The Book of Revelation Revisited

Unfortunately, we live in violent times. It can be argued that every age had times of violence but this first month of the year, the news was particularly violent. I recently read that "Eleven police officers were shot in five states in a 24-hour period, two of them fatally." According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, "For the month, the toll on police officers came to 14 fatalities." Steven Groeninger, a spokesman for the group said, "That's not normal."

The horrific massacre in Tucson, Arizona happened on January 8th. Six innocent people died tragically and twenty were injured.

What I am going to write are some of my thoughts, just ideas, but I thought readers of my blog might find these thoughts interesting.

When at the beginning of January thousands of birds died mysteriously and fell to the ground, in different places in the world and there were fish die-offs as well, I wrote a blog titled, "Are These Warnings?" which stated my concern about ecological degradation that is becoming more and more problematic in our world. In any event, after looking at the images of the dead birds, I was struck by something. One of the types of birds that had a massive die-off was the red- winged blackbird. When I looked at the pictures of the videos of the dead birds, what struck me was the color red on the wings of the birds. That's what caught my eye, it could have just been a coincidence but that drew my attention for some reason. I then looked through a New Collegeville Bible Commentary by Catherine Cory that I have on the Book of Revelation and on page 53 I found the following line, "In Revelation, red is the color of violence and bloodshed." I read that after I saw the images of the birds and I remember thinking, "What does this mean?" In Revelation, the "evil one" is imaged as a red dragon.

I watched an intersting video clip by Fr. James Martin on the America website. I thought it was good. In it he talks about the massive bird deaths and all the talk about Apocalypse. It's worth watching at YouTube. It's titled, "Apocalypse When?" One of the things that he said was that we shouldn't try to look into the Book of Revelation and try to interpret it literally......oh well, too late for that!

Let's pray that the rest of the year will be less violent and more peaceful. Please God!

NJA

Reasons To Believe

Dr. Scott Hahn the best-selling Catholic author and a convert to Catholicism is coming to Long Island, NY for a one day conference (comprised of three talks). The title of the conference is “Reasons to Believe,” and will take place on Saturday, Sept. 12^th at Kellenberg High School in Uniondale. If you are interested in attending, call Toti Conforti at (516) 385-8963 or e-mail him at toticon@aol.com. 

Scott Hahn  entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 1986. In his powerful account of what led to his conversion, described in his book, he tells of going to a Catholic Mass, though he was a Protestant minister. In chapter one in,  The Lamb’s Supper-The Mass As Heaven On Earth, he describes how he slipped into Mass in a Catholic chapel in Milwaukee to witness his first Mass as an “academic exercise." He tells that he was impressed with the concentration in prayer that the congregants had. What started as an academic exercise became a revelation for him. I will quote from the book, because it’s a very powerful account and I was very moved by it when I first read it. "As the Mass moved on something hit me. My Bible wasn’t just beside me. It was before me-in the words of the Mass. One line was from Isaiah, another from the Psalms, another from Paul. The experience was overwhelming. I wanted to stop everything and shout, ‘Hey can I explain what’s happening from Scripture? This is great.’ Still I maintained my observer status. I remained on the sidelines until I heard the priest pronounce the words of consecration, ‘This is my Body…This is the cup of my blood’………Then I felt all my doubt drain away…………..In less than a minute the phrase ‘Lamb of God’ had rung out four times. From long years of studying the Bible, I knew immediately where I was. I was in the Book of Revelation, where Jesus is called the Lamb no less than 28 times in 22 chapters. I was at the marriage feast that John describes at the end of that very last book of the Bible. I was before the throne of heaven, where Jesus is hailed forever as the Lamb. I wasn’t ready for this, though – I was at Mass!"

That’s a great story of conversion, revelation, epiphany all in one. I’m excited to hear Scott Hahn speak. It will be the first time I’ve attended one of his conferences. I told Toti (though I’ve never met him) that I would help publicize the event.  So if you’re reading this Toti, I’ve kept my promise.

NJA