“And I saw: and behold in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the ancients, a Lamb standing as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes: which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne. And when he had opened the book, the four living creatures, and the four and twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints: and they sung a new canticle, saying: ‘Thou art worthy O Lord, to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; because thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, in thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.’”
The Lamb that faced death like a lion is the Lord: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and the Greek term for “slain” is a person violently killed: “He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth” (Isaias 53:7), or an animal sacrificed for religious purposes: “And it shall be a lamb without blemish, a male, of one year: according to which rite also you shall take a kid. And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month: and the whole multitude of the children of Israel shall sacrifice it in the evening” (Exodus 12:5-6). He is in the midst of the four living creatures because even a studious or cursory reading of the Gospels is not the central point of them, but to come to know the person of Jesus Christ, encounter Him often, and love Him as a Spouse, this is the purpose of the Gospels: “Meditate upon these things, be wholly in these things: that thy profiting may be manifest to all” (1 Timothy 4:15). Though He is slain, He is standing, “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption” (Psalm 15:10). He has seven horns and seven eyes, indicating perfect, complete power and knowledge, respectively, both of which He allowed to remain hidden: “How came this man by this wisdom and miracles? Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matthew 13:54-55), that He may not be terrifying to you: “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). Thus it is that: “He riseth from supper, and layeth aside his garments,” of His divinity, that He may be to you a friend and a lover, but in reality He possesses the fullness of power, glory, and knowledge, which are all terrifying to the one that does not know Him: “For the Lord is high, terrible: a great king over all the earth” (Psalm 46:3), but a deep consolation to His beloved, whose King and Bridegroom knows you perfectly and intimately, taking compassion on your weaknesses and seeing your every little act of love, and is mighty to keep you safe in His loving arms: “The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy protection upon thy right hand” (Psalm 120:5). The Lamb then takes the book, and opens it, to the triumphant celebration of heaven, and there are here two insights: The first is that, in opening the depths of the Scriptures, your mind is called to rejoice and your heart to sing, because you come to know your Beloved all the more: “My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee: and my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right” (Proverbs 23:15-16), in addition to wisdom being a good towards which all men are inclined: “Wisdom inspireth life into her children, and protecteth them that seek after her, and will go before them in the way of justice. And he that loveth her, loveth life, and they that watch for her, shall embrace her sweetness” (Ecclesiasticus 4:12-13). How many are the saints, Theophila, that lived joyful, sweet lives of contemplating the Scriptures and enjoying the treasures thereof, all because the Lamb unsealed them, giving true wisdom to men: “All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with him, and is before all time” (Ecclesiasticus 1:1). The second meaning is that, if the book represents the love story of your life, shall it be bland, entailing no more than being polite and attending Mass on Sunday, or shall it be something glorious, a cause for celebration in the eyes of the saints? “The saints shall rejoice in glory: they shall be joyful in their beds” (Psalm 149:5). A third meaning is that in receiving the book from the one on the throne, God’s mysteries and plan for mankind are put into the hands of the Lamb, Him being established as the wise King over all creation: “Give to the king thy judgment, O God, and to the king’s son thy justice: to judge thy people with justice, and thy poor with judgment” (Psalm 71:2). In any respect, when the Lamb receives the book and opens it, the elders and living creatures fall down with harps and golden vials of prayer, for great philosophers sought with joy and eagerness the deep things of God, but they could have never fathomed that God would become man, forgive the sins of His people, ascend to heaven, and then give a participation in His nature to His people, and so you are called to savor this extraordinary knowledge more deeply than they: “For wisdom is better than all the most precious things: and whatsoever may be desired cannot be compared to it” (Proverbs 7:11). The harps then represent songs of praise, with which the heart that loves is constantly filled: “I will be glad, and rejoice in thee: I will sing to thy name, O thou most high” (Psalm 9:3), and the vials represent the lives of the saints, a confession of their love of God in their deeds, and are filled with the sweet odor of prayer: “Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer?” (Canticle 3:6). By this act of worship on the part of the elders and living creatures, they acknowledge the Lamb to be God, giving Him the adoration and praise due to God alone: “That all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father. He who honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, who hath sent him” (John 5:23). Your praise and petitions, Theophila, are a sweet savor to God, especially when you use God’s own love poetry back to Him, His words as sheet music for the instrument of your heart, saying to Jesus: “Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips; therefore hath God blessed thee for ever” (Psalm 44:3). They sing a new song, which can first represent the newly converted, singing a new song of love in their hearts and a new life in accord with the love of God: “To thee, O God, I will sing a new canticle: on the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings I will sing praises to thee” (Psalm 143:9). In a second sense it is their response of praise in the beatific vision, singing in ways that those on earth cannot yet know: “He was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter” (2 Corinthians 12:4). While the canticle itself is excellent for singing praises in your heart, it has beautiful theology within it, that the Lamb was slain for the ransom of His people, redeeming those enslaved to sin and kidnapped by the devil: “To preach deliverance to the captives” (Luke 4:19), and made death into a doorway to life rather than a dreaded end. You have been redeemed to God, Theophila, so that you may walk in the throes of love: “Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved” (Canticle 5:1), to marry your God and please Him with your beauty: “Rejoice with the wife of thy youth: let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; be thou delighted continually with her love” (Proverbs 5:18-19). You have not been redeemed to walk in sin, but in love of Him who made you: “Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The worship continues that God’s people has been made a kingdom and priests, and they shall reign, which is seen in Exodus: “Therefore you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be my peculiar possession above all people: for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6). Every Catholic is called to be a priest, one that offers the sacrifice of their own lives, that it may be a sweet offering to God: “The priest shall burn them upon the altar for a holocaust, and a sweet savour to the Lord” (Leviticus 1:9), and each is called to be a king or a queen, as they share in Christ’s regality and authority, ruling over themselves with dignity and the fine garments of virtue, eventually to be called to rule the earth as a united kingdom of love: “And night shall be no more: and they shall not need the light of the lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall enlighten them, and they shall reign for ever and ever” (Apocalypse 22:5).