The way of the saint, that is what.

Catholicism has studied the lives of countless saints, their psychology and spirituality. A definite pattern has emerged, sort of like a law of the spiritual path that the saint must trod if he is to live the fuller journey with Christ.

This path consists of three stages, stages that have overlap, but that, in the end, are these three big steps:

The Purgative way
The Illuminative way, and.
The Unitive way

This is not a fairytale land that we speak of. The RCC has meticulously studied the spirituality and psychology of its saints since its inception, and though the spirituality has developed in its depth, the results show that countless men and women since Christ came have born this path out. Many were martyrs. Others died the martyrdom of the bed.

But through it all, those that lived a longer path have gone through the valleys and mountaintops.

They have gone through the darkness of the purgative way, the way of beating your flesh into subjection to the Spirit by way of penance and fasting.

They have gone through the light that is illumination, contemplating God's Deposit of faith.

They have gone through the dark night of the soul, the climax of the illuminative way when all their intimacy of intellect and will with God seemed a lie.

They have emerged from the dark night of the soul into the vindication of the unitive way, where they have reached basic perfection, where their wills are one with God's in joy and plenitude.

And most have passed through the final darkness, martyrdom, whether literal, or of the sickness of the bed.

For although there is nothing lacking in the sufferings of Christ in and of themselves, we must fill up in our flesh what is lacking in His sufferings as they are applied to us , for we are fallen, so that Christ's application of his grace to us is painful , at big times, for us .

But if this process is somehow a mysterious necessary way of the cross to reach the highest levels of sanctity for the individual human person , should it not be appropriate that this mystical interplay of our fallen nature with the grace of God should also be a very necessary historical path of a People of God that walk with Him in a major Revelatory Covenant ?

That is the crux of this hypothesis, and it is highly plausible! The history of the Jews prior to Christ corroborates it, and the history of the Church thus far as well as what is foreseen by the mystics to remain corroborates it.

Simply consider the profound parallels!

Before we begin, let us review the ways of the saint in more depth:

Now, once again, let us apply these stages to first the Jewish history, and then the Church.

Already, there are three primary delineations to Jewish history since Abraham. The three ages, as delineated by Augustine, are

I. From Abraham to David
II. From David to the Babylonian Captivity
III. From the Captivity to Christ [the First Coming of Messiah]

Each of the boundaries of these ages has within it a period of darkness for the Jews, even in so much as there are three primary darknesses in the way of the saint:

The dark night of the senses [purgative way]
The dark night of the soul [illuminative way]
Martyrdom [unitive way]

The three darknesses of the Jews are then:

I. Egypt's Enslavement [between Abraham and David]

II. The Intermediate Jewish Apostasy from the OT Covenant [between David and the Babylonian Captivity]

III. The Maccabean Struggle, that is, the Persecutions of Antiochus, an OT type of Antichrist [from the Captivity to Christ]

From this analysis, the period of Egyptian Enslavement fulfills the purgative way of the saint; the age of the prophets and progressive Jewish unfaithfulness to their witness up to the exile prefigures the illuminative way; and the captivity, the restoration to God and Holy Land and Maccabean ordeal fulfills the unitive way.

Note, after the OT Antichrist's darkness, which is the final one, the Jews cross the threshold between Old and New, when Christ comes, which parallels that after martyrdom, the saint crosses the threshold of this world into the world to come.

Now for the Church:

The ages of the Church follow similarly. First, note that what remains for Church history, if the Private Revelation of the mystics is correct, based on EWTN research through Desmond Birch and Collin Donovan (see Birch's Trial, Tribulation and Triumph, and Donovan's article on the end times, here: http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/endtimes.htm ), is a Minor Tribulation followed by a total restoration and extension of Catholicism to the Gentiles in the great Age of Peace, followed by, eventually, the Great Apostasy, the NT Antichrist and Second Coming [end of the world and New Creation].

From this, the ages of the Church are similar to Jewish History:

I. From Christ to Catholic Christendom
II. From Catholic Christendom to the Minor Tribulation
III. From the Minor Tribulation to the Second Coming

The three darknesses of Church history are then:

I. Pagan Rome's Persecutions [the dark night of the senses, between Christ and Catholic Christendom]

II. The Minor Apostasy [today, the dark night of the soul, between Catholic Christendom and the Minor Tribulation]

III. The Great Apostasy [martyrdom, between the Minor Tribulation and the Second Coming]

The three stages of the Church are then:

I. The Purgative way: the persecutions of Pagan Rome

II. The Illuminative Way: from Constantine to the Modern Minor Apostasy, which is the period in which, like the Saint, the Church deepens her understanding of the Deposit of faith by doctrinal development, culminating in the modern apostasy, the dark night of the soul, even as the modern world utterly scoffs at the whole of the Church's deposit.

III. The Unitive Way: the Minor Tribulation, the great restoration of the Gospel, the Age of Peace, and the NT Antichrist. For, in the age of peace, the Gentiles shall walk in the light of Christ by way of the Catholic Church, even in as much as the saint walks in perfection with Christ in the final light on this earth, the unitive way, culminating with martyrdom, in the same way in which a remnant of faithful Catholics shall follow the Christ in His Passion at the end of world under the NT Antichrist, after which Christ shall return, where the Church shall cross the threshold into the new world that shall never end, the New Creation.

Therefore, what shall enable the Jews to finally convert in the times of Antichrist, as the Catholic Church tells us from Public Revelation, except that the Jews shall see the essence of the Gospel played out in the New People of God, fulfilling the path that the OT just followed in the times before Christ? In this way, they shall see that it is inner renewal that matters, and not rituals that are merely external.

That is, in the times of the NT Antichrist, the Church shall turn to the First Children of God and plead with them to consider that the Gentiles will have returned to the same condition relative to Catholicism as the Jews were to the OT Covenant in the times just prior to Christ's first Coming, namely, that a great evil man is demanding apostasy from the New Covenant or else torture and death, even as the OT Antichrist demanded apostasy from the Old Covenant or face torture and death.

And, were that not enough, that all other stages of the Church followed in the similar footsteps of the Jews. That is, as the Christ proclaims in the Gospels, the perennial sign that shall convert the Jews is indeed the sign of Jonas. However the sign of Jonas--three days and three nights in the whale, three days and three nights in the tomb--was unable to convert the Jews as it applied to Christ individually in His literal Body. Therefore, if there is no other sign that shall be given, what else can move the Jews to see what they have not been able to see yet, except to see the sign of Jonas worn by Christ's Mystical Body, the Church! So that what was INsuffficient in the individual Christ, might be made sufficient in His Body, the Church!