On Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter our Church invites us to first read and reflect on a passage from the book of Revelation (22:1-9) entitled "The river of life-giving water". Our treasure, which follows, is from a sermon by Blessed Issac of Stella, abbot.
Blessed Isaac of Stella, born around 1100 A.D., was a monk, theologian, and philosopher. Blessed Isaac entered the Cistercian Monastery of Citeaux, near Dijon, France, in the early years of the Cistercian order. A contemporary of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Isaac became abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Stella where he was renowned for his holiness and for the teaching he gave his monks to help them advance in the spiritual life.
Isaac's most popular work was an allegorical commentary on the canon of the mass in the form of a letter to John of Canterbury, bishop of Poitiers. His 55 surviving sermons, as well as his "Letter to Alcher of the Soul", constitute his real theological contribution.
The Apocalypse, or Revelation to John, the last book of the Bible, is one of the most difficult to understand because it abounds in unfamiliar and extravagant symbolism, which at best appears unusual to the modern reader. Symbolic language, however, is one of the chief characteristics of apocalyptic literature, of which this book is an outstanding example. Such literature enjoyed wide popularity in both Jewish and Christian circles from ca. 200 B.C. to A.D. 200.
This book contains an account of visions in symbolic and allegorical language borrowed extensively from the Old Testament, especially Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel. Whether or not these visions were real experiences of the author or simply literary conventions employed by him is an open question.
