A Time of Waiting Unique in World History (VI)

The wondrous child proclaimed by the Sibyl of Cumae

While the Blessed Virgin was on earth, the Romans’ expectancy may also have been nourished by the great oracle reported by Virgil in the fourth Eclogue of his Bucolics: “We have reached the last era in the oracle of the Sibyl of Cumae: the long sequence of the ages starts afresh. The Virgin comes to dwell with us, and the rule of Saturn is restored. The first born of the new age is already on his way from high heaven. A new-born child born in the reign of the Emperor Augustus shall end the iron race and shall raise a race of gold for the entire world.”

The Blessed Virgin from whom the Son of God would come certainly did not know about this oracle, but Jesus, born under the rule of the Emperor Augustus indeed transformed the iron of oppression into love that is symbolized by gold. And at several of the world’s shrines (such as Longpont, Nogent sous Coucy and Chartres) the Virgini Pariturae: the Virgin who is to give birth, was worshipped, amazingly enough even before the birth of Christ.