Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! We are about to finish our year-long project, so read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

Come, Lord Jesus! 
Come to me as I read these divinely inspired writings.
Come and enlighten me so that I receive from them the nourishment I need to be your faithful witness in the world today.
Come to people who are seeking you, and to those whom I may meet on my daily round.
Come to those who see the Word lived by those who do not even know your name.
Come to those who hear the Word proclaimed, but see it contradicted by those who speak it.
And when the last day dawns, come to take us all to be with you!
Maranatha!
Come, Lord Jesus!

Today's chapters are Revelation 15-17.

John prepares us for the seven last plagues with a kind of double overture: In the first movement, the martyrs (with their new harps!) offer a canticle of praise that is now part of the Liturgy of the Hours. It ends with, "Your righteous acts have been revealed." That is the signal for angels in priestly vestments to come out with the seven last plagues: But there is something mysterious here. The bowls they are given by the "living creatures" are filled with God's "wrath" or "fury," but when the angels are given the bowls, the smoke of God's glory fills the whole space to the point of stopping all further action. That sounds like what we read at the dedication of the original Temple of Solomon (2 Chron 7:1) and Isaiah's vision of the Lord (Is 6:3-5). 

The recounting of the plagues, which recall the plagues of Egypt, has a kind of refrain: "but they did not repent." These are not vindictive tortures: Even at this point, the bowls of plague seem to be medicinal! By 16:13 we see a kind of purging that reveals the root of the disease. Several authors have called this the "unholy trinity" of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet (which can be understood as Satan, empire, and idolatry of any kind). They all work together, and are all within the domain of the demonic. 

As for Armageddon:

The fact that they are said to gather at the place called Armageddon is more a statement about the outcome...than it is about the location. Armageddon is....a place of decisive battles [.... It is] where the idolaters Jezebel met her death.... So the place where Jezebel met her end is a sign of the coming of the end of Rome and its false worship.

Armageddon is not a place, it is a promise: first, that Rome and all its idolatry will fall; and second, that the army of God will certainly win the final battle against evil.

James Papandrea

The Wedding of the Lamb, page 106

The prophecies of Chapter 17 have most obviously been fulfilled in their literal and immediate sense. The city of Rome, built upon seven hills (17:9), fell into decrepitude, abandoned even by the Emperors; Byzantium replaced old Rome, but could not sustain the entire imperial enterprise, especially where Germanic tribes had begun to settle. And that's without looking at Northern Africa, where Augustine of Hippo was meditating on what was happening and writing about it in The City of God.

Chapter 17 is a prophecy of the fall of Rome, but not only. While we can dismiss as simply silly (or desperate) all attempts to identify the "whore of Babylon" with the Catholic Church,  Dr Michael Gorman observes that the warnings of Revelation are not limited to the Imperial Rome of the Caesars. They apply to any "empire" in league with the "dragon" and "false prophets" purveying illusions of comfort, prosperity, and "cheap grace." In this case, our interpretation of "empire" should not be limited to civil governments: The same demonic power can be at work in the activity of drug cartels or even massive corporations whose dominance of world markets allows them to ignore slave-labor conditions and hideous human rights violations. The Book of Revelation tells us: God will not be mocked. 

Start reading here.

For more background

Years ago I attended a lecture series by Dr James Papandrea on the Book of Revelation and found it very helpful. His book, The Wedding of the Lamb: A Historical Approach to the Book of Revelation, is kind of expensive, but there is a Kindle version in case you are looking for a companion to Revelation by a Catholic theologian. 

Another helpful resource (one that I am currently reading) is by Dr Michael J. Gorman, a Scripture scholar who is a particular expert on St Paul. Gorman is a United Methodist, but he teaches at a Catholic seminary and I have no hesitation about recommending his work. Catholic readers will just find that most of his immediate applications are to mainline Protestant experiences, rather than Catholic parish life. (By the way, I find Gorman's understanding of Paul on "Cruciformity" very much in line with our Founder's thought and with the teachings of St John Eudes.)