Around 520 BC, this Prophecy from Zechariah, 2:5-9, 14-15 was made about Jerusalem and Jesus: “I, Zechariah, raised my eyes and looked: there was a man with a measuring line in his hand. I asked, ‘Where are you going? He answered, ‘To measure Jerusalem, to see how great is its width and how great its length.’
Then the angel who spoke with me advanced, and another angel came out to meet him and said to him, ‘Run, tell this to that young man: People will live in Jerusalem as though in open country, because of the multitude of men and beasts in her midst. But I will be for her an encircling wall of fire, says the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst.”
The Temple of Jerusalem was that ‘glory’! Its people had been so fruitful that in the thousand years since Moses, tens of thousands in each of nearly 20 generations had to leave their continually overcrowded farms and cities. They moved and multiplied in communities that became Tribes from Denmark to India. Many would return to Jerusalem, bringing gifts that enriched The Temple from which their Faith had grown.
Then, Zechariah made Another Prophecy that also came true!
“Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says The LORD. Many nations shall join themselves to The LORD on that day, and they shall be His people and He will dwell among you.” is one of over 300 Jesus-Predicting Prophecies. It specifically predicts that God’s Son would “dwell among you.” and that “many generations shall join themselves to The Lord on that day.”
That Prophecy came true in the most literal way! The first Catholics on earth would be literally “joined” with Him by receiving His Body and Blood at The First Catholic Communion Jesus provided at The Last Supper. They would “be His people” because they obeyed The Call to Catholic Communion that He repeated 12 times in the last half of John 6 and twice more at The Last Supper which let He Who Fulfilled The Prophecies literally “dwell” within us! “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood, you do not have life in you.”
Catholics know that God removed His protective “ring of fire” from Jerusalem. After “thousands of thousands” (Acts 21:20), including many in Jerusalem, had become Catholics. Some were so worried about their worldly structures that they attacked them viciously! Some Apostles were killed, and all were persecuted. That made God so angry that He had Roman Emperor Nero, the most vicious and powerful anti-Catholic on earth, send Vespasian and Titus to destroy Jerusalem. The prophecy made by Jesus Christ about Jerusalem 35 years earlier, in Mt. 24:2, came true: “Not one stone will be left upon another.” The early Catholics escaped to Pella before Jerusalem was literally “flattened” by Titus in 70 AD. The remaining people were either killed or sold into slavery.
To argue with The Catholic Church and Her Teaching is to argue with He Whom Zechariah had predicted would “dwell” among us! “And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”
All Catholics are blessed with a “ring of fire” around our souls that keeps us from losing those “keys”!
~
Today’s Simple Rhyme: “The more we learn about History, / the more Catholic we are blessed to be!”
~
