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VRSZ
This sets the art on your cards and whose commentary you read on each verse. You can change it later in settings.
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Oecumenius
The Lord is recorded in the Gospels as addressing the lawless among the Jews with the words: "Behold, your house is left to you desolate." (Matt. 23:38) For they were no longer worthy of divine visitation after the madness at the cross. How then does the Lord now appear from the vision standing on Mount Zion, as if from remorse? …
Cyprian
That in this sign of the Cross is salvation for all people who are marked on their foreheads. In Ezekiel the Lord says: "Pass through the midst of Jerusalem, and thou shalt mark the sign I upon the men's foreheads, who groan and grieve for the iniquities which are done in the midst of them." Also in the same place: "Go and smite, and do not spare your eyes. Have no pity on the old man, and the youth, and the virgin, and slay little children and women, that they may be utterly destroyed. …
Western Saints
Bede
And I looked, and behold, the Lamb stood on Mount Zion. That is, the Lord Jesus Christ, provided an example of virtue and protection to His Church, which is laboring under the burden of its struggles. By showing His body, which was both powerful enough to confound the dragon and marked with the seal, He demonstrates that the Church, shining with its usual brightness and joy in its number, should not fear having succumbed to the fury of the beast. Note that the beast stands on the sand of the sea, while the Lamb stands on Mount Zion.
Bonaventure
How can this be? See what is said toward the end of the Apocalypse. Toward the middle, it is said: "I saw the Lamb standing upon Mount Sion, and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads." But at the opening of the sixth seal, it is said in the Apocalypse: "And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, who had it in their power to harm the earth and the sea, …
Alcuin of York
QUESTION: And I beheld, and lo a lamb stood upon mount Sion. ANSWER: It means that, when his Church is sweating under the burden of struggles, the Lord Christ will be there for it with his example of courage and his protection. THERE FOLLOWS: And with him an hundred forty-four thousand. ANSWER: This finite number should be taken as being used for an indefinite one, and, in the meaning of its secret mystery, it is fit for a multitude of virgins which, loving God with all heart, all soul, and all mind, [Cf. Matt. …
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