Father Mike Schmitz

He sees the temple, the Ark of the Covenant, and a great sign appeared in the heaven.

A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars.

She was with child, and she cried out in her pangs of birth in anguish for delivery.

Another sign in heaven, a red dragon.

Remember, seven heads, ten horns, seven diamonds upon the heads, signifying power and signifying some wisdom, signifying some influence here.

Let's go back to the woman, though.

There are at least three images of who this woman is.

One image is the woman is ancient Israel.

It's faithful Israel, and that is legitimate.

Another image is that this is the church, which makes sense too, because here is this image of Satan, again, waging war on the church, on the children of the church, the bride of Christ here.

The third image, of course, is Mary is the woman, because Mary gave birth to the only begotten son of God.

Now, all of those images are valid.

We can see all those and say, yeah, there's a way in which all of them represent.

So here's a secular example.

It might be helpful, but in the book series, The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R.

Tolkien, he has a number of figures of Christ, Christ figures.

So one of them is Gandalf, right?

He's the wizard.

He's a Christ figure in the sense that he has wisdom and power and those kinds of things.

And at one point he dies and comes back, comes back transformed from Gandalf the gray to Gandalf the white.