An angel of the cups—we usually said cups—is referring back to chapter 16, principally. An angel of the cups evokes the preceding purifications by which the Church has had to attain her triumphant state. This angel says, „Come and I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.‟ „Come‟ equals quit earthly things, rise to heavenly things. Sursum corda. „And I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.‟ The Church is engaged to Christ in this life and married to Him in the next: the bride and the wife. Bride in this life, wife in the next. Besides the Church, it is also the soul. The soul which weds Christ is both virginal spouse and fruitful wife—two things not normally combinable.

These liberals, they think they are nice guys, sweet guys, and say, „We will help you to rebuild it all.‟ In the meantime, they go on smashing it to pieces every day. The liberals cannot bear you to disagree with them. They are so sacrosanct, convinced they are right, but they will not tolerate you disagreeing with them. The moment Milošević would bow down and agree, then everything would be sweet and nice. „Oh, what was all this bombing about? Well, that was just…‟ Incredible. Absolutely incredible. To understand the liberal mind, do not try too hard; you will fall into it. Yet it is absolutely everywhere.

General MacArthur told Kennedy to get out of Vietnam. Eisenhower told Kennedy to get out of Vietnam. Kennedy was getting out of Vietnam, and of course, he got shot by we know who, and immediately Johnson turned it around, and they went back into Vietnam because that is what the „we know who‟ wanted. You do not get into a ground war which you cannot be sure of winning.

Around the world, they will be airborne. Kevin Ryan says in the little local school there, there is lots of propaganda about the draft. Somebody wants the Third World War. It is not the Russians at this point in time. It is the West. It is the criminals that are directing the West, that control people like Clinton and Blair. Blair is just as bad as Clinton, as far as I am concerned. His private life is a little cleaner, but he is the same kind of idiot.

The media, and the stupid people who follow the media. The media can do what they like with people’s minds, it seems. It is very cleverly done. The rider knows his horse. The image often in the Apocalypse for leaders to the people is like rider to horse. The rider has to know his horse and take the horse into consideration, but he pretty much makes the horse do what he, the rider, wants, within the limits of the horse. So these leaders, they know how to manipulate a crowd. It is incredible. It is terrible to watch because plenty of people think we are definitely heading, little by little, towards the Third World War. And the Third World War is not going to be pleasant at all.

They were warned, „You will never do this by air bombardment alone.‟ But that was the pretense, and so they are still bombing, bombing, bombing. It is incredible. And then they are pretending that they are doing nothing, only… by what right? Who do they think they are? It is ridiculous, completely ridiculous. You had tin pot dictators all over Africa; there was tremendous slaughter. Any question of bombing them? No. They are bombing the Balkans. Somebody wants to start a third world war. There is a terrible punishment coming, a terrible punishment, and it is fully deserved, I am afraid, fully deserved.

And it is obviously not only Clinton. It could not possibly be only him. There is a whole clack of them in Washington, a whole clack of foreign policy makers and soldiers who go along with it. They have got the idea that the United States can drop bombs anywhere in the world to straighten things out. Notice they drop bombs, bombs, bombs, in the hope that they will not have to expose any of their own soldiers. Imagine the frustration of the people on the receiving end, who are getting smashed to pieces, and there is nobody and nothing they can hit back at. What a way to make war.

But sooner or later, they will have to go in, and then the Serbs are waiting for them, waiting for the ground troops to come in. Then we are going to start seeing the body bags. Interesting to see what the liberals will do with the body bags. In Vietnam, the liberals did not want the war. Now, the very same people that did not want war in Vietnam want this crazy war. The war in Vietnam was sensible against communism. This war has no sense at all, except for globalists. How can they destroy one sensible war and create this one? Because in the one case, it is a fight against communism, which the liberals do not want to fight. But the liberals do want globalism, and NATO smashing Yugoslavia is globalism. So that is why they did not want that war, but they do want this war. And yet they pretend that this is not a war; it is just dropping a lot of bombs.

When they send in those ground troops, as they will most likely have to unless more sensible counsels prevail, when they start getting killed, I will bet you the media will keep completely quiet about the body bags coming home. Silence. Oh, they are rats, these people. It is all Christ and the Antichrist. That is what it is. In Vietnam, communism is the Antichrist, and therefore to fight communism… „He that is not against you is for you.‟ So America was on the side of Christ as long as it was fighting communism. So the liberals were against. Now that America is on the side of the Antichrist, the liberals have prevailed, and now the liberals are all for it. „But it is against your principles to fight war.‟ „That is nuts. We are not fighting war. This is not war. This is just dropping bombs.‟ Imagine these minds. Washington and London, make no mistake. Apparently, Italy is now beginning to complain of acting as an aircraft carrier, just a jumping-off place for all the bombs. Good for the Italians, say I. Italy and France did not want much to do with the last war, and they were quite right. People accused the French of not having opposed the Nazis with reason. To oppose the Nazis was to help communism. It was a fight between two thieves. Let them get on with it. Hitler wanted to fight the communists. But the liberals are crusading for this war. Incredible.

Verse 12. „And it had a wall great and high, having twelve gates and in the gates twelve angels and names written thereon which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.‟ The wall, in this case, is Christ’s humanity shielding the Church from her enemies. It is a great wall. Great by nobility, high by the hypostatic union. You may remember the antiphon of Advent: Urbs fortitudinis nostrae Sion, salvator ponetur in ea murus et antemurale. „The city of our strength is Sion. The Savior will be placed in it as a wall and as an outer wall.‟ Isaiah 26:1. High by the hypostatic union.

The twelve gates are the Apostles, whose doctrine alone gives entry to the city of God. „And in the gates, twelve angels.‟ The twelve angels are special guardians of the Apostles and their successors. „And names written thereon which are the names of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel.‟ The 12 Old Testament tribes represent the continuity of the Old Testament with the New Testament. Putting Old Testament names on the new Jerusalem shows the connection, the continuity between Christ’s Old Testament and His New Testament church. They both belong to Him.

North, south, east, west. Literally, the opening of the church to all men. The church is open to all men, all four points of the compass. Figuratively, the east is the men who lived at the beginning of the world. The west is the men who live at the end of the world. Started in the Garden of Eden, finished in the United States of America. The south is the Jews who were enlightened by the sunshine of God. The north is the Gentiles who were plunged in darkness.

In the figurative sense, the three gates in each of the four walls mean that you can come into the city, into the Church, as virgin, spouse, or widow. Those are the three states of life of all men. All men will be in one of those three states.

In the moral sense, according to Albert the Great, the 12 gates by which there is entry into the church are the 12 basics of preaching. By the east, to enlighten one’s listeners, you have to work out whether they are beginners, people on their way spiritually, or perfect. The three northern gates are the three threats hanging over man: death, judgment, and hell. The southern gates are the three promises: forgiveness, grace, glory. The three western gates are the three kinds of sin that you have to do penance for: sins of thought, sins of word, sins of action. That is a lot of detail, but that is Albert the Great, a great church doctor, giving a moral sense for the 12 gates by which to enter the church.

Jeremiah 1:18: „Yes, I today have given you to be a fortified city, a column of iron, and a wall of bronze upon the whole earth. To the kings of Judah and its princes, and to the priests, and to the people. And they will make war on you and they will not prevail because I am with you, says the Lord, in order to free you.‟ Magnificent.

Just a little like Archbishop Lefebvre. He was not somebody who loved tearing up the enemy. He was strong, but he was much more inclined to make friends with his colleagues, his fellow bishops. He had no personal inclination to go to war and tear them all to pieces. That is why if he stood up to them, it was clearly not his own doing, not his own will or personality. It was God’s doing. Same with Jeremiah. If the Lord God chooses somebody who says, „Oh, no, not me,‟ then it is not Jeremiah’s doing. It proves that it is God’s doing. That is one reason why God mysteriously chooses who He does choose.

So, the golden reed is the teachings of Holy Scripture. The city is the masses, the gates are the prelates, and the wall is the princes, the secular authorities. The gates are where the action is, but the gates depend upon the wall. If you have no wall, there is no gate, or the gate has no meaning. If there is no wall, people just walk in and out of the city how they like. If there is a wall, then people have to deal with the gates. If you have got the secular authorities with the church, then people have to deal with the church. Otherwise, they just go around the church. It is an interesting comparison from some medieval commentators.

So, the city, the four square, represents the four cardinal virtues. „And its length is as great as its breadth‟ means that these four virtues are cultivated in a balanced way. The four virtues are in balance.

Oh, we’ll continue next week.