“Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him. And all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves because of him. Even so. Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
The coming of the Lord is the main expectation of the book of Revelation; just as a maiden that longs for her beloved to return, so too are Christians called to wait with eagerness and longing for Jesus: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love” (Canticle 5:8). He is said to come with the clouds, which could be indicative of the angels, for just as clouds need not be on the earth, so too do angels live without bodies, instead being wholly spiritual. Now, because “This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11), that is in the clouds, “And a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9), it can be said that “he ascended upon the cherubim” (Psalm 17:11), and therefore His second coming will be upon the spirits burning with divine love: “And as they went on, walking and talking together, behold a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder” (4 Kings 2:11). He will come with His angelic hosts for the sake of His beloved people, to be the fulfillment that their hearts so desire, with all eyes upon Him as a groom that enters His wedding: “Come ye to the marriage” (Matthew 22:4). It says that “those who pierced Him” will see Him, while only one man physically pierced the Heart of Jesus: “But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). Therefore, it is everyone that broke Jesus’ heart by rejecting Him, spurning His merciful love for anything else: “Instead of making me a return of love, they detracted me” (Psalm 108:4). Imagine, Theophila, your little Jesus, knocking innocently at the door of someone’s heart: “Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock” (Apocalypse 3:20), asking them with meekness to come to His marriage, only to be turned away: “And they began all at once to make excuse” (Luke 14:18). Ah, how few hearts there are that will look with glee upon their Bridegroom, “because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7) of their hearts. Or, this can refer to all humanity, “For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and so all have broken the Sacred Heart at some point in their life, but who are the ones, Theophila, that “shall look upon me, whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn” (Zacharias 12:10). Those that with tears wash the feet of Jesus, and then console His Most Sacred Heart, will be overwhelmed with His merciful love: “In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: for the washing of the sinner, and of the unclean woman” (Zacharias 13:1), and so all will see Him whom they pierced, but some as brides with whom He is reconciled: “And I passed by thee, and saw thee: and behold thy time was the time of lovers: and I spread my garment over thee, and covered thy ignominy. And I swore to thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God: and thou becamest mine” (Ezechiel 16:8), others as those that have rejected Him as their Lover, as someone not good enough: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Now, it is a source of bewailing for those who have spurned another’s love to see the rejected flourish and grow into their full beauty. So too will those who denied Jesus in His humanity lament when they see Him come in the beauty of His divinity: “And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow” (Matthew 17:2); “And we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). Now, the soul of one in a state of grace is more beautiful than all the precious stones on earth: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7), and so the beauty of the source of its own beauty will be one that is beyond all telling: “Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts” (Isaias 6:5). With this will come the guilt of having spurned the Divine Bridegroom, and the sentence of living without Him: “I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23). Then, by St. John saying, “Even so. Amen,” he affirms the truth of this to Gentiles and Jews, respectively, consoling those that wait for Him with love’s urgent longings: “Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord” (Psalm 26:14). When Jesus declares Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, He speaks with three meanings: The first is that He never began and will never end, meaning that the love that He is is eternal and unchanging: “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same for ever” (Hebrews 13:8), thus His title of God who is, was, and is to come. However, the second is that He is the first cause of all things, making them out of an abundance of love, as well as the final cause, the reason for which all things exist, and therefore all things in their own particular manner refer to Him. Therefore, the love of Jesus can be found in all created being, as He made all that is, upholds it with His love, and all things point to Him. Thirdly, by Alpha He means that He is the greatest in the dignity of all things, being that than which nothing greater can be imagined: “Glorify the Lord as much as ever you can, for he will yet far exceed, and his magnificence is wonderful” (Ecclesiasticus 43:32). However, by Omega, He means the last, becoming the lowest of people, a servant to all: He “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7-8); “Whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister: and he that will be first among you, shall be your servant” (Matthew 20:26-27). Thus, He wraps all things in His loving arms, being the head that is higher than all: “His head is as the finest gold” (Canticle 5:11), the hands that embrace, intercede, and uphold: “His hands are turned and as of gold, full of hyacinths” (Canticle 5:14), and the feet that walk in the dirt for love’s sake: “His legs as pillars of marble, that are set upon bases of gold” (Canticle 5:15).