faithful to His Promise. Chance is not involved in the issue of Salvation, Son. But to begin to understand why God allows His beloved to be

visited by temporary evils, you must feel the deep misery of unrequited love that He suffers.
          All history is the story Jeremia tells of God, the lover, whose marriage partner, His chosen people, has been unfaithful to him through sin. The epitome of this harlotry is idolatry, the love, worship and union (fornication) with another as one’s highest good or god – a strange god taking God’s place -- the breaking of the First Commandment. But throughout this adultery God keeps His Promise; in the end He saves those who come back to Him, who are faithful to the end. And considering the fickleness and waywardness of man, this return too is a miracle of His Mercy and grace. Let us read:

          Jeremia 3: 6-9: "And the Lord said to me in the days of King Josias: Hast thou seen what rebellious Israel hath done? She hath gone of herself upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and hath played the harlot there. And when she had done all these things, I said: Return to me, and she did not return. And her treacherous sister Juda saw … yet her treacherous sister Juda was not afraid, but went and played the harlot also herself. And by the facility of her fornication she defiled the land, …

          Just as a man loves his wife so dearly that he will take her back, if only she abandons her adultery, so God desires the return of individuals and nations gone astray. For the will or heart of the one who loves is bound by the desire for that good he loves. For love is a passion. This means that the will is passive to the good it sees, which is acting upon it. This is why the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, given to us by God through a chosen soul, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque shows Jesus as helplessly in love with the souls He has created out of love.
          "I had always thought of God as more cold and uncaring and strong, never dependent on what we choose to do, Father."
          Remember, God became a Man, Son. Christ, who is God, has a human heart. This awareness of God's love for us should make us consider more seriously our part, our every action. For we are constantly before our Beloved, either pleasing or displeasing Him. Because man’s will is free, he can return God’s love by being the good that God made and loves; or he can voluntarily lose that good. In man’s life these extremes ebb and flow like a tide. This accounts for the constant turmoil in the relationship between God and mankind we read of in Scripture and see in our own life and world history. So it is God who, in a sense, is at the mercy of man's fickleness, whereas man has a rock of love and fidelity to hang onto.
          "Why, Father, did God allow Himself to be so bound; surely He knew before creating willful creatures that they would wander away from Him."
          God knew that the greatest of all goods was love. He gave to men and angels His love, and He wishes it returned to Him in kind. And the faculty of voluntariness or free will is the only power capable of loving in return. Can we fault God for this most generous act of creation? God knew from eternity what suffering Love, unrequited, would cost Him. For He who loves deeply will search for his beloved who has been seduced by another until he is exhausted by worry and sadness and pleading – all because of the great good he had which is now lost. Some say that the physical cause of death for Jesus on the Cross was a broken heart. We know that this was true spiritually. Why shouldn’t the physical heart express the agony of the heart, since the former is subordinate to and dependent on and caused by the other. The heart is not just

metaphorically the seat of the passions or emotions, Phillip. Its strength and rhythm and entire actions cause each emotion their peculiar expression.
          "Father, your words are leading my human heart to really fall in love with my Jesus. I believe now that He wants and really needs my love."
          He does, Son. It’s okay for you to shed these tears. By them your heart speaks. Likewise, do you not see the tangible expressing the spiritual in the history we have been telling. So, life is truly a richly symbolic narrative, a good story, poetry, a book bridging the invisible and the visible worlds. And yet it is this very concrete expressiveness that invites the joking mockery of unbelievers, who, ironically, are addicted to the concrete but cannot see its spiritual roots.
          "Here is all I see now, Father. God gave all that he had to give, His very Life, even in the face of ungratefulness. It is like a man giving up his life to save another; Jesus said there is no greater love than this. I want to give Him my whole life, my whole self. It is all I have to give."
          A gift, Phillip, is a token of love. The greatest gift is the token of one’s life poured out for or shared with another, whether the life of spouses lived in blissful harmony, or the life of a saviour given up in agony for the sake of a victim of justice. The token of giving one’s life is spilled blood, which signifies sacrifice. Jesus, the Second Person of the Triune God, gave us this token of His love, the Sacrifice of His Body upon the Cross, His Blood upon the very earth from which the first man was taken, and His Blood for all men for all time in the Chalice of the Eucharist. In this fallen world we live in, love and sacrifice are one. This is why true Christians wear the crucifix.
          I must retire now, my Son. My heart is feeling weak. I am sad unto tears, I know not why. Tomorrow we will go on. But I must pass over much.