Revelation -- 35
The Book of Revelation #35
The first five bowls complete what the first five trumpets began. The trumpets were a partial punishment whereas the bowls are a complete punishment.
They affect all aspects of nature with the intent of disrupting man's economic means of subsistence. Most of us will find it hard that God's punishments are so harsh because most of us do not spend adequate time reflecting on the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell.
These days it is difficult to go to any funeral without hearing the dead being canonized there and then in heaven. It would seem that it is easier to go to heaven than it is to go to Harvard and this laxity in our faith undermines the reverence that is due to God's awesome holiness... so much so that God has become a benign, gentle being that will accept anyone and everyone in heaven.
This chapter is a wake-up call especially when we hear the angels and the altar glorify God for the pain and affliction the bowls are causing amongst those who dwell on the earth. It is a wake-up call to examine ourselves and consider carefully the words of the Lord: wide and easy is the road that leads to perdition and many find it, and narrow and difficult is the path that leads to eternal life and few find it.
God wants us in heaven but we must understand that without the liturgy, without the Church, and without a life of penance we are on the wide and easy path regardless of what we think of ourselves or of God.
