Catholic Commentary
The Universal Invitation: 'Come!'
17The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” He who hears, let him say, “Come!” He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:17 presents a threefold invitation to salvation, beginning with the Spirit and Church calling all people to come, expanding to hearers who relay the invitation, and culminating in an open offer of eternal life freely given to anyone who thirsts for it. The passage emphasizes that divine grace is a gift offered without payment or merit, requiring only the recipient's desire and response.
Scripture's final word on salvation is not a demand to be worthy—it is a gift freely given to anyone who thirsts.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
Typologically, the "water of life" recapitulates the entire biblical water narrative: the rivers of Eden (Gen 2:10), Moses striking the rock (Exod 17:6), Ezekiel's river flowing from the Temple (Ezek 47:1–12), and most decisively, Jesus's promise to the Samaritan woman ("whoever drinks of the water I give will never thirst again," John 4:14) and His cry on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles ("If anyone thirsts, let him come to me," John 7:37). The Spirit and the Bride's "Come!" in Revelation 22:17 is the eschatological fulfillment and echo of Christ's own "Come to me" throughout the Gospels. The liturgical sense is unmistakable: many patristic commentators, including Victorinus of Pettau and later Andrew of Caesarea, read this verse in the context of Eucharistic assembly. The entire book of Revelation is a liturgical document, structured around heavenly worship, and this final invitation resonates with the Eucharistic "Come, Lord Jesus" (Marana tha) of the early Church (cf. Didache 10:6; 1 Cor 16:22).
Catholic tradition illuminates this verse with a depth that no single reading exhausts.
The Church as Active Bride and Co-Evangelizer
The Second Vatican Council's Lumen Gentium (§ 4) describes the Holy Spirit as the soul of the Church, the one who unifies her in communion and mission. Revelation 22:17 shows this dynamism at its most concentrated: the Spirit does not invite through the Bride as through a passive instrument; Spirit and Bride invite together, in a nuptial unity of voice. This is the theological foundation of the Church's missionary character — Ad Gentes (§ 2) teaches that the Church "is missionary by her very nature." The Bride's "Come!" is not optional; it is constitutive of what it means to be the Church.
Grace as Pure Gift: The Patristic and Dogmatic Witness
The word dōrean ("freely") at the close of this verse is the scriptural capstone of Catholic teaching on grace. The Council of Orange (529 AD), reaffirmed by Trent, taught that no one merits the initial grace of God — it is wholly gratuitous, wholly gift. St. Augustine, meditating on the waters of grace in Confessions I.1, wrote: "You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." The restlessness Augustine names is the thirst of Revelation 22:17. The Catechism (CCC 1999) defines grace as "a participation in the life of God" — freely offered, freely bestowed. This verse is Scripture's final, unambiguous endorsement of that dogma.
Eschatological and Eucharistic Dimensions
St. John of the Cross, in The Spiritual Canticle, interprets the soul's thirst for God as both the beginning and end of the mystical life. The "water of life" of this verse is, in sacramental terms, already mediated through Baptism (the water of new birth, John 3:5) and the Eucharist (the chalice of salvation). Pope Benedict XVI, in Sacramentum Caritatis (§ 31), noted that the Eucharist is "the anticipation of the eschatological fullness" — meaning every Mass is a foretaste of the river of life that Revelation describes. To receive Communion is already to drink, partially and proleptically, from the water of life freely given.
For a contemporary Catholic, Revelation 22:17 is at once a mission statement and a personal invitation. On the personal level, this verse asks a direct question: Are you thirsty? In a culture that offers relentless substitute satisfactions — digital distraction, consumerism, the frantic management of anxiety — this verse names the one thing beneath all of them: a thirst that only God can satisfy. When you feel that vague spiritual restlessness, that hunger that nothing created seems to fill, this is precisely the thirst the verse is addressing. The invitation is direct — come — not "prepare yourself sufficiently," not "earn the right," but simply: come as you are.
On the ecclesial level, the verse is a challenge to every baptized Catholic. You are the "hearer" of verse 17b — and having heard, you are called to say "Come!" in turn. This might mean inviting a fallen-away Catholic back to Mass, engaging a curious friend in honest conversation about faith, or supporting missionary work financially or through prayer. The Bride does not hoard the invitation; she multiplies it. Every Catholic is, by virtue of Baptism and Confirmation, entrusted with this final, universal "Come!" — Scripture's last evangelical word.
Commentary
The Structure of the Invitation
Revelation 22:17 is built as a series of concentric, expanding calls. The verse moves in three distinct waves, each broader than the last, and each inviting the reader deeper into the mystery of divine invitation.
"The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!'"
The first "Come!" is trinitarian and ecclesial. The Holy Spirit — the Lord and Giver of Life, whose voice has animated the entire book of Revelation through the prophetic "what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev 2–3) — speaks in union with the Bride. The Bride here is the Church, the New Jerusalem already presented in Revelation 21:2 as "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." This is not a passive Church waiting for the Lord to appear; it is an actively evangelizing Bride, whose very nature and mission is to call the world toward its Bridegroom. The Spirit and the Bride do not speak in sequence but together, in a single coordinated voice — mirroring the inseparable bond between the Holy Spirit and the Church that Catholic theology has always insisted upon (cf. CCC 747). The Greek verb here is erchou (ἔρχου), a present imperative — a continuous, ongoing summons, not a one-time cry.
"He who hears, let him say, 'Come!'"
The second wave expands the invitation to include every hearer of the word — that is, anyone present in a liturgical assembly where this text is proclaimed. This is a remarkable structural move: those who receive the invitation are immediately commissioned to relay it. The hearer becomes a herald. This is the logic of Christian mission in miniature: the word received must become the word proclaimed. The community of listeners — the assembled Church at prayer — is drawn into the act of invitation itself. The word does not stop with its recipient.
"He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely."
The third wave is the widest: it reaches beyond the liturgical assembly to all humanity. The qualifications for responding are stripped down to their barest essentials — thirst and desire. The Greek ho dipsōn (ὁ διψῶν, "the one thirsting") echoes the Beatitude of Matthew 5:6 ("Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness") and the cry of the Psalmist ("As the deer longs for streams of water," Ps 42:1). Thirst is the image of a creature that knows it lacks something essential for life. The final phrase — "let him take the water of life " (Greek: , δωρεάν, meaning "as a gift," "gratis," "without payment") — is the apex of the verse. The water of life is the eschatological gift of grace, the fullness of divine life that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev 22:1). It cannot be earned, bartered, or merited independently; it is , pure gift. This is the last word Scripture has to say about salvation: it is freely given to the thirsty.