Nọmbafoonu ni Oju Odò

NOT pẹ lẹhin ti a ti gbeyawo, iyawo mi gbin ọgba akọkọ wa. O mu mi lọ si irin-ajo kan ti n tọka awọn poteto, awọn ewa, kukumba, oriṣi ewe, agbado, ati bẹbẹ lọ Lẹhin ti o pari fifihan awọn ori ila han mi, Mo yipada si ọdọ rẹ mo sọ pe, “Ṣugbọn nibo ni awọn olulu naa wa?” O wo mi, o tọka si ọna kan o sọ pe, “Awọn kukumba wa nibẹ.”

“I know,” I said. “But where are the pickles?” My wife gave me a blank stare, slowly raised her finger and said, “The cucumbers are Nibẹ. "

I looked at her like she was crazy. I glanced down again at the row she was pointing to… and suddenly, it dawned on me. Pickles-are-cucumbers-that-are pickled. My whole life, my Baba always referred to the cucumbers as “the pickle patch” (and, oy yoy yoy, those pickles were good!).

Sometimes, there are truths that are right in front of our noses, and yet, we don’t see them because of previous conditioning or a lack of knowledge. Or because we don’t fẹ to see the truth.

Like the young lady in her twenties who wrote me yesterday. Her mother used to speak of the writings here, but this girl wanted nothing to do with them. In fact, they made her angry. She was a partier who left her faith, living a lifestyle contrary to the Gospel. But one day she went to Mass with her mother, and when she returned, decided to read some of my writings. She read for wakati. So she asked God if there was any truth to the things written here. She had an experience of the Lord that was so profound, she said that words could do it no justice. She began to go to Mass and confession regularly and now prays daily. She says, “Over the past year, I feel the Lord has been teaching me so much! I feel a closeness with him and our Heavenly Mother that I have never experienced.”

Some things are hiding in plain sight, and it takes an experience, new knowledge, wisdom, understanding and especially imurasilẹ to discover them.

MAYBE NOT SO CRYTPIC AFTER ALL…

So it is with the discussions here this week on the Book of Revelation. Some of you might wonder if I am presenting a novel teaching regarding the coming of the Lord to establish His Eucharistic Reign to the ends of the earth. Or that this might be some kind of heresy. The fact is that this teaching has been from ibere ibere, from the Apostles themselves. The early Church Fathers—those first disciples of the Church to expound on the Apostolic teaching—took the Book of Revelation at its face value. They didn’t enter into the kind of mental gymnastics many do today to arrive at a symbolic interpretation that leaves more questions asked than answered.

Though many aspects of St. John’s Apocalypse are symbolic, he also gave a straightforward chronology of the last phases of the world:

1. The nations would rebel in apostasy;

2. They would get the leader they deserve: the “beast”, an Antichrist;

3. Christ would return to judge the beast and the nations (judgment of the living), establishing His reign in His saints—a veritable triumph of the Church-while Satan would be temporarily chained for a period of time (symbolically, a “thousand years”).

4. After this period of peace, Satan would be loosed in one last rebellion against the saints, but fire would destroy God’s enemies and bring history to its dramatic conclusion with the judgment of the dead and beginning of a New Heavens and a New Earth.

Now, the early Church Fathers taught this chronology as an apọsteli truth, that the “times of the kingdom”, a special time of “blessing” was coming.

Nitorinaa, ibukun ti a sọtẹlẹ laiseaniani ntokasi si akoko Ijọba Rẹ, nigbati ododo yoo ṣe akoso lori dide kuro ninu oku; nigbati ẹda, atunbi ati itusilẹ kuro ni igbekun, yoo fun ni ọpọlọpọ awọn ounjẹ ti gbogbo oniruru lati ìri ọrun ati irọyin ti ilẹ, gẹgẹ bi awọn agbalagba ti ranti. Awọn ti o rii John, ọmọ-ẹhin Oluwa, [sọ fun wa] pe wọn gbọ lati ọdọ rẹ bi Oluwa ti nkọ ati sọ nipa awọn akoko wọnyi… —St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Church Father (140–202 A.D.); Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus of Lyons, V.33.3.4, The Fathers of the Church, CIMA Publishing Co.; (St. Irenaeus was a student of St. Polycarp, who knew and learned from the Apostle John and was later consecrated bishop of Smyrna by John.)

But many of the early Jewish converts believed that Jesus Himself would come in glory to reign on earth ninu ara before the end of time for a literal “thousand years” (Rev 20:1-6), establishing a political kingdom amidst banquets and feasts. But this was condemned as a heresy (cf. Millenarianism-Ohun ti o jẹ ati kii ṣe). It is for this reason that centuries later, St. Augustine among others, in trying to avoid this heresy, gave the “thousand years” a symbolic interpretation. He offered this opinion:

De bi o ṣe waye si mi… [St. John] lo ẹgbẹrun ọdun bi ohun deede fun gbogbo iye akoko ti aye yii, ni lilo nọmba ti pipe lati samisi kikun akoko. - ST. Augustine ti Hippo (354-430) AD, De Civitate Dei “City of God”, Book 20, Ch. 7

So, that is the position several Catholic bible scholars have held to this day without examining more carefully the allegorical language of the Church Fathers and Old Testament prophecies related to a coming “era of peace.” However, they may not realize that St. Augustine tun gave an interpretation of Revelation 20 that was consistent with:

—a plain reading of St. John’s chronology;

—St. Peter’s teaching that “with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day,” (2 Pet 3:8); 

—and with what the early Church Fathers also taught, marking human history from 4000 B.C., and that…

…there should follow on the completion of six thousand years, as of six days, a kind of seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding thousand years… And this opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the saints, in that Sabbath, shall be ẹmí, ati ki o Nitori lori awọn niwaju Ọlọrun... - ST. Augustine ti Hippo (354-430 AD),Ilu Ọlọrun, Bk. XX, Ch. 7

This was precisely the conclusion of a Theological Commission in 1952 that published Awọn ẹkọ ti Ile ijọsin Katoliki, awọn…

…hope in some mighty triumph of Christ here on earth before the final consummation of all things. Such an occurrence is not excluded, is not impossible, it is not all certain that there will not be a prolonged period of triumphant Christianity before the end… If before that final end there is to be a period, more or less prolonged, of triumphant sanctity, such a result will be brought about not by the apparition of the person of Christ in Majesty but by the operation of those powers of sanctification which are now at work, the Holy Ghost and the Sacraments of the Church. -Ẹkọ ti Ile ijọsin Katoliki: Lakotan ti Ẹkọ Katoliki, The MacMillan Company, 1952), p. 1140

I won’t go any further into how and why this coming of the kingdom of Christ “on earth as it is in heaven” was obscured and misunderstood. You can read about that in Bawo ni Igba ti Sọnu. But I will conclude by asking a question: if the teaching of a coming “era of peace” before the consummation of all things is a heresy taught by the Church Fathers—a teaching they say came straight from the Apostle John—then kini ohun miiran should we now call into question that also came from John? The Real Presence of the Eucharist? The incarnation of the Word made flesh? I think you get my point. The reason the Catholic Church is what it is today is precisely because it has been olóòótọ to the early Church Fathers and the “deposit of faith.”

… Ti ibeere tuntun kan ba yẹ ki o dide lori eyiti a ko ti fun iru ipinnu bẹẹ, wọn yẹ lẹhinna ni atunyẹwo si awọn imọran ti awọn Baba mimọ, ti awọn ti o kere ju, ẹniti, ọkọọkan ni akoko ati aaye tirẹ, ti o ku ninu isokan ti idapọ ati ti igbagbọ, a gbà bi awọn oluwa ti a fọwọsi; ati ohunkohun yoowu ti awọn wọnyi le rii pe o ti waye, pẹlu ọkan kan ati pẹlu ifohunsi kan, o yẹ ki a ṣe iṣiro otitọ ati ẹkọ Katoliki ti Ile-ijọsin, laisi iyemeji tabi fifin. —St. Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory of 434 A.D., “For the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All Heresies”, Ch. 29, n. 77

Perhaps it is time that we re-examine the apocalyptic Scriptures in light of the fact that Our Lady is herself teaching what is already in front of our noses.

Bẹẹni, a ṣe ileri iṣẹ iyanu kan ni Fatima, iṣẹ iyanu nla julọ ninu itan agbaye, ekeji si Ajinde. Ati pe iṣẹ iyanu naa yoo jẹ akoko ti alaafia eyiti a ko tii fifun ni otitọ ṣaaju si agbaye. —Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, papal theologian for Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul II; October 9th, 1994; Idile ẹbi; p. 35

Ohun ti o ṣe akiyesi diẹ sii ti awọn asọtẹlẹ ti o di “awọn akoko ikẹhin” dabi ẹni pe o ni opin kan, lati kede awọn ipọnju nla ti n bọ lori eda eniyan, iṣẹgun ti Ile-ijọsin, ati isọdọtun agbaye. -Encyclopedia Katoliki, Prophecy, www.newadvent.org

Emi ati gbogbo Onigbagbọ Kristiani gbogbo miiran ni idaniloju pe ajinde ti ara yoo tẹle nipasẹ ẹgbẹrun ọdun ni ilu ti a tun tun ṣe, ti a wọ inu rẹ, ti o si sọ di nla, gẹgẹ bi awọn woli Esekieli, Isaias ati awọn miiran… Ọkunrin kan laarin wa ti a darukọ John, ọkan ninu Awọn Aposteli Kristi, gba ati sọtẹlẹ pe awọn ọmọlẹhin Kristi yoo ma gbe ni Jerusalemu fun ẹgbẹrun ọdun, ati pe lehin naa gbogbo agbaye ati, ni kukuru, ajinde ayeraye ati idajọ yoo waye. - ST. Justin Martyr, Ifọrọwerọ pẹlu Trypho, Ch. 81, Awọn baba ti Ile-ijọsin, Ajogunba Kristiani

IWỌ TITẸ

Rev. Joseph Iannuzzi has done an immense service to the Church in presenting a systematic theology of the “era of peace.” See his books Ologo ti ẹda ati Ijagunmolu ti Ijọba Ọlọrun ni Ẹgbẹrundun ati Awọn akoko Ipari, available on Amazon

Millenarianism - Kini o jẹ ati Kii ṣe

Boya ti…?

Bawo ni Igba ti Sọnu

Ajinde Wiwa

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