Woman and the Dragon, The

Apparitions of Mary

David Lindsey

• Publisher: Pelican Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781455614370
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Marian Theology

Time and again, God has sent Mary to earth to warn us about punishments to come. Here, the author details the history and prophecies surrounding Mary's major appearances, including:

o Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mexico 1531 o Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal: Paris, France 1830 o Our Lady of Lourdes: France 1858 o Our Lady of the Rosary: Ftima, Portugal 1917 o The Queen of Peace: Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina 1981-present

Many of Mary's messages foretold what are now elements of our past: the world wars, the rise of communism, the suffering of Pope John Paul II. They also foresee what is still to come: the chastisement, the Antichrist, and the Second Coming. To prepare for these events, Mary suggests praying, heeding her warnings, and following her advice-"Let your only instruments always be love. By love turn everything into good which Satan desires to destroy and possess."

Chapter One

The Woman and the Dragon

“I will put enmity between you [serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.”

Gen. 3:15

“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. Because she was with child, she wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky: it was a huge dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns: on his heads were seven crowns. His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, ready to devour her child when it should be born. She gave birth to a son—a boy destined to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert, where a special place had been prepared for her by God; there she was taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days.

“Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. Although the dragon and his angels fought back, they were overpowered and lost their place in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent known as the devil or Satan, the seducer of the world, was driven out; he was hurled down to earth and his minions with him.

“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have salvation and power come, the reign of our God and the authority of his Anointed One. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who night and day accused them before God. They defeated them by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death. So rejoice, you heavens, and you that dwell therein! But woe to you, earth and sea, for the devil has come down upon you! His fury knows no limits, for he knows his time is short.’

“When the dragon saw that he had been cast down to the earth, he pursued the woman about to give birth to the boy. But the woman was given the wings of a gigantic eagle so that she could fly off to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she could be taken care of for two and half years more. The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth to search out the woman and sweep her away. The earth then came to the woman’s rescue by opening its mouth and swallowing the flood which the dragon spewed out of his mouth. Enraged at her escape, the dragon went off to wage war with her offspring, on those who keep God’s commandments and give witness to Jesus. He took up position at the shore of the sea.”

Rev. 12:1-17

As the Holy Mother of Jesus’ pastoral flock, the “New Israel,” God foreordained the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “Woman” referred to in Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12:1-17, to be the Queen of Heaven and Protectress of the One True Church of Jesus Christ—the Roman Catholic Church.¹ Therefore, from the above passages in Revelation 12:1-17 that allude to this, we can reasonably assume that’s why Satan hates Mary so much: he became tremendously enraged when he learned that a lowly woman would receive from God power and authority over him, Lucifer, the brightest and most powerful seraphim in heaven.

Eons ago, after God created the earth, he revealed to the heavenly angels his future plans to create a woman who would give birth to an extraordinary male child, a holy son who would receive from the Father absolute dominion over heaven and earth. This child, the Father announced, would be crowned the King of Heaven and Earth, the Son of God, and would inherit from the Father all that he had. This startling revelation caused quite a stir in heaven: many angels felt it beneath their dignity to worship a human being made out of mud. Envious of God’s decision to beget Jesus the God-Man, Lucifer, the head of the angels, tried to dethrone God and put himself in God’s place, but he was overpowered by Michael the Archangel and cast down to earth, where, now as Satan,² he and his demons are condemned to everlasting hellfire for their unforgivable treason against Almighty God.

The Bible recounts the story of Lucifer’s lightning fall from grace in the Book of Isaiah:

“How you have fallen from the heavens, O morning star, son of the dawn! How are you cut down to the ground, you who mowed down the nations! You said in your heart: ‘I will scale the heavens; above the stars of God I will set my throne; I will take my seat on the Mount of Assembly, in the recesses of the North. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will be like the Most High!’ Yet down to the nether world you go to the recesses of the pit.”³

In Revelation 12, the chapter on the Woman and the Dragon, the seven heads of the Dragon metaphorically depict the seven deadly sins of Lucifer that caused him and a third of the angels (stars) to lose their place in heaven: pride, envy, anger, greed, indolence, excess, and lust (which, in the case of Lucifer and his cohorts, was a lust for power and glory rather than a lust for flesh). Satan, the “red dragon,” has all seven deadly sins within himself, but in his new kingdom, hell, he has put in charge a different devil for each of the seven sins and has given them his full power and authority (symbolized by the “ten horns” on the “seven heads”). Therein lies the clue to the mysterious identities of the first and second Beasts of Revelation 13 (more on them in chapter 9).

After he realized he had fallen from heaven for all eternity, Satan’s only recourse was to cause the downfall of mankind, so he seduced Eve, in the Garden of Eden, into disobeying God. Eve’s refusal to obey God’s wishes, which caused the introduction of evil into the world and the barring of man from heaven, was, centuries later, counteracted by Mary’s unselfish, “I will serve.” Two millennia ago, when the archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and informed her of God’s wishes for her to conceive the long-awaited Messiah, the Redeemer of Mankind, Mary’s immediate reply to God’s request was—unlike Eve’s—obedient and humble:

“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”⁴

Because of Mary’s humble “Yes,” salvation was granted to the fallen world. Thus, Mary played a vital role in the redemption of the human race. That’s why she can rightly be called the Co-Redeemer and Co-Mediatrix of man, and that’s why she has been assigned by God to assume the highly exalted role of Queen of Heaven and Protectress of the Catholic Church.

As God’s Protectress of the Roman Catholic Church, Mary has faithfully stood by and defended the church against the schemes of the devil ever since its inception on Pentecost day, seven Sundays after Easter. Whenever any grave danger threatens the lives of the faithful or the survival of the Catholic Church, Mary appears on earth with prophetic warnings, messages, and pleas for repentance. To help lead her children back onto the road of salvation, Mary has worked many miracles as a testimony to God’s favor for the church and a sign of his presence with her. Therefore, it is not wrong to say that besides her son, Jesus Christ, the Blessed Mother is the single greatest advocate of the One True Church.

Judith and Esther: Archetypes of Mary

Mary’s vital role as defender of the Catholic Church was foreshadowed in the Old Testament books of Judith and Esther.⁵ In these two inspirational and exemplary biblical narratives that presage the future coming of a victorious, holy woman like Mary, God delivers his people through courageous, God-fearing, and beautiful young Jewish women. In the Book of Judith, which chronicles the period of time around the sixth century B.C., the heroine, Judith, the pious young widow of Manasseh, saves Israel from complete annihilation by the Assyrian army when she single-handedly slays the evil Assyrian general, Holofernes, as he lay in a drunken stupor inside his tent. Dressed in her finest attire, Judith, whose Hebrew name means “Jewess,” gallantly walked into the Assyrian camp pretending to hand her people over to Holofernes. Fascinated by her striking beauty and words of wisdom, Holofernes planned to ravish Judith in the privacy of his bedchamber after a night of sumptuous eating and drinking. On the night of the banquet, after dismissing all of his servants and guests except for Judith, the inebriated Holofernes passed out on his bed. Seizing the moment given to her by God, Judith drew Holofernes’s sword, and with two mighty blows, cut off his head and slipped away from the Assyrian camp, with Holofernes’s head stuffed in her maid’s food pouch. The next morning, when the Assyrians discovered that their invincible commander-in-chief had been slain by a mere woman, they fled in terror and were routed by the Israeli army in hot pursuit.

The Book of Esther is another inspirational prefigurement of the coming of the victorious Blessed Virgin Mary. In this time-honored classic, Esther, the beautiful young Jewish niece and adopted daughter of Mordecai, faithful Jewish servant to King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) of Persia (486-465 B.C.), is chosen out of all the young virgins of Persia to become the king’s new bride. Esther’s selection by the Persian king proved to be providential because it occurred at the same time Haman the Agagite,⁶ the evil vizier of King Xerxes, concocted a nefarious plot to exterminate the entire Jewish race.

As the chronicler of Esther recounts, Haman was insulted that the king’s servant, Mordecai, would not bow down to Haman, so he coerced the king into ordering a decree of extermination against all the Jewish people in Persia. When Mordecai learned of the king’s decree, he tore his clothes and pleaded with his niece Esther to intercede to the king on their behalf, knowing that if she failed, the entire Jewish race would be annihilated. So at the risk of her own life, Esther approached King Xerxes without being summoned (an act that carried a penalty of death). But instead of being angered, the king was delighted with the unexpected appearance of his favorite wife. Granting her anything her heart desired, Esther requested that King Xerxes and Haman attend a banquet she was hosting the following day. At the banquet, King Xerxes was so taken by Esther’s beauty that he again vowed to grant her anything she desired, up to half his kingdom. Esther merely requested that the king and Haman attend a second banquet of hers, the following day. On the night before the second banquet, King Xerxes couldn’t sleep, so he reviewed his court records and discovered that the condemned Mordecai had once informed him about a plot to assassinate the king, which the king had already suspected probably involved Haman. Remembering the loyalty of Mordecai and the devious ambitiousness of Haman, King Xerxes resolved to honor Mordecai and shame Haman. The next day, just prior to the banquet and before Haman was about to ask the king to hang Mordecai on a gibbet he had just built, King Xerxes asked Haman how the king should honor his most faithful servant (which Haman thought, of course, was him). Haman replied to the king that he should be given the highest public honor; whereupon, King Xerxes immediately announced that Mordecai should be so honored. Shamed and red-faced, Haman was stunned. That night, during the second banquet, which was again attended by Haman and the king, Xerxes once more promised Esther anything she desired, up to half of his kingdom. This time Esther requested that she and the Jewish people be spared from the king’s decree of extermination. Shocked to find out that his favorite queen was Jewish and therefore was included in the decree of extermination suggested to him by Haman, King Xerxes immediately hanged Haman on the same gibbet Haman had just erected for Mordecai. Since a royal decree was irrevocable, the king’s only recourse to save the Jews was to allow them to defend themselves against their attackers—which they did. In the end, all those who conspired to kill the Jews were themselves killed, including Haman’s ten sons, who were hanged on the same gibbet as their wicked father. Mordecai then took over Haman’s position as the king’s second in command.

The Jewish people can thank Esther for their salvation because if it wasn’t for her courage and intercession with the Persian king, they would have perished as a people; exactly what Satan wanted because he knew that the future Savior had to be a Jew. Esther’s salvation of the Jews is celebrated annually on the Feast of Purim, on the single day that Haman planned to eradicate the Jews, a date for which he had cast lots (the pur).

As you’ve probably figured out by now, the biblical characters of Holofernes and Haman are allegorical representations of Satan, and Judith and Esther’s struggles against the two foreshadow Mary’s future battle with the devil. Analyzing these two biblical stories more closely, you can see that Esther’s intercession with the powerful king of the Persians is analogous to the special, intercessory relationship Mary has with Almighty God, and Judith’s striking at the head of Holofernes symbolizes Mary striking at the head of the serpent, who has been battling against the church for the last two thousand years.

Although it may not seem like it now, in the end, Satan is destined to lose the war he is currently waging against Mary’s offspring, the Catholic Church. The beginning of the end for Satan started with the birth of Christ, which Satan tried so hard to prevent. Knowing the approximate time that God would come down from heaven and take on human flesh, Satan, through King Herod the Great, tried to search out and destroy Christ by murdering all male children two years and under who were living in Bethlehem and its vicinity.⁷ Herod’s demonic scheme to murder Christ, however, was thwarted by the angel Gabriel, who warned Joseph in a dream to flee Bethlehem with Jesus and Mary for the deserts of Egypt.⁸

Several years later, when King Herod finally died, the Holy Family was told by Gabriel to return to Palestine and to live in the small village of Nazareth in Galilee, where Jesus grew up and completed his mission as the savior of the world. Enraged at Christ’s escape, Satan, the Dragon, went off to wage war on the offspring of Mary.⁹

Now, as the end-times draw nearer, a tremendous battle is being fought between the spiritual forces of light, headed by Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Michael the Archangel, and the evil forces of darkness, led by Satan and his two demonic beasts. As Christ’s special emissary to earth, Mary is playing the pivotal role in this decisive battle for the hearts and souls of countless multitudes. Within the last few centuries, Mary, The Prophetess of Our Times, has appeared on earth many times, imploring humanity to turn back to God before it’s too late. Knowing Mary’s powerful intercessory role with God, faithful Catholics pray for God’s special protection in the old prayer, the “Memorare”:

Remember, O gracious Virgin Mary

That never was it known

That anyone who fled to thy protection,

Implored thy help,

Or sought thy intercession was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence I fly unto thee,

O Virgin of Virgins My Mother.

To thee I come,

Before thee I stand, sin...