By Melanie Rigney
“… the God of heaven
will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed or delivered up to another
people; rather, it shall break in pieces all these (other) kingdoms and put an
end to them, and it shall stand forever.” (Daniel 2:44)
Give
glory and eternal praise to him. (Daniel 3:59b)
Then
he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place;
and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.” (Luke 21:10-11)
Piety
Lord, may I have the faith and courage to follow You
through the worst of times.
Study
We had a
couple incidents last week where I work; nothing along the lines of Paris or
Mali or Beirut, but a bit unsettling all the same. In one case, a coworker saw
a package deposited on a major thoroughfare; an investigation turned up nothing
dangerous. In the other, a less than focused security guard phoned me to help
an unidentified member of the public who entered our building, even though the
person would have been turned away at the door if procedures had been followed.
Strange
times. But are they stranger than any other times? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
 |
| Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream. By W. A. Spicer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. It's |
In today’s
first reading, King Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled and died more than five hundred
years before Christ’s birth, has an unsettling dream. Daniel is among those
called to interpret the dream and shares with the king a vision in which the
Lord’s kingdom trumps all others and lasts forever.
And today,
despite terrorist threats and disputes about what our stance on accepting
refugees should be and our concerns, justified or not, about our own safety and
those we love, that vision remains real. Cults and cells and sects and, yes,
even countries may be destroyed. None of them can keep us from God’s promise of
the kingdom if we refuse to let fear and hatred creep into our souls. None of
them can keep us from God’s promise of the kingdom if we love as He loves,
regardless of how unsettling our times may be.
Action
Read
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration’s statement on Syrian
refugees. Discuss it with your prayer group.
No comments:
Post a Comment