{"id":75668,"date":"2025-06-03T07:50:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T11:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=75668"},"modified":"2025-06-03T09:52:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T13:52:28","slug":"where-eagles-soar-the-virgin-of-monsterrat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/where-eagles-soar-the-virgin-of-monsterrat\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Eagles Soar: The Virgin Of Monsterrat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/download.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-75669\" src=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/download.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"472\" height=\"314\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/download.jpg 275w, https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/download-255x170.jpg 255w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 472px) 100vw, 472px\" \/><\/a><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">+<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">As Mary received recognition, as still more Christians discussed her pureness and the concept that she had been free from original sin, as they spoke of her Assumption into Heaven and accepted the powers of her intercession, so was she empowered to unleash more signs, so could she help more\u00a0directly.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">In 714 she appeared in Constantinople to the mother of\u00a0Saint Stephen the Younger, predicting the birth of that holy\u00a0martyr, and showed herself to the abbottress of a monastery in\u00a0Montreiul, France, half a century later. Most awesome was her\u00a0place high up Montserrat, a most extraordinary mountain with\u00a0soaring pillars and ramparts that reached a height of 4,055 feet north of Barcelona.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">There was a hermitage up there and during the\u00a0Arab invasions it was a major place of refuge as Muslims swept across the Iberian Peninsula &#8212; across the old territory of James &#8212; and sought to destroy anything Christian, causing the frenzied\u00a0Catholics to hide many of their most precious relics, including\u00a0the statue that had been given to Bishop Eterius (which on April\u00a022, 718, was taken to Montserrat and like the image of Guadalupe\u00a0and many others hidden in a hole or cave).<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Up there with eagles the image transformed Montserrat into a huge altar that seemed to look upon the entire continent.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSivIXNBaub85Tdx6cIgz4vnMgZ03C1sZoEWw&amp;s\" alt=\"Surrendering Our Swords - Ignatian ...\" width=\"523\" height=\"243\" \/><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">+<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Below, across Europe, the spiritual landscape was greatly\u00a0influenced by the Blessed Mother, who continued to work spreading\u00a0her purity in areas that had long been marred, had long been\u00a0contaminated, by Druids and other occultists. It was a most\u00a0serious form of idolatry and the human sacrifices by long-robed\u00a0Druids in wooded areas had alarmed even the Romans.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">There was\u00a0something unusually spooky about the Druids (perhaps it was because they operated in darkness or the legends that they could conjure remarkable magic, creating an actual fog), and their essence was that of other pagans, worshipping the moon and sun or nature spirits like those thought to inhabit the mighty oak and other trees of the forest.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Such occultism had been targeted by Christians from the very start and was dangerous because it revered the creation instead of the Creator and spread the false\u00a0notion that utopia &#8212; that Heaven &#8212; could be achieved on earth.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Worse, as Saint Paul had indicated, the worship of nature spirits was the worship of devils, and just as Mary had quietly and secretly ushered in Jesus to a world of pagans seven centuries before, so was\u00a0 she now quietly but powerfully moving into Western Europe; so was she now overcoming occultists not with warfare, not with an inquisition, but by the simple sweet grace which the Holy Spirit had formed in her.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">She had an intimate relation with the Church from its very\u00a0beginning and now, while never equating her with Jesus (<em>Timothy<\/em>\u00a02:5), the Church in both the West and East, Roman and Byzantine,\u00a0knew her as a most extraordinary intercessor, an ambassador, an\u00a0exorcist, her prayers heard in a special way because of her purity and obedience.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">When humans asked for her prayer, when they\u00a0sought her in the Name of Christ, she answered. In some way she\u00a0always answered. She drew grace from Christ. She had a reservoir\u00a0of it. And she shared.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">She shared with those who implored her and placed them under the cloak of her protection. While the Antichrist had not arrived in 500 as many had foreseen, there was still plenty of evil and Mary was sent because no one doing evil, no one infested with a demon, could stay near her. They had to convert or take leave. She was stronger than the dark angel.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">She had to struggle like anyone on his territory but it was already written that she would win, that Christ would triumph, even if the devil in his pride couldn&#8217;t accept that, even if he refused to accept the inevitable. Clearly the victory at Calvary had brought Satan into a near-panic and he was\u00a0 determined now to do <em>anything<\/em> to erase that victory and claim the earth by the end of time. It&#8217;s what one might call the &#8220;end-game.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">How could he be prince of\u00a0the world if people turned to Jesus?<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><em>[resources: excerpted from <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookstore.spiritdaily.com\/products\/br-the-last-secret-by-michael-h-brown?_pos=1&amp;_sid=d49425b17&amp;_ss=r\">The Last Secret<\/a><\/span>]<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">+<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bookstore.spiritdaily.com\/cdn\/shop\/products\/MHB-112-2_large.jpg?v=1627695641\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"gsp_post_data\" \r\n\t            data-post_type=\"post\" \r\n\t            data-cat=\"apparitions\" \r\n\t            data-modified=\"120\"\r\n\t            data-created=\"1748937029\"\r\n\t            data-title=\"Where Eagles Soar: The Virgin Of Monsterrat\" \r\n\t            data-home=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>+ As Mary received recognition, as still more Christians discussed her pureness and the concept that she had been free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-75668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-apparitions","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}