Introduction to Revelation
[1]The Apocalypse, or Revelation to
John, the last book of the Bible, is one of the most difficult to understand
because it abounds in unfamiliar and extravagant symbolism, which at best
appears unusual to the modern reader. Symbolic language, however, is one of the
chief characteristics of apocalyptic literature, of which this book is an
outstanding example. Such literature enjoyed wide popularity in both Jewish and
Christian circles from ca. 200 B.C. to A.D. 200. This book contains an account
of visions in symbolic and allegorical language borrowed extensively from the
Old Testament, especially Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel. Whether or not these
visions were real experiences of the author or simply literary conventions
employed by him is an open question. This much, however, is certain: symbolic
descriptions are not to be taken as literal descriptions, nor is the symbolism
meant to be pictured realistically. One would find it difficult and repulsive
to visualize a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes; yet Jesus Christ is
described in precisely such words. The author used these images to suggest
Christ’s universal (seven) power (horns) and knowledge (eyes). A significant
feature of apocalyptic writing is the use of symbolic colors, metals, garments,
and numbers (four signifies the world, six imperfection, seven totality or
perfection, twelve Israel’s tribes or the apostles, one thousand immensity). Finally,
the vindictive language in the book is also to be understood symbolically and
not literally. The cries for vengeance on the lips of Christian martyrs that
sound so harsh are in fact literary devices the author employed to evoke in the
reader and hearer a feeling of horror for apostasy and rebellion that will be
severely punished by God. The lurid descriptions of the punishment of Jezebel
and of the destruction of the great harlot, Babylon, are likewise literary
devices. The metaphor of Babylon as harlot would be wrongly construed if
interpreted literally. On the other hand, the stylized figure of the woman
clothed with the sun, depicting the New Israel, may seem to be a negative
stereotype. It is necessary to look beyond the literal meaning to see that
these images mean to convey a sense of God’s wrath at sin in the former case
and trust in God’s providential care over the church in the latter. The Book of
Revelation cannot be adequately understood except against the historical
background that occasioned its writing. Like Daniel and other apocalypses, it
was composed as resistance literature to meet a crisis. The book itself
suggests that the crisis was ruthless persecution of the early church by the
Roman authorities; the harlot Babylon symbolizes pagan Rome, the city on seven
hills. The book is, then, an exhortation and admonition to Christians of the
first century to stand firm in the faith and to avoid compromise with paganism,
despite the threat of adversity and martyrdom; they are to await patiently the
fulfillment of God’s mighty promises. The triumph of God in the world of men
and women remains a mystery, to be accepted in faith and longed for in hope. It
is a triumph that unfolded in the history of Jesus of Nazareth and continues to
unfold in the history of the individual Christian who follows the way of the
cross, even, if necessary, to a martyr’s death. Though the perspective is
eschatological—ultimate salvation and victory are said to take place at the end
of the present age when Christ will come in glory at the parousia—the book
presents the decisive struggle of Christ and his followers against Satan and
his cohorts as already over. Christ’s overwhelming defeat of the kingdom of
Satan ushered in the everlasting reign of God. Even the forces of evil
unwittingly carry out the divine plan, for God is the sovereign Lord of
history. The Book of Revelation had its origin in a time of crisis, but it
remains valid and meaningful for Christians of all time. In the face of
apparently insuperable evil, either from within or from without, all Christians
are called to trust in Jesus’ promise, “Behold, I am with you always, until the
end of the age”. Those who remain steadfast in their faith and confidence in
the risen Lord need have no fear. Suffering, persecution, even death by
martyrdom, though remaining impenetrable mysteries of evil, do not comprise an
absurd dead end. No matter what adversity or sacrifice Christians may endure,
they will in the end triumph over Satan and his forces because of their
fidelity to Christ the victor. This is the enduring message of the book; it is
a message of hope and consolation and challenge for all who dare to believe. The
author of the book calls himself John, who because of his Christian faith has
been exiled to the rocky island of Patmos, a Roman penal colony. Although he
never claims to be John the apostle, whose name is attached to the fourth
gospel, he was so identified by several of the early church Fathers, including
Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Hippolytus.
This identification, however, was denied by other Fathers, including Denis of
Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, and
John Chrysostom. Indeed, vocabulary, grammar, and style make it doubtful that
the book could have been put into its present form by the same person(s)
responsible for the fourth gospel. Nevertheless, there are definite linguistic and
theological affinities between the two books. The tone of the letters to the
seven churches is indicative of the great authority the author enjoyed over the
Christian communities in Asia. It is possible, therefore, that he was a
disciple of John the apostle, who is traditionally associated with that part of
the world. The date of the book in its present form is probably near the end of
the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81–96), a fierce persecutor of the Christians.
AUGUST 23 Thursday
Revelation, Chapter 1, Verse 17-18
17 When I caught sight of him, I fell
down at his feet as though dead. He touched me with his right hand and said, “Do not
be afraid. I am the first and the
last, 18 the one who lives. Once I was dead,
but now I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys to death and the
netherworld.
All have sinned; all are
unjust. Have you ever thought “Now comes the reckoning for his blood” as
Joseph’s brothers did (OT: coat of many colors)? Yet, the Lord has touched us,
and it is important to note that he
has touched us with his right hand; signifying power, forgiveness and authority
saying, “Do not be afraid”.
Saint Pope John Paul II was an example of someone who
walked through the valley of the shadow of death and feared no evil. The Lord’s
rod and staff sustained him through the nightmare of the Nazis and the Communists.
Both were evil empires devoted to the destruction of life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness for all except for the few selected elites. These empires systematically replaced God
with the rule of the chosen ones of the State. People from both the Fatherland
and the Motherland sat by and watched the evil grow without taking decisive
action, making the adage ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that
good men (or women) do nothing.’ Remember to measure our nation and our
politics with Gods Rod (Rods were
often used in ancient times to measure) and not the political States or the
media nor the opinion of the rich and the powerful. Let us be ever ready to
speak up for what is righteous using Gods rod, which are His laws of justice
and mercy, working tirelessly and remember Saint Pope John Paul II words of
encouragement, “I plead with you – never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never
tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.”
Let us also carry with us for the journey the Staff
of God which is truth, not worldly truth but Gods truth. “The word of truth,
publicly, indeed almost liturgically, proclaimed was the antidote the Rhapsodic
Theater sought to apply to the violent lies of the Occupation. The tools for
fighting evil included speaking truth to power.” [2]
Satan
has in the past assailed us by evil governments; is it any wonder that having
been unsuccessful; that now the attack comes from within. Let us remember it is
Christ who holds the keys to
death and the netherworld.
20.08.2018
Holy Father Francis to the People of God[3]
“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it”. These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults.
1. If one member suffers…
In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side He stands. Mary’s song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise He made to our fathers: “He has scattered the proud in their conceit; He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty” (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite. With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. I make my own the words of the then Cardinal Ratzinger when, during the Way of the Cross composed for Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so many victims and exclaimed: “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how much self-complacency! Christ’s betrayal by His disciples, their unworthy reception of His body and blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces His heart. We can only call to Him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us! (cf. Mt 8:25)” (Ninth Station).
2. all suffer together with it
The extent and the gravity of all that has happened requires coming to grips with this reality in a comprehensive and communal way. While it is important and necessary on every journey of conversion to acknowledge the truth of what has happened, in itself this is not enough. Today we are challenged as the People of God to take on the pain of our brothers and sisters wounded in their flesh and in their spirit. If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history. And this in an environment where conflicts, tensions and above all the victims of every type of abuse can encounter an outstretched hand to protect them and rescue them from their pain (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 228). Such solidarity demands that we in turn condemn whatever endangers the integrity of any person. A solidarity that summons us to fight all forms of corruption, especially spiritual corruption. The latter is “a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centeredness, for “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light”” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 165. Saint Paul’s exhortation to suffer with those who suffer is the best antidote against all our attempts to repeat the words of Cain: “Am I my brother's keeper?”. I am conscious of the effort and work being carried out in various parts of the world to come up with the necessary means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable. We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future. Together with those efforts, every one of the baptized should feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so greatly need. This change calls for a personal and communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord does. For as Saint John Paul II liked to say: “If we have truly started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom he wished to be identified” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 49). To see things as the Lord does, to be where the Lord wants us to be, to experience a conversion of heart in his presence. To do so, prayer and penance will help. I invite the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord’s command. This can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says “never again” to every form of abuse. It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation of all the members of God’s People. Indeed, whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives. This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the case with clericalism, an approach that “not only nullifies the character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people”. Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today. To say “no” to abuse is to say an emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism. It is always helpful to remember that “in salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to Himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships presents in the human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 6). Consequently, the only way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us as the People of God. This awareness of being part of a people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that can allow us to be renewed from within. Without the active participation of all the Church’s members, everything being done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change. The penitential dimension of fasting and prayer will help us as God’s People to come before the Lord and our wounded brothers and sisters as sinners imploring forgiveness and the grace of shame and conversion. In this way, we will come up with actions that can generate resources attuned to the Gospel. For “whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world” (Evangelii Gaudium, 11).
It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion. Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people’s sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled. A fasting that can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary. A fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be committed in truth and charity with all men and women of good will, and with society in general, to combating all forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of conscience. In this way, we can show clearly our calling to be “a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race” (Lumen Gentium, 1).
“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it”, said Saint Paul. By an attitude of prayer and penance, we will become attuned as individuals and as a community to this exhortation, so that we may grow in the gift of compassion, in justice, prevention and reparation. Mary chose to stand at the foot of her Son’s cross. She did so unhesitatingly, standing firmly by Jesus’ side. In this way, she reveals the way she lived her entire life. When we experience the desolation caused by these ecclesial wounds, we will do well, with Mary, “to insist more upon prayer”, seeking to grow all the more in love and fidelity to the Church (SAINT IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Spiritual Exercises, 319). She, the first of the disciples, teaches all of us as disciples how we are to halt before the sufferings of the innocent, without excuses or cowardice. To look to Mary is to discover the model of a true follower of Christ. May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction and our resolve courageously to combat them.
"Read
these counsels slowly. Pause to meditate on these thoughts. They are things
that I whisper in your ear-confiding them-as a friend, as a brother, as a
father. And they are being heard by God. I won't tell you anything new. I will
only stir your memory, so that some thought will arise and strike you; and so
you will better your life and set out along ways of prayer and of Love. And in
the end you will be a more worthy soul."
40. Without an architect you wouldn't build a good house for your life
on earth. How then, without a Director, can you hope to build the palace of
your sanctification for your eternity in heaven?
·
Please
Pray for Senator
McCain and our country; asking Our Lady of Beauraing to
intercede.
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