00:00Hello, dear brothers and sisters! How are you? Well, here I am again with you to delve deeper into our faith, our Catholic faith, through these questions of knowing in order to love.
00:13Saint Augustine said, "How can I love what I do not know?" And sometimes it happens that we don't know our faith well, that we don't know the books of Scripture well.
00:22In short, there are so many things that sometimes there are gaps in our knowledge of God and his church.
00:30Well, we are trying to give a brief explanation that motivates us and fills in all these gaps in our hearts.
00:39We are answering a question sent to us by Julieta Palacios from Bogotá, which has to do with the apocalypse.
00:46and he already feels afraid of seeing this apocalypse theme.
00:52It is certainly a more complex book than the others.
01:14I usually recommend that people read this part of the apocalypse, as we saw in our previous segment,
01:22perhaps accompanied by some commentary that could help us about the signs and elements that can be developed.
01:31There is a very important author named Hugo Vanni, who is a specialist in apocalypse,
01:37And he has a little book called the Apocalypse.
01:42That little book is a very interesting and pastoral summary, and if you can get hold of it, it will help you a lot.
01:50All of Hugo Vanni's books are closely related to the theme of the apocalypse.
01:55and they can range from very complex things to very simple things.
01:59But well, let's continue then with this topic of the symbolism within the apocalypse.
02:07To better understand the content of the apocalypse, it is necessary to know, as I was just telling you,
02:14the meaning of some of its symbolic elements.
02:18I'm going to suggest a few; it's not exhaustive, but it will give you an idea of what we were talking about in our previous segment.
02:27It is important that we know that these are key elements,
02:32so that whoever reads them cannot understand them unless they know the key.
02:39We have, for example, the word woman.
02:42In the Book of Revelation, generally in all chapters, it represents the church.
02:50Or it could be a city like Babylon or Jerusalem.
02:55For example, horns represent power.
03:02The eyes generally represent knowledge.
03:07Wings, mobility, the ability to move from one side to the other,
03:12It is that ease that those who already live in eternity possess,
03:18where we hope to participate, and that can move from one space to another.
03:23These situations, therefore, reveal something to us about what our life will be like in heaven.
03:32We have, for example, the trumpets, which represent the divine voice.
03:39On the other hand, the sword generally refers to the word of God that judges,
03:46but it also punishes.
03:47The theme of the white garments, which appears in many of the texts,
03:53It represents the glory of God, the palms, the triumph.
03:59Crowns, power, and reign.
04:03The sea, for example, which appears in the later chapters,
04:08It is a bad element and a source of insecurity and death.
04:13The color white indicates the joy of victory.
04:19The color purple, luxury, and reign.
04:23And black, death.
04:26Numerical symbolism is very important to Jews,
04:31And therefore, we have many symbolic elements through numbers.
04:36For example, the number 7 signifies fullness and perfection.
04:42The number 12 represents the people.
04:45This is the meaning of the 12 tribes of Israel or the 12 apostles,
04:50which has already reached an eschatological end, that is, the end.
04:56The number 4 signifies the universality of the visible world.
05:01The number 1,000 and the number 3 are complete numbers that indicate totality or infinity.
05:10The combination of these numbers represents characters, places, eras, etc.
05:18For example, one issue that Jehovah's Witnesses have,
05:23where it says that 144,000 were saved,
05:27and that this number comes from the numerology of the Apocalypse,
05:32It is a composite number, it is composed of multiplying 12 by 12 by 1,000.
05:39So the 12 tribes of Israel, the people of the Old Testament,
05:4412 the apostles, the people of the New Testament,
05:481,000 is a whole number that cannot be counted.
05:53So we have 12 times 12, 144 times 1,000, 1,000, 144,000.
06:01What does the Apocalypse refer to, the entirety of the people of the Old and New Testaments?
06:09If we don't know numerology, we might be left with the idea that it's a number as we would think of it,
06:17Only 144,000 are saved, which is a serious mistake.
06:21To summarize all this, we could say that the last two chapters of Revelation,
06:28They are in some way the summary and synthesis of the entire history of Satan's struggle,
06:34and of their allies for destroying God's work,
06:38which the apostle has spoken about throughout his book,
06:42and proclaims with certainty the Christian's hope upon which he bases his faith,
06:47That is, the final resurrection where neither death nor pain will reign over humanity anymore,
06:55resurrection that will unite him definitively and eternally with God.
07:01Contrary to all appearances presented in our world,
07:05where evil seems to reign,
07:08that peace and justice are Christian utopias,
07:11where the abundant life proclaimed by Jesus does not seem possible,
07:17John prophetically announces the triumph of God and his chosen ones.
07:23God does not disappoint.
07:25The promises made by Christ become a reality in the lives of those who know how to remain faithful.
07:32of those who have wholeheartedly decided to embrace the evangelical life,
07:38of those who, despite their own lives, have been able to demonstrate a lifestyle
07:46marked by love and justice.
07:48That is why the last words of the apocalypse are
07:53Come, Lord Jesus.
07:55The entire church prays for the total and definitive victory of Christ.
08:03Let us not be afraid, then, to enter this wonderful book,
08:09which, as you can see, has certain elements of complexity.
08:12We just need to have another book with us,
08:15like this one I recommended from Father Hugo Bani,
08:19or some other that helps us to understand some of the symbolic elements.
08:24Let us delve deeper into Sacred Scripture,
08:26which helps us to understand more clearly God's plan for our lives.
08:33And well, we'll leave our "Knowing to Love" here.
08:37I hope that what you know will help you to love Scripture more and to love the Lord more.
08:42And I'll see you in our next segment to continue learning about our faith.
08:47Until next time.
08:48Blessing.
08:56Blessing.
