Revelation Chapter 18
1 After this I saw another angel co ming down from heaven. So great was his authority that the whole earth was lit up with his glory.

2 In a strong voice he cried out:
“Fallen is Babylon the great! Fallen!
She has become a haunt of de mons,
a lodge for every unclean spirit,
a nest for any filthy and disgusting bird.

3 She has made all nations drunk
with the wine of her lewdness,
fornicated with kings of the earth,
and glutted the world’s merchants
with her wantonness and wealth.”

4 Then I heard another voice from heaven:
“Depart from her, my people,
lest you share in her evil
and so share in her punishments;

5 for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God keeps count of her crimes.

6 Give back to her as she has given,
pay her twice for what she has done.
Let her drink a double portion
of what she made others do.

7 Give her as much torment and grief
as the wantonness she enjoyed herself.
For she said to herself,
‘I sit as queen, I am not a widow,
never will I go into mourning!’

8 And so, suddenly, her plagues will come –
death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
for mighty is the Lord, the judge,
who has passed sentence on her.”

9 The kings who shared her luxury and com mitted adultery with her will see the smoke as she burns, and they will weep and lament.

10 They will nevertheless keep their distance, terrified at her punishment, and ex claim:
“Alas, alas! Great city that you are,
O Babylon, seat of power!
Your doom has come in a single hour!”

11 The merchants of the world will mourn over her, for they will lose a market for their goods –

12 their cargoes of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and pur ple garments, silk and scarlet cloth, frag rant wood, ivory pieces and expensive furniture, bronze, iron and marble,

13 cinnamon and spices, per fume, myrrh and frankincense, wine and olive oil, fine flour and grain, cattle and sheep, horses and car riages, slaves and human lives.

14 They will say:
“Gone is the fruit you longed for.
Gone are your luxury and splendor.
Never will you recover them, never!”

15 The merchants who dealt in these goods, who grew rich from business with the city, will stand at a safe distance for fear of her punishment. Weeping and mourning, 16 they will cry out:

16 “Woe, woe to the great city,
to the linen and purple and scarlet you wore,
to your gold and pearls, your finery,

17 your great wealth destroyed in an hour!”
Every captain and navigator, every sailor and seafarer, will stand afar,

18 crying out on seeing the smoke going up as the city burns to the ground. “What city could have compared with this one?”

19 They will pour dust on their heads and cry out in mourning:
“Alas, alas, great city,
where all who had ships at sea
grew rich through her trade!
In an hour she has been devas tated.”

20 Rejoice over her, O heavens!
Rejoice, prophets, saints and apostles!
God has rendered justice to you.

21 A powerful angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, saying:
“With such violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down, never again to be seen.

22 Never again will tunes of har pists, min strels, trumpeters and flutists be heard in you. Never again will an artisan of any trade be found in you. Never again will the noise of the mill be heard.

23 Never again will the light of a lamp shine in you. The voice of bride groom and bride will never again be heard in you.
Because your traders were the world’s great and you led the nations astray by your magic spell.

24 In this city was found blood of prophets and saints – yes, the blood of all who have been slain on the earth.”

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Comments Revelation, Chapter 18

• 18.1 Fallen is Babylon the great! This is what the prophets shouted when they announced the fall of the oppressive city (see Jer 50 and 51). In prophesying the fall of Jerusalem, Jesus said: “Rejoice…” (Lk 21:28).  

Depart from her, my people! Live in the world without being of the world, do the impossible to convert this society, its aspirations, its culture, but do not alienate your soul. When God’s judgment is made on these diseased structures, be ready to leave all and return to the desert, to poverty, rather than lying down among the dead of history (see Phil 3:20).

MUST WE LOOK FOR A GREAT BABYLON IN THE WORLD TODAY?

John saw the rule of the Beast in the Roman empire and he prophesied its fall. He said very little about what would come after.

In speaking about the empire that he knew, John teaches us how to view the empires of this century, for our world also is the theater of the struggle of the Dragon against the Woman. This Roman Empire created a civilization and a culture that we have inherited. The fact that John condemned it does not mean that everything in it was bad: let us remark, incidentally, that Christ wanted his apostles to establish the center of his Church precisely in Rome.

The great Babylon is of all times and is recognized in every power which pretends to give people a total solution to their problems while enclosing them in their net. We are leaving a century where many have identified it according to their personal point of view, be it international capitalism, or materialist socialism. It would be false to think that only one of these systems served the plans of the devil: the master of this world respects no frontiers and plays equally well on both sides. Atheist governments persecute the Church but very often the Church confronts violent or subtle persecution from the liberal classes or from dictatorships that pretend to be attached to Christian principles. A Church in which the best “good news” is for the poor will necessarily be persecuted by systems that produce millions of margina lized people.

We are used to a liberal style of life where no moral values exist any longer: what remains is the search for maximum pleasure in life with each one a “prostitute” to the gods he has fabricated or chosen. The apparent triumphs of our liberal world these last years may let us forget for a time its “ignorance of God” (Rom 1), as was the case of Rome. We must be sufficiently alert to foresee and hope for the judgment to come.

SHALL WE RELATE OUR LADY’S APPARITIONS TO APPROACHING JUDGMENT?

We have tried to show that the Revelation is not a description of what must precede the end of the world, but rather that it unveils the sense of history, either at the beginning or the end. Nevertheless, the sudden acceleration of the march of humanity is a fact: more has been achieved in a century than in thousands of former centuries and more in fifty years than in the course of the preceding century.

From another perspective, the density of human beings (more than 5,000 million!) and the multiplication of materials they use have made human life increasingly complex and tense. Each day offers more effective means of doing evil and submitting it to Satan. The important apparitions of Mary in the course of the last century are for some people further signs that we are approaching the end: should we agree with them?

With regard to the annunciation (Lk 1:26) we have shown that not only did God give Mary a mission but that he loved her in a special way. Mary and the Church are two expressions of God’s plan of salvation. To both may be applied the sign of the Woman and the Dragon in chapter 12.

The plan of salvation however is constantly in danger: the greatest obstacles and delays come from the Church herself, so often blind to the demands of the Gospel while she intends to conquer the world. Why these heavy and alienating structures which finally make the Church a benefit mainly for clerics and learned people while closing it to the poor or to the masses?

It is not then surprising that the Virgin Mary uses the grace received from the Lord and intervenes from time to time to visit the poor. She does not bring a new message or revelation that many people expect (that is why many such revelations are forged and do very well). Mary re-speaks the words of the Gospel and in such a forceful way as to multiply conversions. The apparitions infer a failure of the Church: Mary comes to the help of her forgotten children. It is one of the channels through which the Holy Spirit is heard – the Spirit who has never finished repeating the Gospel through prophets and wonders.

If these apparitions have become more frequent it is perhaps because the Church is more threatened today; but if Satan is more active, it is probably because the end is near.