May 18th was the anniversary of the first 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, an event my friends and I considered hugely prophetic. I am a member of a small Roman Catholic prayer community “Emmanuel†that has received incredible “revelation” over a period of years—some of it outlined in my 1998 book, “The Goddess in the Gospels,†relevant to our on-going efforts to reclaim the Bride and the Partnership (Sacred Union) at the heart of the Gospels.
The mountain (named for a British explorer) bears the name of the Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena who prayed for decades for the conversion of her son to Christianity. It erupted on Pope John Paul II’s 60th birthday (May 18, 1980) and again, a much smaller eruption, on the following Sunday, May 25, the feast of Pentecost. The first eruption of the “fire mountain” caused incredible devastation. The lake that spilled its waters down into the coastland below was called “Spirit Lake.” I knew the place well—our family had spent a fishing vacation there in 1973. We had eaten our dinners in the lodge owned by Mr. Truman—dinners cooked by his wife.
For these reasons, on noticing these dates, I immediately associated the volcano with the Institutional Roman Catholic Church. The Scripture passage I received when I prayed over the volcano’s eruption was from the prophetic book of Jeremiah:
“Beware. I am against you, destroying mountain. I will stretch forth my hand against you, roll you down over the cliffs and make of you a burnt mountain.” (Jer. 51:25). Reading this passage, I was horrified! I was convinced that God was talking about the Church in its present condition. At the time I had never even heard of pedophilia, but I knew about the Vatican Bank scandal and other abuses of power.
Several months later another explosion of Mount St Helen’s occurred, this one on 22 July–the Feast of Mary Magdalene–which in that year fell on the “9th of Av,†the day when Jews in Israel go to the Western Wall to mourn the destruction of their Temple—not once, but twice! One of my prayer group “kinswomen,†who lived in Tel Aviv at the time, planned to go to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem on that day in 1980 and had asked our prayer group to be with her in prayer mourning for the Temple that has not been rebuilt. We had each performed a “novena†in preparation for this event in solidarity with those who mourn the Temple.
The “synchronicities” and connections of these dates on Mount St. Helens’ eruptions were, I believe, enormously prophetic. At the time, my prayer group friends and I had been shown to record dates of important current events and interpret them with a view to the Church calendar of feast days. We all thought that the implied implosion of the Church (Mt. St. Helens)  had to do with the Vatican bank scandals and the cover up of the rumored murder of John Paul I (a ‘story rarely told’). We had as yet no idea of the other devastating internal problems brewing in the Church that included the massive cover-ups of pedophilia.
Here’s what the Mount St. Helens Volcano revealed when we prayed about it:
A damaging implosion would come from within the Church
It would occur during the “watch” of John Paul II
It would cause an the waters of the Holy Spirit to be poured out into the earth (Pentecost, Spirit Lake poured out). The Church was no longer to be the “custodian†of the “waters of Spirit and Truth.”
The denial Jesus was “true man†would be an issue. (Mr. “Truman†had stayed on the mountain and was buried in the slide). He had refused to leave because his WIFE was buried at the site of his fishing camp).
The “Temple†in Jerusalem could not be rebuilt because of the loss of the “Blueprint,†including the denial of “Mary Magdalene” and all she embodies: the “Sacred Feminine,†the “Bride,” the physical body, relatedness to the earth, kinship of all people, feminine wisdom, intuition.Â
The model of “Sacred Union” was broken in the cradle of the Christianity–waiting to be restored!
The “revelation†of Mt. St. Helens is discussed more thoroughly in chapter 3 of my book, The Goddess in the Gospels:  http://www.margaretstarbird.net/the_goddess_in_the_gospels.
The systematic denial of the Feminine as “Bride and Beloved†is a core problem underlying the sex and power abuses by priests—a devastating “design flaw†of the early Church perpetrated into the present with tragic consequences.
In memory of her–
Margaret
