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But in a more precise reality,
was it not that they laboured and co-operated
so that they, the Hebrew people, would produce
The Woman
from which
The Messiah was to be borne?
As it turns out, only God could bring forth The Messiah, for God Himself was and is, The Messiah.
What God needed
was the avenue through whom
He could assume His human nature.
So Israel co-operated with God to bring forth Mary.
If that be the case, then we can begin to understand that mankind, through Israel, laboured to produce The Woman and therefore, that Woman represented mankind through Israel.
The Immaculate Conception
This exquisite dogma of The Universal Church has a depth of meaning for mankind and for all creation that can never be measured. We only try.
It is clear to me that the Work of Israel of the Old Testament, co-operating with The Eternal-father, was to bring forth The Woman of Scripture - that is to say, Mary.
PThe blessing of a pure and holy multiplying out of God and by God, which Adam had received after the creation of Eve was, in consequence of that indulgence, withdrawn from him;
for I saw that the instant Adam left his hill
to go to Eve,
the Lord grasped him in the back
and took something from him.
From that something,
I felt that the world's salvation would come.
Once on the Feast of the Holy and Immaculate Conception, God gave me a vision of that mystery.
I saw enclosed in Adam and Eve
the corporal and spiritual life
of all mankind.
I saw that by the Fall it became corrupted,
mixed up with evil,
and that the bad angels had acquired power over it.
I saw the Second Person of the Godhead
come down and, with something like a crooked blade,
take the Blessing from Adam before he had sinned.
At the same instant,
I saw the Virgin
issuing from Adam's side
like a little luminous cloud,
and soaring all resplendent up to God.
By the reception of the fruit, Adam and Eve became, as it were, intoxicated, and their consent to sin wrought in them a great change.
It was the serpent in them.
Its nature pervaded theirs,
and then came the tares among the wheat.
As punishment and reparation, circumcision was instituted. As the vine is pruned that it may not run wild, may not become sour and unfruitful, so must it be done to man that he may regain his lost perfection. Once when the reparation of the Fall was shown me in symbolical pictures,
I saw Eve in the act of issuing from Adam's side,
and even then stretching out her neck
after the forbidden fruit.
She ran quickly to the tree and clasped it in her arms. In an opposite picture,
I saw Jesus born of the Immaculate Virgin.
He ran straight to the Cross and embraced it.
I saw posterity obscured and ruined by Eve, but again purified by the Passion of Jesus. P
(Emmerich 16 Life of Jesus Christ The Fall 17 )
In these visions of Emmerich we glimpse the role of Mary in God's Salvation, planned from the very beginning.
Emmerich's vision follows on from there, elsewhere - as hereunder.
P After the Fall of Man, God made known to the angels His plan for the restoration of the human race.
I saw the throne of God. I saw the Most Holy Trinity and a movement in the Divine Persons. I saw the nine choirs of angels and God announcing to them the way by which He would restore the fallen race. I saw the inexpressible joy and jubilation of the angels at the announcement.
I saw Adam's glittering rock of precious stones arise before the throne of God, as if borne up by angels. It had steps cut in it, it increased in size, it became a throne, a tower, and it extended on all sides until it embraced all things. I saw the nine choirs of angels around it,
and above the angels in Heaven,
I saw the image of the Virgin.
It was not Mary in time;
it was Mary in eternity,
Mary in God.
The Virgin entered the tower, which opened to receive her, and she appeared to become one with it. Then I saw issuing from the Most Holy Trinity an apparition which, likewise, went into the tower.
Among the angels, I noticed a kind of ostensorium at which all were working. It was in shape like a tower, and on it were all kinds of mysterious carving. Near it on either side stood two figures, their joined hands embracing it. At every instant it became larger and more magnificent. I saw something from God passing through the angelic choirs and going into the ostensorium. It was a shining Holy Thing, and it became more clearly defined the nearer it drew to the ostensorium.
It appeared to me to be
the germ of the divine Blessing
for a pure offspring
which had been given to Adam,
but withdrawn
when he was on the point of hearkening to Eve and consenting to eat the forbidden fruit. It was the Blessing that was
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