I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I know less about the Book of Revelation than almost any other biblical book that regularly appears in liturgy or in study. As a priest who prays the Liturgy of the Hours, I would try to hold the main message in mind as I prayed the Office of Readings during the Easter season: the Lamb who was slain is victorious, inaugurating the New Jerusalem. I just did not know what to make of the dragons and beasts, the bowls and seals, the falls of the woman and Satan, as well as the different colored horses and locusts that behave like scorpions. Francis Moloney's book has turned the tide for me, providing a framework for the entire work, innumerable insights into individual verses, and clear explanations of all of what had been mysterious to me. Knowing that I was to review this book, I decided to use it as an accompanying text during the Easter season as I prayed the Office of Readings. I would not claim that all the mysteries of the Book of Revelation are solved for me, but I can assure readers that Moloney's Reading Revelation at Easter Time helped me both spiritually and intellectually over this past Easter season.

Reading Revelation at Easter Time is designed specifically to accompany the Office of Readings during the Easter season, weeks 2 to 5. In addition, Moloney's commentary can also be used to understand these same texts as they appear in the four canticles at Evening Prayer, in the lectionary readings that include Sundays, the feasts of All Saints and the Assumption of Mary, and daily readings in the last weeks of Ordinary Time in the Year 2 cycle. Moloney alerts the reader when such texts are used, and he employs a different typeface for his commentary on these passages.

Moloney has purposely simplified his large scholarly commentary on the Book of Revelation, The Apocalypse of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020) so that it is more accessible to a wider audience. As such, Reading Revelation does not contain many footnotes. This has enabled Moloney to focus on what he says “makes Easter sense,” fittingly, for he maintains that the theme of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ dominates Revelation. Opposed to the majority interpretation of Revelation—it is a work to encourage Christians, living through suffering and persecution, to be faithful in their Christian beliefs and practices so that, in the end, God will reward their faithfulness and punish the wicked—Moloney argues that Revelation celebrates something that, in a Christian view of history, has already happened.

Moloney's central point is that Jesus Christ's death and resurrection is an event that determines all of time, from the foundation of the world to the present. This insight provides a unique reading, for instance, of the “saints,” who most interpreters link with the prayers of the Christian community rising before the Lamb. Instead, Moloney argues that the expression “the saints” is prominent in Daniel 7, which has in mind the faithful during the persecution under Antiochus IV. These “saints” represent loyal people of Israel experiencing violence and rejection because of their steadfastness to the law and the prophets, and their faithful and patient waiting for the fulfillment of the messianic promises made to Israel (see Dan 7:19–27). Within Israel's history of rejecting God in the midst of false gods and corrupt political authority, there are some names written in the book of the Lamb slaughtered from the foundation of the world and will be present until the end (see Rev 1:8, 22:13). The saints of Israel already participate in the reign of the crucified and risen Christ, but a new era of God's life-giving presence has begun with the death and resurrection of Jesus and the establishment of the Christian community, the New Jerusalem. Directed to the latter, Moloney states, “John challenges them to live as visible fruits of the death and resurrection of Jesus within the powerful and attractive context of a Greco-Roman world, already mirrored in the participation of Israel's martyrs, especially during the time of Antiochus IV, in the saving effects of the Lamb, slain before the foundation of the world (13:8).” In this light, it is easier to see how Revelation speaks to contemporary Christians who try to negotiate a world with its own powerful and attractive temptations. Moloney's last word is one of hope for a positive outcome in this journey. He notes that “We do not have to wait for an imminent eschatological climax to all of history for a victory that gives life and light … God has transformed the human story, while continuing his perennial saving presence, in and through the death and resurrection of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

The words on the dedication page of this book come from the Roman Ritual for the Order of a Deacon: “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you preach.” Anyone who makes use of this commentary will be able to give thanks for one who took these words to heart when he was ordained a deacon, and then a priest, more than fifty years ago. Amen.