Revelation : A Liturgical Prophecy

This is no book for biblical beginners, and one suspects it is a work more often misinterpreted than correctly understood. Unless a person is extraordinarily familiar with all the rest of Holy Scripture, understanding very much of the Book of Revelation will be an extremely arduous task. Since the book s arcane symbolism is so rich and subtle, Christian humility will especially prompt the devout reader to be more than usually careful and tentative in his study of it, bearing in mind that the book s purpose is not to satisfy our curiosity about the final times (inasmuch as not even the angels in heaven and therefore certainly no one on earth truly know the day and hour, as our Lord insisted in the Gospels) but to summon our ongoing repentance.