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Advent with the Book of Revelation (Ch 20)

December 20, 2024

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Revelation Ch 20 (Friday of the Third Week of Advent; December 20)

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the abyss and a huge chain. He seized the dragon, the old snake, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss, then locked and sealed it over him. This was to keep him from continuing to deceive the nations until the thousand years were over. After this he must be released for a little while.

Then I saw thrones, and people took their seats on them, and judgment was given in their favor. They were the ones who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and God’s word, and those who hadn’t worshipped the beast or its image, who hadn’t received the mark on their forehead or hand. They came to life and ruled with Christ for one thousand years. The rest of the dead didn’t come to life until the thousand years were over. This is the first resurrection. Favored and holy are those who have a share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will rule with him for one thousand years.

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison. He will go out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog. He will gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. They came up across the whole earth and surrounded the saints’ camp, the city that God loves. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet also were. There painful suffering will be inflicted upon them day and night, forever and always.

Then I saw a great white throne and the one who is seated on it. Before his face both earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. Another scroll was opened too; this is the scroll of life. And the dead were judged on the basis of what was written in the scrolls about what they had done. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and the Grave gave up the dead that were in them, and people were judged by what they had done. Then Death and the Grave were thrown into the fiery lake. This, the fiery lake, is the second death. Then anyone whose name wasn’t found written in the scroll of life was thrown into the fiery lake.

Commentary

The Apocalypse…speaks of the mysterious “thousand-year reign of Christ with his saints,” of “the first resurrection.” Dark is the meaning of this prophecy, and we dare not disclose it. But prophecies are irrevocable, and they bind all believers to the Word of God. And surely even before their fulfillment must they not become the subject of prayers, hopes, and yearning? Thus does Christian hope speak which keeps us from an unhealthy, excessive pessimism, from poisoning by eschatological fright. Prior to the dread and tragic end of the world, hope’s quiet and timid voice speaks; before the world shudders with the throes of death, the ray of the Transfiguration flashes on earth, and the Kingdom of Christ on earth will be revealed, although as a brief preliminary, and to this all history is leading as to its own limit. Here it is a matter of some sort of anticipatory “first” resurrection which, although it frees from the “second death,” i.e., from the definitive rejection, evidently only anticipates the general resurrection and differs from it qualitatively; at least, those who had part in the first resurrection are not exempt from it. Concerning the latter it says that their souls revived and reigned with Christ. One can think that here it is a matter not of a bodily but only of a spiritual resurrection. God leads the souls out of the place of their repose by a creative act, revives them in giving them power in a special way to take part in life, “to reign” i.e., to direct it, being at the same time “priests of God and Christ.”

By this resurrection of souls their open appearance in a body is in no way assumed as yet for all; on the contrary one can rather think that these revived souls do not yet have bodies and receive power to shape them for themselves only at the universal resurrection. Such is the position of the saints whom the church entreats as alive and able to render their help. In the “first resurrection,” which is accomplished in parallel with the confinement of bound Satan, evidently, the manifest participation of the deceased in the affairs of the living will be especially revealed, their leadership and assistance on the paths of history. But all this can remain entirely unnoticed beyond the limits of the Church. (Unfading Light)

Musical Selection

Exultabunt justi in voce jucunditatis, cum
ascendent in regnum lucis et irradiatum vitae
splendoribus, ubi omnia consonant et flos
tranquillitatis inhabitat. Exultabunt in Domino
Sancti quos virtute pares, dissimiles pugna gloriae:
sol victoria Deus justus judex coronavit;
prae laetitia cordis canentes et dicentes:

O felix gloria, o perennes divitiae, splendeat
dies in qua mortui sumus, splendeat nox in qua
vexati fuimus. (Giacomo Carissimi)

In the voice of mirth will the righteous rejoice,
while they ascend unto the kingdom of light, lit
with the beauties of life, where harmony and
the flower of peace reside. The Saints, equal in
virtue, diverse in their fight, will rejoice in the
lord: the sun of glory, God, the righteous judge,
hath crowned them with victory; and they, with
hearts full of joy, will sing, and say:

O happy glory, O eternal riches, let the day
shine in which we died, let the night shine in
which we were tormented.

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