Apokalypsis (Greek: 'unveiling' or 'disclosure' often transliterated as 'apocalypse' but translated as 'Revelation')

Iesou Christou: Christ is the "firstborn from the dead"

John (while in exile on the island of Patmos): "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and..." - he then describes the illumination of his Contemplative experience.

When he saw the slain lamb take the scroll of 7 seals from the hand of "he who sat upon the throne" (never named "God", but the mysterious gap; the luminous darkness) and opened the scroll (supposedly containing the 'Way' or 'Will' of God - the 'Way' that Christ revealed by living as 'It'); John sees God revealed and Worshiped in all things: all of creation becomes an expression of the Glory of God's presence. This was a description of John's awakening to Reality; his liberation from experiencing the world as suffering, his experience of the Revelation of Christ.

John gives us (as much of the stories of Christ do also) an example of meditation; an explanation of a true Contemplation of the action and presence of God (the undefinable mysterious gap) in the Spirit (a continual state contemplation) and through Christ (which contains within and manifests as true Contemplation). This is our example.The 6 (?) seals shows the suffering and impermanence of the world. "The Logos is the Beginning of all things because from Him flow the creative outpourings, the particular logoi of creatures. He is the End of all things because He is the center toward which all created beings tend. This is the mystical meaning behind His words: 'I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending' (Revelation 1:8)." (Hieromonk Damascene from Christ the Eternal Tao p474)

"Create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, grant us peace."

Amen