Tuesday in the 34th Week of Ordinary Time, November 24, 2020

Revelation 14:14-19

I, John, looked and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man, with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe.” So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven who also had a sharp sickle. Then another angel came from the altar, who was in charge of the fire, and cried out in a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and cut the clusters from the earth’s vines, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and cut the earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great wine press of God’s fury.

The first reading for today’s Mass is a continuation of the fourth vision of the book and describes the Lord’s final judgment of the world.  

“There was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man.”  The Fathers understood the “cloud” on which the Lord would return as his Body or the Church, which amounts to the same thing because his Body is the Church.  Here, it is described particularly as a “white” cloud because this is the Church purified and victorious.  The Lord Jesus is described as looking “like” a son of man because, as St, Albert the Great tells us, he is now risen and his Body is spiritualized.  He is clearly more than a “son of man” in appearance, although the resemblance to a man remains.  He “sits” on the cloud, a sign that he has come either to teach or to judge.  “With a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.”  The circular form of the “crown” signifies eternity and the “gold” signifies nobility.  The “sharp sickle” in his hand brings to mind the words of one of his parables: “Permit both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn” (Matthew 13, 30).  The Venerable Bede says of this “sickle”: “This is the judicial sentence of the separation, which is certainly to take place.  No matter in what way we may attempt to flee, we are indeed within the sweep of that sickle.  Whatever is enclosed by the sickle, falls within it.” 

“Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud.”  We understand the “reapers” in the above mentioned parable as the angels.  Here, one speaks for the Father, whose voice is as incomprehensible thunder, so that we might understand the command.  “Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe.”  In fact, the Greek word translated as “fully ripe” has the primary meaning of “to be dry”.  In Matthew 13, 6, in the parable of the sower and the seed, this word is used to say that the sprouts were “parched”.  The understanding being conveyed here is that only the fruit that has persevered through the heat and dryness of persecution is left standing.  All else is “parched” or burned up.

“So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.”  We see now the gathering of the nations, of which the Lord spoke in Matthew 25, 32, when the good and the wicked are separated.  “Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven who also had a sharp sickle.”  A two-fold harvest is taking place here: one of grain and one of grapes.  Bede comments: “If Christ is seen on the cloud as a reaper, who is the grape harvester, except the same One, who properly claims the twin fruit of the Church?  For, he who sowed the good seed in his own field (cf. Matthew 13, 24) is the one who also planted a vine in his fruitful field (cf. Mark 12, 1-8).”  We see multiple images of Christ and of his Church in the Book of Revelation, sometimes simultaneously within the same scene, and this is true here.  These images help us to understand as best we can events which would otherwise be utterly beyond us.  These are heavenly realities, not earthly ones.  We might think of the difficulties faced by a visitor from the fourth dimension trying to explain to us three dimensional creatures what his world is like, should he even recognize us as alive and speak a language remotely like our own.  

“Then another angel came from the altar, who was in charge of the fire, and cried out in a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle.”  This angel signifies the martyrs who appeared in Revelation 6, 9-10: “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord (Holy and True), do you not judge and revenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”  At the time, they were told to wait, and that the justice of God would be done at the proper time.  That time is now: “Use your sharp sickle and cut the clusters from the earth’s vines, for its grapes are ripe.”  The sins of the wicked are filled up, and the the just are filled with their virtues and good works.  “So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and cut the earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great wine press of God’s fury.”  A wine press crushes the grapes so that that which is good is preserved for wine, and that which is useless, the skins of the grapes, are taken away and dumped.  The good and the wicked are separated forever now, with the new wine carried away into the Lord’s blessed storehouses.

The final judgment is not a minor subject in the New Testament but one of the key matters which the Lord and his Apostles teach us about.  Indeed, the Gospel of Matthew is a continuous warning about the last days — a warning to repent and also to persevere in dire times.  It ought to be ever present in our minds as well, for this reason.  We ought not to become obsessed with this teaching, as some do, but aware in the same way as outside workers are aware of the descent of the sun at the close of day.