In previous blogposts I presented two documents very relevant to understand the Three Days of Darkness (3DD) one by Bl. Ana Maria Taigi (1769-1837) an Italian mystic who was blessed with extraordinary prophetic revelations about that mysterious event. An additional document presented as a letter of St. Pio of Pietrelcina was also published in the same post.
Light and darkness
Let us consider again the quote from Holy Scripture in which Our Lord defines the mission of the Church and of every Christian. To begin with, it seems a bit disconnected from the End Times and from the Three Days of Darkness but I promise you: Christ’s words almost at the end of his Beatitudes are quite illuminating on the subject (no pun intended.)
” … You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
It seems almost unnecessary to interpret Our Lord’s words here. Of course we know that “the word of God is a lamp” unto the path of every believer, guiding us through the spiritual darkness prevalent in the world we live in. Christ Himself has set his Church to be a light to the world, the light of Christ shining in the darkness (John 1:5) that darkness cannot overcome. The whole import of the words recorded by St. Matthew has to do with light presented as a series of counterpoints. The Church is the light of the world, it is there for a purpose located in a very conspicuous place so everyone can see it. For the Church to be the light of the world, the members of the Church have to shine with faith and good deeds that will result in glory (that is splendor, beaming light, shining with beauty or resplendence) for the Creator of all things.
The Christian Church is universal, visible, well known to all. It is not a secret society with aims known only to the initiated. No, the Church has no need to be under cover of darkness (“under a bowl”) but shines like a city upon a hill, valiantly defying the dark realms of a wicked world.
All Christians believe that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit. Of his own body, Our Lord said:
The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. (John 2:18-21)
We know that every part of the life of Christ was registered for our instruction, something we have to pay careful attention to both as an example of how to live our Christian life and also as a prophetic model and a warning to the Church that will also instruct and guide the world just as Christ did. We are not better than Our Master. He set the example and there is no way around it: His Mystical Body will experience the same Passion that his physical body endured. That will be our Passover just as Calvary was a Passover for Christ and his first disciples.
The light of Christ shone upon Calvary even at a time when the supernatural darkness fell over all those witnessing his Crucifixion, his light reached a man, an officer of the Roman army:
When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54)
Physical darkness falling upon Calvary and fear (the earthquake) could not overcome the light of Christ. Even his death resulted in the repentance and salvation of many who had no power to stop that injustice. Darkness was overpowered by the light of Christ’s life and his righteous example. That Roman Centurion was the first of many. Prophetically, that means there will be conversions and salvation even in the darkest hours of the Passion of the Church.
Three days
The prophet Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of a big fish. When his enemies ask Jesus for a sign he answers in two ways:
- ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ (John 2:18-21)
- An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.’ (Matthew 16:4)
It is not hard to see the three days that the physical body of Our Savior spent in the darkness of the tomb. The Church will experience a similar eclipse and also a glorious resurrection. Darkness will be defeated both by Christ and by his Mystical Body. The seers of Fatima had a symbolic vision of the Passion of the Church. Notice the similarity with the “Orb of Light” that Bl. Ana Maria Taigi saw many times. On it God allowed her to contemplate events of the future and the past.
And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in white; ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions.
After spending three days in the belly of the big fish, the prophet Jonah fulfilled his mission with renewed ardor and faith, warning Nineveh about God’s impending day of justice. The Ninevites repented. After the resurrection of Christ the apostles and disciples gathered to celebrate Pentecost, received the Holy Spirit and valiantly gave witness of Christ, converting many. The newly anointed Church went on to evangelize the whole world after that. It seems to me that darkness has to be confronted and defeated even when it surrounds us from all sides.
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:3-5)
The ancient precedent
After Noah’s Flood mankind was of one language. Somehow it was decided that a universal project had to be achieved: to build a tower high enough to reach the heavens. The impossible aim implied a resentment with God that had recently wiped out all of mankind except Noah’s family due to the wicked ways of impious humanity.
The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:5-9)
Shortly after the flood, mankind forgot the divine commandment to “fill the earth” and began to concentrate in one city. That was the first universal human project. When modern rulers talk about not filling the earth and build an order not based in God’s commandments … we know what follows is not good. In the days of Babel, God attacked mankind’s communications system namely, language. That move rendered the project inviable.
The strong arm of God
Today, the rulers of the world are planning to reduce the world’s population while constructing an electronic net of computers and other systems that will allow them to rule the world unopposed forever. Please see Psalm 2 for God’s opinion on that brilliant idea. Here I dare to propose that the Three Days of Darkness may be the way God will defeat this modern version of the Tower of Babel.
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and there came a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’ (Revelation 6:12-17)
This looks like a replay of that Friday at Calvary on 33 A.D. Earthquake, darkness over the land, and a blood moon. Notice the full moon. Every Passover in biblical times occurred during a full moon, the first full moon of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. A pattern seems to be emerging here. The Sixth Seal is quite likely to start the Great Passover of the people of God. That is the point when God acts “with a strong arm” to come to the rescue of his people.
The only thing different from previous occurrences of supernatural darkness appears to be the sun. It becomes black as sackcloth, from the Hebrew word: saq, meaning a coarse cloth made of horsehair. This word is often mistranslated. In Hebrew it conveys the idea of deep darkness, like the one that fell over Egypt shortly before the first Passover.
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand towards heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be felt.’ So Moses stretched out his hand towards heaven, and there was dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. People could not see one another, and for three days they could not move from where they were; but all the Israelites had light where they lived. (Exodus 10:21-23)
One of the ways the Sun can be obscured could be by means of an out of the ordinary sunspot that would generate a huge solar flare. In a few words, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists at the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) explain what solar flares are and how they had affected our planet’s atmosphere before.
A [solar] flare is defined as a sudden, rapid, and intense variation in brightness. A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. Radiation is emitted across virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves at the long wavelength end, through visible light to x-rays and gamma rays. The amount of energy released could power the whole world for 10 million years! On the other hand, it is less than one-tenth of the total energy emitted by the Sun every second. The first solar flare recorded in astronomical literature was on September 1, 1859. Two scientists, Richard C. Carrington and Richard Hodgson, were independently observing sunspots at the time, when they viewed what turned out to be one of the largest flares in visible light. (Please see Overview of Solar Flares, and The Impact of Flares at RHESSI)
Imagine a solar flare of such magnitude that would obscure the totality of the solar surface for three days. Something like that would render everything electric or electronic on earth completely useless. To recover from such a catastrophic event –akin to an enormous neutronic bomb– would take years. Instantly, mankind would be returning to the early 19th century without the benefits of the old useful knowledge and technologies now abandoned long ago. For the “the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful” planning a new world order based on electronic money and electronic surveillance … it would be as devastating as the sudden appearance of foreign languages among the crews building the Tower of Babel.
Facing darkness
It may sound interesting to learn about possible reasons why our Sun may go dark but the reasons for the coming darkness are much closer to us than the Sun. At the beginning of this post I quoted Jesus:
” … You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
What would happen –one might ask– if the Church fails in her mission to be the light of the world? What if those who Jesus left in charge of the house allow darkness to grow? What if those who should be letting the light of Christ shine before all men decide to embrace the works of darkness? What if the actions of the pastors of the Church offend God?
One reason why the world is in such terrible disarray today is the appalling conduct of many leaders of the Church and laity, particularly those “upon a hill” in visible positions of power. Examples abound, unfortunately.
The truth is: this world is passing away.
For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world. The world is passing away, along with its desires; but whoever does the will of God remains forever. Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour.… (1 John 2:16-18)
The Church as a direct creation of Christ is much more real than this world. This world is tied to futility and its days are counted. The world cannot conquer the Church. A passing mirage cannot make a stone castle collapse. Darkness cannot overcome Christ’s light but it may come close in a last and desperate effort to resist the will of God. “That is how we know it is the last hour!” Darkness should not catch any of us unaware.
For the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it;
But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
Proverbs 2:21-22
In the video quoted HERE we can hear a valiant Christian knight fighting a very unequal fight. I had the deep displeasure of witnessing from a distance some of the things he describes there. My experience is rather mild compared with what others are enduring and will have to endure until Christ set things straight, but it is nevertheless disturbing because I had to experience that as a new convert. Pray for Mr. Brady and all those who are fighting the good fight. Please include this sinner as well, undeserving recipient of the grace of God as I am. Pray for the Church that God may hasten the day of her glorious renewal.
