An Economy of Prayer in the Revelation of Saint John

Echoes of the Communion of Saints

In the Apostles’ Creed, the Church declares her belief in the “communion of saints”, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies with the Church herself.¹ More precisely, it distinguishes three states of the Church across time and between heaven and earth that constitute her mystical communion, traditionally called the Church militant, the Church suffering, and the Church triumphant. The first are those who “at the present time are pilgrims on the earth”, the second are those souls of the departed now being purified, and the last are those already glorified in the presence of the living God.² Among the communion of saints exists an economy of prayer. Those of us here below pray for the holy souls in purgatory and ask for the intercession of the saints in glory, who in turn pray for us both.

The Revelation of St. John concludes the canon of Scripture with ecstatic visions of Christ and the Church, great tribulations, and the end of the world. Both because of its fraught subject, and especially due to its heavily symbolic and imagistic language³, the book has had a tumultuous reception throughout history. Some interpreters have understood the unfolding visions in the book either to refer entirely to events to come at the close of time or only to the times of its author (called by scholars “futurists” and “preterists” respectively), while others have tried to map them tightly to events throughout the unfolding history of the Church or more loosely as recapitulating types like the recurring themes of a symphony (these called “historicists” and “idealists” respectively). Historicist exegesis in particular has frequently courted danger (and perhaps paranoia) in its manner of seeking immediate analogues for the dramatic antagonists of Christ present throughout the text, such as the ten-headed dragon or the whore of Babylon. Still, the boundaries between all of these lenses are porous, and their lingering breadth of difference speaks firstly to the humility with which the Church has carefully received, and continues to receive, the book across time.

Much of the Church’s self-understanding, including her understanding of the communion of saints, has also developed over centuries. And yet throughout she has continually affirmed the divine authority and inspiration of the whole of scripture to teach “solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put in the sacred writings for the sake of salvation”.⁴ Might we then revisit Revelation’s signs and prophecies with the eyes of the Church and discover her anew in its pages? What might using the church’s teaching about the communion of saints as an interpretive lens of the text illuminate? Or conversely, what might the images throughout Revelation reveal about the mystical economy of prayer? To put it more plainly, how might Revelation shed light on the questions: What is the work of prayer in the economy of salvation? And how do the saints relate across time and state in the life of the Church?

The Liturgy of the Throne Room

A preliminary observation will bolster the relevance of these questions to one another. There are only three nominal mentions of the word translated “prayers” (προσευχαῖς) in the entire book of Revelation, always in the plural. All three instances are paired together both with reference to the saints (ἁγίων) and to incense (θυμιάματα). The appearances together bookend the opening of the seven seals in chapters 5-8, and they all take place in the throne room of heaven.

Present together with John in the heavenly court are four strange “living creatures” with many eyes and wings and faces, recalling the same sort of mysterious creatures described by the prophet Ezekiel (Ez 1:5-15). Also present are the “four and twenty elders” seated around the throne. Their number recalls both David’s ordering of levitical priests, gatekeepers, and worship leaders (cf. 1 Chron 24-26), or otherwise the sum of the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles. The first view might help to contextualize the scene as an image of worship, while the second underscores the fullness and unity of God’s covenants with his people.

Chapter 5 begins with John’s account of a scroll with seven seals in the hand “of him who was seated on the throne” (Rv 5:1). He weeps as no one in heaven or on earth is found worthy to open the scroll or break its seals (Rv 5:4), until one of the elders counsels him to “weep not; lo, the Lion of Judah and the Root of David has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Rv 5:5). The first mention of prayer occurs in the succeeding verses:

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth; 7 and he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints; (emphasis mine).

“Lion of Judah” and “Root of David”, are both messianic titles, and the Lamb is further an image of Christ in His paschal mystery. Seven signifies fullness across scripture, from the seven days of creation in Genesis right through the seven spirits of God spoken of throughout Revelation. So having “conquered” in his death, both as lion and sacrificial lamb, and consummating the fullness of God’s plan as shown in the seven horns and eyes that symbolize the Holy Spirit, Christ can open the seals of the scroll that will unfold God’s salvific work (there being seven such seals further affirms the fullness of the work). As he does so, the elders and the creatures fall down before him in worship, each with a harp and the golden bowls of incense.

The venerable St. Bede (672-735 AD), a doctor of the Church, sees in this act of genuflection an image of the Church rendering thanksgiving and offering her suffering,⁵ that she might in Paul’s words “fill up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24). In a peculiar and unintuitive correspondence, both he and the Christian neoplatonist Victorinus (270-310 AD)⁶ recognize in the taut strings of a harp secured to its wooden frame an image of Christ’s passion. The modern catholic commentator Rev. Leo Haydock (1774-1849) sees in the same simply “symbols of the praise that good men render to God”.⁷ And he likewise sees in the incense that the “the saints in heaven offer up before the throne of the Divine Majesty the prayers of the faithful.” He further remarks that all of the imagery present in the scene directly recalls what was practiced in the temple.

The scene and commentaries invite a few speculations about the communion of saints. Notably Haydock sees the elders as representing the Church in heaven offering up the prayers of the faithful not yet present there, and so perhaps we have here an image of intercession. But further than that, Victorinus and Bede see in the harps the same Church offering a share in Christ’s sacrifice together with him, and in this the liturgical sense of the scene becomes apparent. According to the catechism, the holy sacrifice of the mass “makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes the Church’s offering”.⁸ In John’s vision, the triumphant Christ is shown to consummate all history unfolding before the throne of God in his perfect offering of himself, and this is the very moment made present in the liturgy. We are further joined by the saints in glory who bring forth our prayers and intercede for us. In the multivalent image of the harps, we see also that they present the sufferings of the Church that are joined to Christ’s passion, and also the music of praise by which we adore the wondrous God.

The Fifth Seal, Saints Below the Altar

Though not among the three explicit nominal mentions of prayer in Revelation, the opening of the fifth seal in the sixth chapter presents us with clear image of it:

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; 10 they cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

The souls of the martyrs under the altar cry out to God, and so they pray. They ask the question most repeated on the lips of the psalmist: “How long, O Lord?” The psalter gives voice to the universal prayer of the Church in the Liturgy of the Hours, as man’s prayer addressed to God in God’s own inspired word. How long will God forget us and hide His face? How long will His enemies mock Him while His faithful are ravaged by lions? How long will the wicked be jubilant and how long will His wrath burn like fire? (cf. Ps 13, 35, 74, 94). It is perhaps our most pious prayer. It’s fitting then that it’s the prayer of our most holy martyrs hidden beneath the altar and behind the unfolding of history. How long O Lord, until your justice comes?

The cry of the slain also echos the cry of the first slain among men, Abel, whose “blood cried from the ground” (cf. Gn 4:10). They are further told to patiently await the completion of their number. The sowing for the harvest here explains God’s delay in coming, much like it explained the blindness of Israel for Paul “until the fullness of the gentiles come in” (Rom 11:25). It will be a little longer.

There is a seeming mystery in this lament of the saints as concerns the faith of the Church. The Catechism again affirms that “those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live forever with Christ” and goes on to cite definitive magisterial teaching on this subject from two popes.⁹ Here, they are “under the altar”. What to make of this? Some early commentaries, such as that of Victorinus, explicitly write with a perspective that precedes the Church’s received understanding of the beatific vision, and take a view that the souls of the just are presently languishing in “Hades”.¹⁰ Bede however, a few centuries later, reads this location as a glory of souls in the “secret place of eternal praise”.¹¹ Haydock, writing in the 19th century, surveys and addresses past views and errors extensively. He notes the chiliast view, that the saints remain in Hades, is contradicted by their receipt of white robes in the following verse. He understands the altar to be Christ Himself, and the saints’ beatitude in heaven “under” Christ to be a spiritual counterpart to the relics of their bodies resting under our altars at Holy Mass.¹² Once again, liturgy becomes the central axis for relaying the broader economy of prayer, both across the different states of the Church and across time.

The Final seal, Descent of the Spirit

The two remaining nominal mentions of the prayers of the saints come in chapter 8, after the opening of the final seal and a long silence in heaven. John recounts:

2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; 4 and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth; and there were peals of thunder, loud noises, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. (Rv 8:2-5)

The incense is offered with the prayers of the saints, and rises from the golden censer and altar before the throne. Gold in scripture is often an image of perfection and permanence, of what endures when it is tested by fire (cf. 1 Cor 3:12-16). Here then, the golden altar and censer is fitting for the prayers of the saints and might convey their place among what endures forever. The censer full of prayers is also filled with fire by the angel, and sent to descend to the earth with cataclysmic accompaniment. Fire is, both in Revelation and throughout the New Testament, an image of the Holy Spirit. John speaks of the one who will baptize with fire, and the disciples are greeted by a tongue of flame at the descent of the Holy Spirit at pentecost (cf. Mt 3:11, Acts 2:3). So here prayers of the saints are also a channel for the Holy Spirit to come and to renew the earth, perhaps fulfilling the desire and mission of Christ as expressed in Luke’s Gospel (cf. Lk 12:49).

Both Bede and Haydock note that the mingling of saints’ prayers with the image of incense emphasizes that prayer is a sweet and pleasing fragrance to God, and Haydock further reminds of the manner in which this imagery mirrors that of the temple and tabernacle. With this in mind, we might note that among the senses, our olfactory sense is possibly that most closely linked with memory. While a familiar sight or sound may prompt dim recollection, a familiar smell can seem to make a memory far more vivid and present. We can likewise recall that our commission to celebrate the Eucharist was instituted by Christ to be done “in memory of me” (cf. Lk 22:19, 1 Cor 11:24). Might then these allusions to the fragrance of prayers alongside imagery of the temple and tabernacle draw our attention to the memory of Christ, whose Body is the true temple, in our worship?

Concluding remarks

A great deal more can of course be asked and said, and a narrow focus of attention can seem piecemeal and inadequate. At the same time, restraining one’s attention to a small window can admit of a depth and solidity that too wide a frame cannot. We’ve here considered only the vision of the throne room in heaven and the bookends of the seven seals from chapters five through eight. One might say more about the Church Militant with reference to the letters of the seven churches, addressed to living Christians in chapters two and three, or about the composition of the saints from the description of the 144,000 and the great multitudes in chapter seven. We’ve also here only considered a sampling of historic commentaries, but those from across the different eras of Church history and at different stages of development in the Church’s understanding of her faith. We’ve omitted attention to influential scholastic commentators such as Richard of St. Victor, or the more inflammatory historicist commentaries like that of Joachim of Fiore. But what might we draw from what we’ve attended to?

Before the opening of the seals, the prayers of the saints were offered with incense in golden bowls before the throne of God, accompanied by the multivalent image of the harps, which at once signify the offering of musical praise and the offering of a share in the sufferings of Christ. In the liturgy of the Church, the saints in heaven place our prayers, our praise, and the sufferings we bear, before God. They intercede for us.

The cry of the Holy martyrs at the opening of the fifth seal reminds us of what we ought to pray for, and what remains a normative and constant prayer of the Church. That is, that God’s justice should come soon. But we are also given reason for patient forbearance, so that the full number might be gathered in. The scene reminds that we and they, those living on the earth and those yet presently enjoying beatitude, together await the day of the Lord and the coming of the New Jerusalem. More perhaps, that even the saints in heaven are in some sense yet petitioners along with us, both joining in our intentions and together in the great petition of the Church: “How Long, O Lord?”

When we see the prayers of the saints presented again, after the tribulations of the seals, they are offered mingled in a golden censer and upon the golden altar. Perhaps the preceding trials have tested and purified them. Though the initial image presents the incense also in “golden bowls”, the censer and the altar of gold may gesture at a further refined worthiness, since the one is fit to hold the fire of the spirit and the other is the place of worthy and enduring sacrifice. Might we even seek a place for the Church suffering, so far altogether absent from our Scriptural picture, in this transformation? Maybe by the fires of purgatory the lives and prayers of those who die in the hope of Christ might be made fit to be offered on the golden altar of God.

Lastly, the lit censer is sent back to the earth alongside calamity, and in anticipation of more tribulations ahead. Here might we find another pentecost? And even more, might we see a tight relationship between the prayers of the saints and the gifts of the Spirit on the earth? Might we even take consolation to suspect that when the world is gripped by calamity, we can be assured the prayers of the holy ones are lighting a fire that prepares the way for God’s consummation of all things?

Let us, in contemplating the mysteries of Scripture and the tradition of the Church, find an invitation to deepen our prayer lives. And let us hope that the prayers we offer both in private devotion and public worship, might be among those offered together in the praise of the saints a pleasing fragrance before the throne of God, and that He might make of them a fire on the earth. All saints and holy martyrs, pray for us!

1. CCC 946

2. CCC 954

3. Protestant commentator G.K Beale compellingly argues that the Greek verb σημαίνω in Revelation 1:1 sets the stage for how the subsequent visions of the book are to be interpreted in their literal sense, as signs communicating a spiritual and prophetic reality. The verb is also used to describe the visions in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2, which the prophet explicitly interprets symbolically. G. K. Beale, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), pg. 9-11

4. Dei Verbum 11

5. Bede, Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. Edward Marshall (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1878), chapter 5, verse 8.

6. Victorinus of Pettau, Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, accessed December 11, 2024, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0712.htm: “For harps, with strings extended on wood, signifies the body of Christ, that is the flesh of Christ, connected (to the cross) in His Passion”

7. George Leo Haydock, Commentary on Revelation 5, in Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1859), www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/ntcomment83.shtml

8. CCC 1330

9. CCC 1023

10. Victorinus of Pettau, Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, accessed December 11, 2024, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0712.htm

11. Bede, Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. Edward Marshall (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1878), chapter 6, verse 9.

12. George Leo Haydock, Commentary on Revelation 6, in Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1859), www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/ntcomment83.shtml