THOSE FIRST FOUR CHAPTERS were the easier part. Most Catholics, after all, have at least a glancing awareness of the Mass. They’re familiar with the prayers and gestures, even if they’ve only endured them sleepily. With this chapter, however, we turn to see (Rev 1:12) what many Catholics have turned away from—sometimes in terror, sometimes in frustration.

The Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, seems a weird book indeed: full of frightening wars and consuming fires, rivers of blood, and streets paved with gold. In all of its parts, the book seems to defy common sense and good taste. Let’s take just one famous example, the plague of locusts. John reports that “from the smoke came locusts . . . like horses arrayed for battle; on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots. . . . They have tails like scorpions, and stings, and their power of hurting men for five months lies in their tails” (Rev 9:3, 7–10).

We hardly know whether to laugh or scream with fright. With all due respect, we want to ask St. John, “Okay, let me get this straight: you saw long-haired locusts with lion’s teeth and human faces . . . and they were wearing golden crowns and armor?” The great temptation is just to excuse ourselves from reading the Apocalypse, reminding God that we have pressing appointments here on earth.

I am not going to deny that the details of the Book of Revelation are exceedingly strange. Instead, I’ll invite you to come with me on an investigation, so that you can discover, as I did, that there is sense amid the strangeness.