Putting Together Genesis and Revelations 12

In Genesis we read that after the fall and after the rebuke of the serpent that God said to that serpent “I will put enmities between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed, he/she will crush they head and you will lie in wait for her heel.  I have put he or she because in some translations it is he and others it is she.   There is a promise here that because of a woman the serpent will be crushed, not just by her but by the seed she gives birth to.   Of course this woman is Mary and her seed is Our Lord Jesus, as the Church has taught from the beginning.

But there is another text in the Bible which this promise is related to, and it is one from the New Testament -  Revelations 12.

"And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars, she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.    And another portent appeared in heaven, behold a great red dragon; with seven heads and tens horns, and seven diadems upon his heads.   His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth.   And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth.   She brought forth a child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but the child was caught up to God and to His throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days"

Revelations 12 then goes into a description of how the dragon was defeated by St Michael and his angels, and how the dragon was defeated by the blood of the Lamb.  but it returns to the woman;

"And when the Dragon saw that he had been thrown down to earth he pursued the woman who had borne the male child, but the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times and half a time,  The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth, to sweep her away with the flood,   But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth.   Then the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, ON THOSE WHO KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD, AND BEAR TESTIMONY TO JESUS.   AND HE STOOD ON THE SAND OF THE SEA”


There is much here which is beyond my understanding.   But the point is that we through our baptism and our promise to keep the Commandments of God and bear Testimony to Jesus, are the rest of her offspring.   We too are included as the seed of the Woman in Genesis and, acting with Jesus and Mary, we too are at enmity with the serpent in Genesis.   The serpent tempts us as he tempted Eve, but through the grace of the crucifies Christ offered to us in the Sacraments, we too can crush the head of the serpent.   Jesus and Mary, pray for us. 

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