‘Abomination of Desolation’?
While we claim no particular “know-it-all” answer, what we are trying to accomplish in this article is to break the “spell” of so-called protest-ant “prophecy experts” who have the world waiting for things to occur which we believe will NEVER happen or, in reality, have ALREADY happened!
In this look at the “abomination of desolation,” we must first understand that there are many critically important differences between the Old and New Covenants.
The most obvious is, of course, the bloody sacrifice of animals to atone for the sins of Israel vs. the unbloody sacrifice of our Lord in the Eucharist to atone for the sins of those who truly believe in Him and His Sacrifice on the Cross.
With the “reformation” that swept Europe, so many of these differences have been disputed that we now live in a time where protest-ants not only do not believe in the Eucharist, but actually want to see the Temple rebuilt in Jerusalem; and, the reinstitution of the bloody sacrifice of animals.
Some protest-ants, especially in the evangelical market — while they neglect Christ the King in the Eucharist — are even politically and financially active in this promotion to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
They see this and promote it to their supporters as THE “sign of the times.”
They are ridiculously waiting for the “abomination of desolation” which they believe cannot occur unless Temple sacrifice is once again a practice of the Judaic people in Israel. We think this is one of the great deceptions of the evil one; an event that will never happen!
(Not to get into all the “nuances” of their “theology” too much, but this event, some of them believe, will usher in the reign of the antichrist after they are “raptured” out of the Tribulation and thus bring the world into the Reign of Christ the King. A laudatory goal, but one they are making NO significant contribution to as they ignore the prayers Heaven is asking for to bring this Reign about — which includes Mary as our Queen!)
What these protest-ants do not realize is the real battle is not in Israel.
Of this, we are certain.
The real battle is in the Catholic Church.
We only need refer to Pope Leo XIII’s vision of May 1884 regarding the “final battle” between Jesus and the evil one over the Lord’s Church to be assured of this fact. Then, the July 1884 communique of freemasonry’s “universal pontiff,” Albert Pike, who lauds the promotion of the “luciferian doctrine,” is, incredibly, a confirmation of this battle.
Couple this with the approved messages of Mary — especially condemning freemasonry as the Church itself has done in its pre-Vatican records — and we can, once again, make a very assured claim that the Queen of Prophets has never ONCE pointed to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and the reinstitution of animal sacrifice as the ultimate sign of the end.
Yet, this is the big event that protest-ant preachers continually point to and wait for.
And remember, no matter how much they claim they are “inspired,” we state unequivocally that this prideful boast of theirs is IMPOSSIBLE since they do not honor the Virgin! As the Saints and the Church have taught for two millennia, Mary is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit — one cannot ignore Her, dishonor Her or just claim She is their “sister” and then be blessed by the Holy Spirit with the gift of prophecy, “tongues,” or any interpretation of Scripture!
God just refuses to work that way — and the lives of the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room with Mary in attendance and as their intercessor is proof of the proverbial pudding!
Either honor Mary or get out of the prophecy business! (We guess it would cost most of these protest-ants too much in “profits” to get out of “proficy,” though!)
At the same time, while we honor the Queen of Heaven and Earth, we are exploring this “domain” of these false prophets because for too long we, as Catholics, have allowed protest-ants to get away with “murdering” the Word of God with their misinterpretations! (Anyone for a discussion about the “brothers” of the Lord?)
The “abomination of desolation,” we believe, is a crescendo that will soon reach its peak in the Church, as more and more, the Eucharist is desecrated (the “loss of sacred character of a place or thing consecrated for use in God’s service,” as the 1951 Catholic dictionary of the Holy Trinity Bible defines it) and, at the same time, mishandled by priests who have no right to be called “priests.”
As these “priests” and the bishops who permit it continue to take the Church from scandal to scandal, its ultimate result can be seen as it instills less and less belief in the true Presence of Jesus in the Host! (Remember, don’t think of yourself or those you know who truly believe; think of those you have seen act irreverently toward the Tabernacle when entering the Sanctuary or receiving!)
It is also important to comprehend the meaning of the word “desolation” and how our Lord — who is the WORD — uses it in this context. Among the various meanings of desolation, we find these dictionary definitions: “to make lonely; to abandon or forsake; loneliness or misery; wretched.”
Do not all of these words fit exactly what the “new” Church has done to our Lord in its modernization? We’ll never forget the time when we went to our local parish and entered the Church while every one — including the priests — were busy at a social barbecue leaving our Lord out ON THE ALTAR IN THE MONSTRANCE alone without one worshipper in the Sanctuary!
We believe this downgrading of the Host — which began wittingly or unwittingly with the drafting of the Novus Ordo Mass in 1967 — is found in a very interesting reference the Lord makes in Matthew 24 when speaking of the “abomination of desolation.”
Jesus said that “wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles be gathered together.”
What could our Lord possibly mean by this seemingly vague reference?
The clue comes, we believe, from the word “eagles.”
Immediately, one thinks of a bird of prey that surrounds a dead body to feed from.
But in the context of our Lord’s words, that does not make sense as the sentence is in relation to our God warning us not to follow false Christs and prophets (a reference to protest-ants?) — and that these characters shall “deceive (if possible) even the elect”
Matthew 24:24.
In reviewing the whole context of this incredible chapter, the Lord also made a clandestine reference to the understanding of this phrase in regard to the question the Apostles posed as to what would be the “sign of Thy coming … ?” Matthew 24:3.
Amazingly, Jesus tells His followers in regard to the “abomination of desolation”: “he that readeth let him understand” Matthew 24:15.
Remember, when Jesus spoke those words to be recorded in the Scriptures NO ONE KNEW that the New Testament would be written down!
Obviously, our God was talking to those He knew who would, in the future, read His Words in the Gospel!
And the first ones to read the New Testament were not protest-ants, but the Saints of the Universal Church!
So let us do, as followers of the Saints, what our God has asked us to do and read to [try to] understand!
In reading Daniel and the prophecy the Lord refers to, the Latin Vulgate first informs us that the Archangel Gabriel — the very messenger of God who will speak to the Virgin who was created to bear Christ the King — unfolds this vision for the Hebrew prophet (whose name means “God is my Judge”).
After discussing what will happen to the Hebrew people who are currently in exile during this message, Gabriel states these important facts to Daniel:
* “Christ will be slain” (an obvious reference to the Crucifixion).
* “the people that shall deny Him shall not be His” (another obvious reference to those, especially the religious leaders of Israel and many who follow in their footsteps today, who rejected Jesus).
* “a people with their leader that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation.” (We don’t know about anyone else, but this fits perfectly into the historical scenario of Rome under the Emperor Titus destroying the Temple and laying waste to Jerusalem.)
This war by Titus ended the sacrifice within the Holy of Holies.
If there is any “historical” doubt to this fact, one need only go to Rome and view the triumphant arch dedicated to this “victory” of Titus which depicts the sacred vessels of the Temple and, Simon, the leader of the Jewish rebellion, brought to Rome. Or to watch the Orthodox Jews pray at the one remaining wall of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Imagine, the people of Israel, during the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy, were following the wrong Simon — instead of Simon Peter, the Rock, who had already sacrificed himself for the Lord in Rome!
As an aside, we state firmly, that this was the beginning of our Lord preparing and CONSECRATING the city of Rome to remake the capital of the world as His new Temple with not only the blood of His martyrs, but with the consecrated objects of His former sacrificial Temple!
Imagine the power of the sacred vessels of the Temple from Jerusalem buried in the pagan Forum of the Senate! While the Romans meant this for evil and triumph, our Lord turned it into His good! When we toured Rome, there is a major archaeological dig ongoing to find the remains of the Temple artifacts brought from the City of Peace (Jerusalem) to the Eternal City (Rome)!
Doesn’t this make it obvious that the showdown between Jesus and the devil will be over the city of Rome since the Lord retook that for Himself which once the devil ruled the globe from?! We are not negating the importance of Jerusalem and the fact that it too will play a role; but Rome is the spiritual capital of God’s world!
In reality, the time frame of “weeks” mentioned in Daniel, which protest-ants point to as something that still needs to be fulfilled, seem to be fulfilled by the First Coming of Christ!
And then, Gabriel ends his prophetic vision to God’s chosen one: “and there shall be in the Temple the abomination of desolation: and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end” Daniel 9:27.
Hasn’t this already happened, too?
Since Daniel only understood the Temple worship of the Old Covenant and not the New Covenant, isn’t it obvious that the “abomination of desolation” that the prophet refers to does not occur because a “third” Temple is built, sacrifice reinstated and then again stopped?
Isn’t this logical?
But when Christ spoke His words to the Apostles referring to Daniel’s prophecy, the Temple sacrifice was still occurring!
It had not yet ceased to exist.
Jesus, however, prophesied that its end was coming.
And, just as He spoke, in 70 A.D., the “abomination of desolation” as the prophet Daniel spoke of and which Jesus confirmed, was a fait accompli — thanks to pagan Rome, the very place the Lord intended to set up as His headquarters for His New Covenant after being rejected by His people!
Later on, the prophet records these words regarding the end of time and the “abomination of desolation”: “Go, Daniel, because the words are shut up, and sealed until the appointed time … . none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand. (In other words, is this a reference to what Jesus would speak later: “let the reader [of the New Testament] understand”?) And from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away (is this a reference to Malachias 1:11 and the New Covenant Sacrifice of the Mass: ‘For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my Name is great among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my Name a clean oblation: for my Name is great among the gentiles, saith the Lord of Hosts’?), and the abomination of desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh unto a thousand three hundred thirty-five days” Daniel 12:9-12.
Do these references and cross references, perhaps, point to two separate “abominations of desolation”? One that the Lord confirmed would occur with the destruction of the Temple and one that would involve the “continual sacrifice” of the Mass? For the Temple sacrifice was not “continual,” but since the New Covenant, the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass has been “from the rising of the sun even to the going down”!
Now we have spoken often of trying to understand time from Heaven’s viewpoint, especially in the equation “a day is but a thousand years and a thousand years but a day to the Lord.”
So what could 1,290 days mean in this passage?
We’re going to go out on the proverbial limb here and pose the question: if we thought of these “days” as “years” instead and subtracted the amount of time of 1,335 days minus 1,290 days, where would they bring us?
It is a difference of 45.
How could the number 45 — or 45 years — relate to the “abomination of desolation” in the Catholic Church where “from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my Name is great among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my Name a clean oblation”?
When did major changes occur in the Church?
We can, if we are open-minded, relate this to the major change of the Sacrifice of the Mass which occurred in 1967 when the Novus Ordo (or as we like to point out, our Greek brothers call the “nervous disorder”) Mass was created.
A Mass that turned the unbloody Sacrifice into a memorial meal for many.
A Mass which ultimately has its roots in the reformation.
A Mass in which the cardinal responsible for it was, in many ways, involved in and, as some sources claim, influenced by freemasonry — the very organization in which the “final” battle for the Church was joined in 1884.
In this — our outrageous thought process, which no one need agree with — we have tried to put a different perspective on the prophecy of Daniel.
If it truly is the difference of “45 years” since the beginning of the “abomination of desolation” to the time where “blessed is he that waitheth, and cometh unto a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days” before the end, we may have until 2012 for the Lord to change the way these awful things are.
We pray not.
We pray that for the “sake of the elect those days shall be shortened” Matthew 24: 22 (and we can accomplish this through the intercession of Mary)!
In no way what we have proposed time wise do we claim nor ask others to put any credence to it.
The sole purpose of this exercise was to show that protest-ants do not have exclusive rights to interpreting what Daniel’s prophecy means. For theirs is an interpretation that clearly leaves the battle for the Church and the messages of Mary on the sidelines — as if they do not matter.
But they do matter. And to take the Catholic Church out of the prophecy is to take not only history but the Lord Himself out of the equation!
Israel is NOT the center of the Lord’s attention. Even the orthodox rabbis will tell you that Israel is a secular state, one which they believe is illegal — and that the real Israel cannot be reinstated except but by the Messiah Himself!
While protest-ants, rabbis and others will not agree, the Truth of the matter is — as the Lord and His Mother have proven time and time again — the focus of God’s interest and His time clock revolve around the Catholic Church.
For the Vicar of Christ binds in Heaven what he binds on Earth.
In our unorthodox view, we are trying to eliminate the influence “ecumenism” has had on Catholic thinking. These so-called protest-ant “prophecy experts” have done enough harm to our knowledge and as “readers” of our understanding of Scripture.
In our review of Daniel’s prophecy, we began with a premise about what does the “abomination of desolation” mean in light of the history of the Church — not just the history of Israel.
We have seen incredible changes take place in the liturgy of the Mass — something the Lord would most definitely have been aware of as to when it would occur as He spoke His words of prophecy; and, based on the outrageous scandals of today, one He is showing us clearly He does not approve of!
With these thoughts in mind, Daniel’s prophecies take on a whole new different concept about the “abomination of desolation” and not what it means to mankind, but what it means to God.
The references, we believe, do not refer to a “rebuilt” Temple in Jerusalem, but to the desecration of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church itself.
A desecration any true believer today knows we are witnessing.
And so it is not in protest-ant prophecy where we will find the answer as to the “signs of the times” (no matter how many links to them one may have on their web site)!
We believe we will find the answer to the “sign of the times” in watching “wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles be gathered together.”
For there are the true believers in Christ.
The “eagles” who believe in the Body of Christ in the Eucharist!
They are the eagles; the eagles who feed off the Body and Blood of the Lamb and spread the message of this great Gift to give it to others.
There is the majesty of the priest who believes to feed the flock as an eagle would feed its young.
There is the doting parent who feeds the Truth about Christ to their young.
There is the true Church soaring as an eagle that ensures the Host is worshipped in majesty and might.
There is the true Catholic — whether East or West — who knows where the “Body shall be.”
This is the “sign of the times.”
For as Jesus said, He is “not in the deserts” of the New Age movement; nor in the “inner chambers” of freemasonry.
He is in every Tabernacle of every Universal Church as the Lord God of Hosts! Hidden and veiled under the appearance of Bread and Wine!
May He now — without the rebuilding of the false Temple in Jerusalem — come out of His Tabernacles before the “abomination of desolation” which we are currently living gets any worse in His Church.
And may He Reign not in “abomination ” (“something that elicits extreme dislike”) by being neglected on His Altars throughout the world but in worship and Glory from His Thrones over the world in Jerusalem, Rome and any other city He chooses!
Through the intercession of the Daughter of Sion, we pray!
© 2003 Agnus Dei Presents!
