Here’s what Scott Hahn says about The Book Of Revelation
"The last verse in Revelation 11 is 11:19 and states, “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a violent hailstorm.” This brings us to Revelation 12 and John sees the divine temple in the heavenly Jerusalem and the real Ark of the New Covenant. And that’s what he describes, he doesn’t just say, oh I see the Ark and let’s just forget about that and we’ll shift over to this woman. If he’s seeing the Ark, he’s describing the Ark and his description of the Ark is of the woman who bears the male child in verse 5, “She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.” Now who is this? Some say it’s the OT synagogue daughter, Zion, others say it’s the Church. I’d say you’re both right but in addition to those truths, there’s a higher truth that ties them together and that is, this woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why, because in this vision, there are 4 characters. There’s the woman, there’s the male child who is to rule the nations, there’s also Satan in the form of a dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns and there’s Michael the Archangel. Now we know the male child is Jesus, an individual person, but it’s also a symbol of the whole Davidic dynasty, because it quotes Psalm 2, verse 9, which is applicable to every Davidic king, most especially to Jesus. So it refers to Jesus but it also is a symbol of this corporate reality, the Davidic kingdom. Likewise, Satan, the great dragon, certainly refers to an individual personage, the fallen angel himself, Satan. But he has 7 heads and 10 horns which symbolize the earthly empires that he uses to make war against God’s people. Likewise, Michael the Archangel, who makes war against this dragon but he doesn’t do it alone, he does it with all the angelic hosts, all of the armies of heaven, of which he is their head representative. So you have representative heads here, Jesus, the representative head of the Davidic dynasty, Satan, the representative head of the fallen angels, Michael, the representative head of the angels who make war against evil. And so Mary is the representative head of the Church. The church is called to be a virgin bride of Christ and yet mother church, a fruitful mother. How can the Church be both? Only one person was endowed by God to be both, Mary is the virgin bride and a fruitful mother. In Mary, the Holy Spirit has created the Ark type and source of the Church. This is how Vatican II describes Mary and this is why more than half a dozen Popes said Mary is the woman described in John’s vision of Revelation 12. We wouldn’t be a family without a mother!
And here’s what he says about The Mass and the Apocalypse.
"In the Apocalypse, Jesus is called the Lamb of God 28 times in 22 chapters. The only other place we hear Lamb of God in the NT is in John’s gospel and there it’s only referred to twice in the opening chapter. The Lamb of God is the title for Jesus. The Liturgy of the Catholic Mass is found on just about every single page of the Apocalypse from the opening paragraph of the Apocalypse where Jesus Christ appears in a white robe with a golden girdle, standing amid seven golden lampstands. He was wearing the uniform of the High Priest, standing next to the Menorah, which stood by the alter of sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple. In chapters 1, 2, and 3 you find images of Liturgical furniture, of Liturgical functions, there were incense, songs, prayers, trumpets, there was a book that was opened after 7 seals were broken. There were chalice’s that were mixed and poured but you would have to know the Catholic Mass to understand these images. These things are present on every single page of the Apocalypse in every chapter. The common theme that runs through the beginning to the end of Revelation is this heavenly liturgy that Jesus revealed to John on the Island of Patmos when he ordered him to write it down, take it back and give it to the churches in Asia Minor so that when they celebrated the liturgy they would know where they were. They were in Heaven! They were doing the same things the angels and the saints in glory were doing. When Jesus Christ overcomes Satan in Revelation, it isn’t simply at the end of time, it’s in the middle of the liturgy of the Lamb, the Lamb’s supper. The liturgy of the Mass and the Apocalypse are a perfect match. In the first part of the Mass we have the Confiteor, the confession. In the 7 letters to the 7 churches in Asia Minor we have Christ calling his people to repent just as we are repenting in the opening scene of the Eucharistic Liturgy as well. You also have Christ promising the hidden manna, what we Catholics know as the Holy Eucharist. So you keep your eyes on the Anti Christ or the Millennium or the mark of the beast and we’ll go to heaven every time we celebrate Mass!
