Woman and the Dragon #4

The Book of Revelation 12

The third scene in chapter 12: we return to the struggle between the Dragon and the Woman. “And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ, for the accuser of our brothers has been cast down, who accused them before our God day and night. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb.” After showing us the greatness and power of the Dragon, we are shown Christ’s true victory over him on the Cross. This vision is astonishing. It contains both the Nativity and the Cross, the two births—just as, for Mary, there are the two motherhoods. We are shown both of them with their own distinct character. The mystery of the Cross is Christ’s great victory over the devil: he has cast him down. The text continues: “And they have conquered him” because, through Christ, we are all victors over the devil. He has no power over us to the extent that we are united to Jesus in faith, hope, and love. “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they have not loved their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the earth and the sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time.”

The closer we get to the end, the more enraged the devil becomes and the more his rage is revealed, as the Book of Revelation shows us: “because he knows his days are numbered, knowing that he has only a short time left.” Think of a dog chained with a very long chain: when he has the full length of the chain, he’s fine; he stays calm and doesn’t bark too much. But pull on the chain, shorten its length: you’ll see how furious he’ll get, how angry he’ll be! The closer we get to the end, the more the devil roars. Thus, the devil’s roars are always a sign that the end is approaching, because he is much more attentive than we are. The devil is a spiritual being, much more attentive than we are to all the signs, and he has an astonishing sense of history; and he understands very well what is happening in humanity since, most of the time, he is the cause of it. When it comes to war, he is the one who instigates it; he is the one who incites men against one another; it “works,” and he knows it. This short passage is therefore very important: it shows that through the Cross of Christ we are victorious over the devil; and that the closer we get to the end, the fiercer the struggle will be and the greater the devil’s rage will be.

“And when the Dragon saw that he had been cast down to the earth, he pursued the Woman who had given birth to the male [that is, Mary]. And the two wings of the great Eagle were given to the Woman so that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time, times, and half a time, far from the face of the Serpent.” Here, we move from the Dragon to the Serpent; it is the same reality in different forms, under different guises. We see, then, that the devil harbors this particular rage toward Mary, toward the Church, toward us, the least of all, especially toward women. God then gives the Woman “the two great wings of the Eagle.” The “two great wings of the Eagle” are, I believe, faith and hope, together with charity. They are also adoration and contemplation. They are also what enable us to be the two witnesses, that is, the mystery of the Eucharist and the mystery of the Word of God. In other words, we must fight the Dragon not with our own weapons, but with divine weapons, and that is why these “two wings” are given to the Woman: this comes directly from God. It is God who directly gives us this ability to fight against someone who is far more intelligent than we are and who, having lost his obedience, has lost all his inner strength; he now possesses only the strength of a creature, entirely dependent on God’s good pleasure toward him. And if God allows him this power, it is so that we too may fight, following Christ and with Jesus. It is so that we may be closer to Jesus: the two wings of the eagle and the desert, the place of adoration. “And the serpent spewed water like a river from its mouth behind the Woman, to sweep her away with the flood. And the earth came to the Woman’s aid, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the Dragon had spewed from its mouth. And the Dragon was enraged at the Woman, and he went off to make war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.”

“…And the earth came to the aid of the Woman.” The earth represents humility, smallness, realism… .” In front of the devil, and to escape this hold, this desire of the Dragon to possess life, there is only one true attitude, the one taught to us here: adoration, and that realism which consists in understanding that we are small creatures in God’s hands. Adoration, moreover, teaches us this realism in a very practical way.

Chapter 13 will show how the Dragon, the Serpent, will use man to attack man. The devil always imitates what Jesus does, transforming it in his own way since he does not understand the true purpose, which is love. He will therefore mimic the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery of the Church: the Beast of the sea and the Beast of the earth. This will be his strategy, a strategy of envelopment. He could do nothing against Jesus and nothing against Mary. The Holy Spirit is totally victorious in the heart of Christ and in the heart of Mary: she is immaculate—hence this rage against the offspring of the Woman. This is why St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort always says that when one gives oneself and consecrates oneself to Mary, the devil’s attacks become ever stronger, but one knows that one will have grace, light, and strength.

Let us therefore clearly understand this sequence shown to us in Revelation: the attack against the child—Jesus—the attack against the Woman—Mary, the Church, and us—and the attack against the offspring of the Woman (chapter 13).

~ AFC, March 17, 1991