Revelation 12:17

["Kyrie eleison"]

<< Revelation 12:17 >>

So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Many fundamentalists will not admit that the woman in Rev 12 is Blessed Mary, the woman who gave birth to a son who would rule with an iron rod, with a crown and the sun and moon.

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1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman 2 clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
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She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. 3
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Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, 4 with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems.
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Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.
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She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. 5 Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
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The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days. 6
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7 Then war broke out in heaven; Michael 8 and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back,
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but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
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The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, 9 who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.
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Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed. For the accuser 10 of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night.
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They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death.
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Therefore, rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you, earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has but a short time."
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When the dragon saw that it had been thrown down to the earth, it pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
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But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, 11 so that she could fly to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she was taken care of for a year, two years, and a half-year.
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The serpent, 12 however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with the current.
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But the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed the flood that the dragon spewed out of its mouth.
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Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus. 13 (18) It took its position on the sand of the sea.

I have been on anti-catholic boards where they will not give Blessed Mary the time of day. One poster stated that Eve was greater than Blessed Mary.

Now, I believe these people who are very vehement against the woman in Rev. 12 and will go to any means to dis-honor her, are in the grips of the dragon, (the evil one). They state that Mary is Blessed, but in another instance they totally dishonor her. Many of these are ex-Catholic.

What do you think?

["Kyrie eleison"]

Many of the fundamentalists boards I frequent, are so paranoid to give Blessed Mary any kind of merit.

I have always been intrigued with John's passages of Revelation 12.

What do phatmasser believe about this woman A GREAT SIGN appearing in the SKY?

Is that scripture verse linked to the appearances of Mary around the world?

1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

This verse could also be in reference to Blessed Mary's assumption.


We know that John took Blessed Mary home after Jesus death and John would know what happened to Mary.

John 19:26-27
26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, [b]"Woman, behold, your son!"[/b]
27 Then He said to the disciple,[b] "Behold, your mother!"[/b] And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

[CatholicCid]

In Hail, Holy Queen, Scott Hahn covers this very thoroughly using typology with the Old Testament. I'll quote some of his material over this verse when i can get to my book.

[thessalonian]

The passage can also be seen as the Church/and or Israel. But since Mary is the means by which Israel brought forth Christ, that is not contradiction. Mary is also a type of the church and Mary's assumption forshadows the bodily resurrection as well.

A reason why Protestants have difficulty with Catholic viewpoints on passages like this is because they have a deficient view of literary types, typology, allegory, and their veiw of scripture is many times one dimmensional. I have heard it said many times on the radio by Protestants that there is one and only one interpretation to a passage. That makes the Bible a somewhat flat and lifeless book. But in the life of the Church scripture has different senses, literal, allegorical, anogogical, and moral. The literal is always first (though it has to take in to account the literary type to determine what the literal view is). Anyway Protestant exegesis is deficient in general in these understandings. It lacks depth many times.

[kafka]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1437113' date='Dec 21 2007, 01:11 PM']The passage can also be seen as the Church/and or Israel. But since Mary is the means by which Israel brought forth Christ, that is not contradiction. Mary is also a type of the church and Mary's assumption forshadows the bodily resurrection as well.

A reason why Protestants have difficulty with Catholic viewpoints on passages like this is because they have a deficient view of literary types, typology, allegory, and their veiw of scripture is many times one dimmensional. I have heard it said many times on the radio by Protestants that there is one and only one interpretation to a passage. That makes the Bible a somewhat flat and lifeless book. But in the life of the Church scripture has different senses, literal, allegorical, anogogical, and moral. The literal is always first (though it has to take in to account the literary type to determine what the literal view is). Anyway Protestant exegesis is deficient in general in these understandings. It lacks depth many times.[/quote]

agreed. Saint Thomas basically taught every passage has a plain meaning, either literal or figurative,
in which the words signify things also some passages (perhaps all) have a spiritual meaning
where the things signified by the words also signify other things.