Meditation: Doubting Thomas and the Conversion of the Jews

[spauline]

Meditation: Doubting Thomas and the Conversion of the Jews





Taken from my book, the section on Scripture metaphors for the conversion of the Jews:



I see another profound parallel.



Remember, from our series, that the theory is, what makes the Jews convert is to see filled up in the Church what Christ filled up in His Flesh, the spiritual path of the Jews themselves before Christ came the first time.



This path has three greater stages:



The purgative



The illuminative



The unitive.



Now I recall what many of you may have read a while back: Jeus filled up these "mystical threes" in so many ways



He says "Peace be to you" three times in the Upper Room
He falls three times carrying the cross
He prays three times in the garden to do the will of the Father
He restores Peter to grace three times with "Feed my sheep, feed, ... feed..."
He rose on the third day
He spoke three times to Mary Magdalene at the Tomb





What if it were possible, that in some way, His five wounds filled up the way of the saint?



The Wounds of Christ's Body fulfill the Way of the Saint



But, you say, there are **5** wounds, not **3**.



True! But the way of the saint can be sub-divided into the 5 lesser stages! Why? Because the sub-parts of the ways are part darkness and part light (except the purgative way, which is just darkness)! As follows:



The Way of the Saint as 5 lesser stages:



Purgative Way, darkness (dark night of senses)
Illuminative Way, light
Illuminative Way, darkness (dark night of soul)
Unitive Way, light
Unitive Way, darkness (martyrdom)





Of course, after martyrdom is eternal life, just as after the five wounds of Christ, Jesus rose into eternal life!



Let us probe it further:



The Five Wounds of Christ:



Right hand
Left hand
Right foot
Left foot
After death, the spear piercing the side
(Resurrection)



The Correlation in more detail:



Common sense says, line up the wounds with each substage of the saint above:



Right Hand merits purgative way of dark night of senses



Left Hand merits illuminative way of light



Right Foot merits illuminative way of darkness, dark night of soul



Left Foot merits unitive way of light



Side Wound merits unitive way of darkness, martyrdom



Resurrection merits eternal life





So, the right hand merits the grace of the People to walk the dark night of the senses of the purgative way. For the Old Testament, this was Egypt, for the New, Pagan Rome's persecutions.



The left hand merits the grace of the People to walk the light of the illuminative way, the first establishment of the Kingdom. Note, for the Old, this was the Exodus and OT kingdom of Israel, for the New, Constantine's victory over Pagan Rome and Catholic Christendom.



The right foot gives strength to the People to endure the dark night of the soul. For the Old, this was the severe Jewish apostasy, so to speak, in the pre-exile days, and for the New, this is the current secular apostasy of modern times amidst the Gentiles who used to be traditionally Christian.



The left foot merits the grace to walk the light of the unitive way, which surely puts to death all sin (Christ died after both feet wounds) in the respective People, seeing as, in the light of the unitive way, the saint is perfect, vindicated, resting in the love of God--union with God--a will fully in tune with God and fully willing to endure whatever God might call it to do, just as the People of God walk every step with God.



For consider how the Jews, in their unitive way, no longer sinned gravely against God after the exile when they returned to the Holy Land. They wept tears of repentance and came back to God's heart.



So also, in the coming age of peace, the unitive way for the Catholic Church, the Gentiles will weep tears of repentance and return to the Catholic Church that they started to leave some 500 years ago.



But there is then a wound beyond death, the side, and this is martrydom. For the OT, this was Maccabbees, the ordeal with OT Antichrist figure, Antiochus IV Ephiphanies. For the NT, this is the great apostasy and ultimate persecutions of NT Antichrist!



And after martyrdom, there is of course, the next age: the saint goes into eternal life, even as the Christ rose from the dead after this wound to the side.



Note, this is like the scenes of the dragon in apocalypse 12. The dragon is progressively brought lower in scope, just as sin is progressively defeated in the way of the saint.



In the beginning, the dragon is in heaven with no opposition. Then he wages war in heaven, but is cast to earth. Then he causes havoc on earth at various times. Then he summons up the beasts and their deceptions, and ultimately calls out armageddon in the sixth vial of wrath. But then, Christ "descends" from heaven and chains him in the abyss, BENEATH the earth! Then, after the day of rest, he comes up and seduces man a final time, after which he is cast into eternal fire forever, the final, irrevocable defeat!





Dragon: Five Stages

(plus eternal defeat):



See, these are six sub-stages of the dragon, like the wounds of Christ:

The dragon wages war in heaven: the purgative way
The dragon is cast to earth and cause lesser problems for the woman, who eludes him: the illuminative way of light
The dragon summons up the deception of darkness in the beast and false prophet: the dark night of the soul
The dragon is chained in the abyss for the figurative "thousand years" of rest: the unitive way of light
The dragon comes up from the abyss a final time to seduce man and wage war with the Holy Ones: the martyrdom
The dragon is seized and cast eternally into the lake of fire, and the opening of the Last books: heaven, the etenral new life that will never end!



See similarly, how in the beginning, the Christ, the child born from the woman, reigns from heaven in apocalypse 12, as if His arms outstretched reign from above, the grace having been merited by the crucifixion of his hands.



Then, at the close of the dragon's activity, Christ's feet come down to earth, in order that His Kingdom might reign on earth. In that stage, Christ has died and therefore put to death sin and unrighteousness in the world for a "day", a figurative "thousand years of rest," even as Jesus died after the left foot wound, and his body came to rest on the cross, resting toward the earth. So also, are the beast and false prophet, the symbols of sin and lies from the dragon, cast into the lake of fire. Jesus will have brought the unitive way to man.



But a final wound comes after death, the wound from the side. This can be seen as the dragon coming up from beneath Christ's feet a final time. After this attack, there remains only "resurrection from the dead", the next and final sequence of apocalypse, when the dragon is utterly seized and cast forever into the lake of fire!



Therefore, Christ must reign until He has put all his enemies "beneath His feet"!



Similarly, the Jews, like St. Thomas, will not believe until they have felt all these wounds that they experienced filled up in Christ's body the Church. They must see the stages of the wounds of Christ filled up in the Gentiles and the Catholic Church before they believe:





They must see the first hand wounded, the purgative way, pagan Rome, fulfilling Egypt.



They must see the second hand wounded, the illuminative way of light, Catholic Christendom, fulfilling the OT kingdom of Israel after the Exodus.



They must see the first foot wounded in the dark night of the soul, our modern secular apostasy from Christendom, which fulfills the great Jewish unfaithfulness to the Mosaic Law before the exile.



They must see the second foot wounded and sin put to death, seeing Christ die and go into His rest, the restoration and vindication of Mother Church, the period of renewal, even as the Jews were renewed in spirit and body after the exile, repenting and returning home to their land of Covenant.



And finally, they will not believe in full until they have seen the wound from the side, that even after Christ put to death wickedness and sin in the age of peace, Our Lady's Triumph in history, the world will wound Christ a final time, the great apostasy and NT Antichrist, when wickedness will come up from the abyss a final time, and yet never to be healed. For Christ died once, He cannot die again. This will fulfill the wound that came after the Jewish rest, the Maccabbean ordeal, with their own tyrannical and blasphemous Antichrist figure, Antiochus IV Ephipanies.



Then, as they "look upon Him whom they have pierced," they shall weep that they had missed the time of the Coming of their Anointed One. Then, like St. Thomas, they shall exclaim, "My Lord and my God!"

[eschaton]

Where can I find your book?

[spauline]

Where can I find your book?

Hi, eschaton, I don't have a formal book yet. But on Facebook, the working out of it is in a group of mine. You can ask to be my friend, and/or go to my group. and the first half is there:...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/163119563800363/

[eschaton]

Thanks. I'm not really a facebook person even though I have an account.

[spauline]

This theory is just plain common sense. The Jew has taken the Old Covenant things that were merely PICTURES of what really matters as though they were the final end. It is the SPIRITUAL stages of their jouirney that mattered, not pork, not male foreskin, not literal animal sacrifice, not washing dishes, sheets and cups. It is the INNER renewal that matters.

And whereas Christ filled up in His literal INDIVIDUAL life all these things that matter, and yet the Jew does not believe, they will need to see the INNER RENEWAL that THEY went through acted out in major history in the CATHOLIC CHURCH and GENTILES. Then, at the apex, their eyes will be opened

[eschaton]

I think what you say is true, and many of the early fathers pointed to a future conversion of the Jews. Not so many, actually none that I know of, spoke of a re-establishment of a national Israel.

Israel is a type of the suffering servant of Christ, as I think you know. One of the best quotes along these lines comes from Eusebius in his "Proof of the Gospel," as found in Scholia on Daniel. In it he says that what is important is not the literal history referenced in Daniel, but biblical history as it relates to Israel as a type of Christ, and how it manifests itself in the life of every man. This shows the connection of the ancient "stages of life and ages of the world doctrine," which is also the story of the long suffering servant.

About the "Catholic" church, Catholic means general and not just Roman, as I'm sure you know. When I trace apostasy I find that the early fathers didn't see any elevated importance for Jerusalem or any earthly city. The "spiritual" Jerusalem, the church, was the true Jerusalem. Of course that requires a spiritual understanding of scripture. Power corrupts and Bible interpretation changed over the centuries. Contrast the attitude towards Jerusalem of the first two or three centuries with that a millennium later when the crusades were launched to re-take the earthly Jerusalem. I would say the beliefs of the church had changed. Then came the Reformation with Martin Luther who despised the allegorical interpretation of the church fathers. Since then, modern Bible interpretation requires rules based on history and a literal level of understanding.

Do you have any thoughts along these lines?

[spauline]

I think what you say is true, and many of the early fathers pointed to a future conversion of the Jews. Not so many, actually none that I know of, spoke of a re-establishment of a national Israel.

Israel is a type of the suffering servant of Christ, as I think you know. One of the best quotes along these lines comes from Eusebius in his "Proof of the Gospel," as found in Scholia on Daniel. In it he says that what is important is not the literal history referenced in Daniel, but biblical history as it relates to Israel as a type of Christ, and how it manifests itself in the life of every man. This shows the connection of the ancient "stages of life and ages of the world doctrine," which is also the story of the long suffering servant.

About the "Catholic" church, Catholic means general and not just Roman, as I'm sure you know. When I trace apostasy I find that the early fathers didn't see any elevated importance for Jerusalem or any earthly city. The "spiritual" Jerusalem, the church, was the true Jerusalem. Of course that requires a spiritual understanding of scripture. Power corrupts and Bible interpretation changed over the centuries. Contrast the attitude towards Jerusalem of the first two or three centuries with that a millennium later when the crusades were launched to re-take the earthly Jerusalem. I would say the beliefs of the church had changed. Then came the Reformation with Martin Luther who despised the allegorical interpretation of the church fathers. Since then, modern Bible interpretation requires rules based on history and a literal level of understanding.

Do you have any thoughts along these lines?

Hi, eschaton, I believe that the killing of people over religion is not good and was a tragic mistake. The Catholic Church has tried to apologize for atrocities in the Inquisition and crusades. But personally, I see a general continuity between the Early Church up to the modern day in the Catholic Church. Doctrine develops, yes, but i don't think the Church has ever taught something dogmatically and then later said, this was completely wrong. I don't think any later clarifications are irreconcilable with what was originally taught. But that is my faith. I would say there are weeds in the wheat of Christ's kingdom.

I agree, Protestantism tends to be too literal. I like a balance, literal and allegorical.