November 27, 2025
Thursday of the Thirty-fourth
Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 506
Reading
I
Some men rushed
into the upper chamber of Daniel’s home
and found him praying and pleading before his God.
Then they went to remind the king about the prohibition:
“Did you not decree, O king,
that no one is to address a petition to god or man
for thirty days, except to you, O king;
otherwise he shall be cast into a den of lions?”
The king answered them, “The decree is absolute,
irrevocable under the Mede and Persian law.”
To this they replied, “Daniel, the Jewish exile,
has paid no attention to you, O king,
or to the decree you issued;
three times a day he offers his prayer.”
The king was deeply grieved at this news
and he made up his mind to save Daniel;
he worked till sunset to rescue him.
But these men insisted.
They said, “Keep in mind, O king,
that under the Mede and Persian law
every royal prohibition or decree is irrevocable.”
So the king ordered Daniel to be brought and cast into the lions’ den.
To Daniel he said,
“May your God, whom you serve so constantly, save you.”
To forestall any tampering,
the king sealed with his own ring and the rings of the lords
the stone that had been brought to block the opening of the den.
Then the king
returned to his palace for the night;
he refused to eat and he dismissed the entertainers.
Since sleep was impossible for him,
the king rose very early the next morning
and hastened to the lions’ den.
As he drew near, he cried out to Daniel sorrowfully,
“O Daniel, servant of the living God,
has the God whom you serve so constantly
been able to save you from the lions?”
Daniel answered the king: “O king, live forever!
My God has sent his angel and closed the lions’ mouths
so that they have not hurt me.
For I have been found innocent before him;
neither to you have I done any harm, O king!”
This gave the king great joy.
At his order Daniel was removed from the den,
unhurt because he trusted in his God.
The king then ordered the men who had accused Daniel,
along with their children and their wives,
to be cast into the lions’ den.
Before they
reached the bottom of the den,
the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.
Then King Darius
wrote to the nations and peoples of every language,
wherever they dwell on the earth: “All peace to you!
I decree that throughout my royal domain
the God of Daniel is to be reverenced and feared:
“For he is the living God, enduring forever;
his Kingdom shall not be destroyed,
and his dominion shall be without end.
He is a deliverer and savior,
working signs and wonders in heaven and
on earth,
and he delivered Daniel from the lions’
power.”
Responsorial
Psalm
Daniel 3:68, 69, 70, 71, 72,
73, 74
R.
(59b) Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Dew and rain, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Frost and chill, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Ice and snow, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Nights and days, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Light and darkness, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Let the earth bless the Lord,
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Stand erect and raise your heads
because your redemption is at hand.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his
disciples:
“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies,
know that its desolation is at hand.
Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains.
Let those within the city escape from it,
and let those in the countryside not enter the city,
for these days are the time of punishment
when all the Scriptures are fulfilled.
Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days,
for a terrible calamity will come upon the earth
and a wrathful judgment upon this people.
They will fall by the edge of the sword
and be taken as captives to all the Gentiles;
and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles
until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
“There will be
signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,
and on earth nations will be in dismay,
perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
People will die of fright
in anticipation of what is coming upon the world,
for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
And then they will see the Son of Man
coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
But when these signs begin to happen,
stand erect and raise your heads
because your redemption is at hand.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112725-Thurs.cfm
Commentary on Daniel
6:12-28
We now find Daniel living under a third king, Darius. He is
‘Darius the Mede’, presented as the successor to Belshazzar, whom we saw
murdered at the end of yesterday’s reading. He is actually unknown to history,
nor is there any room for him between the last Chaldaean (Babylonian) king and
Cyrus the Persian, who had already conquered the Medes before capturing
Babylon. The character of this Darius has probably been modelled on that of the
Persian King Darius the Great (522-486 BC), the second successor of Cyrus.
Again, Daniel is the central figure. He represents not a
historical person, but the Jew who is absolutely loyal to his God and his faith
under all circumstances. This serves as an uplifting message to the readers of
the book now living under the harsh rule of Antiochus.
Daniel had risen to the very top of the kingdom’s hierarchy.
He was the first among three “administrators” (or “presidents” in some
translations) to whom over 120 princes or satraps—who ruled the kingdom—were responsible.
He was so superior in every way to the other administrators and satraps that
the king seriously thought of making him ruler of the whole kingdom. Not
surprisingly, this occasioned jealousy among his fellow administrators and the
satraps. They wanted to find some affair of state by which they could discredit
Daniel, but they could find absolutely nothing with which to fault him.
They then realised that the only way to get him was to focus
on Daniel’s Jewish faith, saying:
We shall not find any ground for complaint against this
Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.
(Dan 6:4)
They went in a body to the king and, after the usual
sycophantic expressions of flattery, asked him to issue an edict. The edict was
to say:
…that whoever prays to any god or human, for thirty days,
except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the den of lions.(Dan 6:7)
They then asked the king to sign the document at once so
that it could not be changed and would come into effect immediately. The king,
no doubt flattered by the language of the edict, signed it.
When Daniel heard about the edict, he retired to his house,
where the windows of his upstairs room faced Jerusalem. Three times each day,
according to his usual custom, he went down on his knees to pray and give
praise to God. The custom of praying with the face towards Jerusalem seems to
date at least from the Exile. Later, Christians had their churches facing east,
towards the rising sun, a symbol for the Risen Jesus, while Muslims pray facing
Mecca.
All of this is by way of introduction to today’s reading
which picks up the story at this point.
The men who had got the king to sign the edict went to
Daniel’s house and—probably as they expected—found Daniel praying to his God.
They then went to the king and reminded him of the edict he had signed and the
penalties for its non-observance. Replied the king:
The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes
and Persians, which cannot be revoked.
The men then reported that they had found Daniel praying to
his own God three times a day—a clear violation of the edict.
The king, who was clearly fond of Daniel and valued his
services to the kingdom, was distressed at this information and wanted to do
something to save Daniel. But the enemies of Daniel kept reminding the king
that laws he passed could not be changed for anyone.
The king then reluctantly ordered that Daniel be thrown into
the pit of lions. His parting words were:
May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you!
The pit was then closed with a large stone and sealed with
the king’s own signet ring and those of his nobles. Daniel’s fate, it seemed,
was literally sealed. (Perhaps this is the origin of the term?)
The king, however, remained deeply disturbed at his decision.
He spent the night in fasting and refused to receive any of his concubines. He
spent a sleepless night worrying over Daniel and, at the first light of dawn,
rushed to the pit. As he reached it he called out:
O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom
you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?
To his amazement, the king hears Daniel speak back to him
from the pit:
O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and shut the
lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless
before him; also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.
The king was overjoyed and ordered that Daniel be
immediately released from the pit. He was unhurt because he had trusted in his
God. The king then ordered that Daniel’s accusers be thrown into the pit
together with their wives and children, in accordance with Persian custom.
We remember in Jesus’ parable about the unforgiving servant,
where the king ordered a servant:
…to be sold, together with his wife and children and all
his possessions and payment to be made. (Matt 18:25)
Now, the new prisoners had hardly reached the floor of the
pit when they were immediately devoured by the hungry lions.
The king then sent a proclamation not just to his own
kingdom, but:
…to all peoples and nations of every language throughout
the whole world…
The proclamation said:
May you have abundant prosperity! I make a decree, that
in all my royal dominion people shall tremble and fear before the God of
Daniel…
In effect, he ordered a national conversion. The God of
Daniel was to be reverenced and feared. It was an order in the form of a
triumphal hymn about the God of Daniel:
For he is the living God,
enduring forever.
His kingdom shall never be destroyed,
and his dominion has no end.
He delivers and rescues;
he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth;
he has saved Daniel
from the power of the lions.
Once again, the story is to be read in the context of the
Jews suffering under the persecution of the tyrant Antiochus. If God will
deliver Daniel from those who hate his religion and from the ferocity of the
lions, he will do the same for his faithful people now. God’s Kingdom will not
be destroyed; God’s dominion is without end—unlike that of secular rulers.
As the story of Daniel clearly illustrates, God is a
deliverer and a saviour for all those who put their trust in him. His Kingdom
is one that will never end.
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Commentary on Luke
21:20-28
Jesus continues his warnings of what is to come. It is a
blending of what is going to happen to Jerusalem and of the end of all things.
The images are mainly biblical and apocalyptic, taken from Old Testament
prophecies and not to be seen as an accurate description of what is actually
going to happen some 40 years later. The sign that the end was near would be
Jerusalem’s being surrounded by armies accompanied by the “desolating
sacrilege” (see Matt 24:15). Nevertheless, it is true that Jerusalem was encircled
by the armies of Rome. The safest place to be was in the surrounding hills, not
in the city, which was reduced to rubble.
Jesus is emphasising not so much the actual events, but
rather their cause—the faithlessness and corruption of so many for which destruction
was the inescapable outcome. So he calls them the “days of vengeance”, a time
of punishment not indicating God’s revenge, but the natural result of evil and
corruption, warnings of which the Scripture, especially the prophets, are full.
See, for example, Isaiah 63:4; Jeremiah 5:29; Hosea 9:7; and especially, Daniel
9:26-27:
Desolations are decreed. He [King Antiochus] shall
make a strong covenant with many [faithless Jews] for one
week, and for half of the week [three and a half years] he
shall make sacrifice and offering cease, and in their place shall be a
desolating sacrilege until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator.
The Temple was desecrated by Antiochus from 167 to 165 BC.
The “desolating sacrilege” perhaps refers to an inscription placed on the
portal of the Temple dedicating it to the Olympian Zeus. All of this, of
course, was to be repeated. And in many ways, has been repeated again and
again—recall, for example, the statue of a nude woman set up as a deity in the
Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris during the French Revolution.
What follows from verse 23 is more relevant to the
destruction of Jerusalem:
Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are
nursing infants in those days!
It will be a time of great distress. Many will be cut down
and others will be led away into captivity to pagan territories (the Romans
liked to parade their prisoners in a victory march in Rome). The holy city
itself, its Temple in ruins, will be trampled on by Gentiles—a fate it still
experiences.
This will happen:
…until the times of the nations are fulfilled.
For, as Paul indicates in his letter to the Romans
(11:25-29), it is the Gentiles who have taken the place of the Jews as the
bearers of the Good News and the builders of the Kingdom. But Paul believed
that the age of the Gentiles would only end with the return of Israel and the
reconciliation of all in Christ Jesus as Lord. It is an indefinite period, and
it is still in process. Our God is an all-inclusive God, and a patient God.
Finally, Jesus speaks of various cataclysmic and apocalyptic
signs to signal the end of time. They are typical biblical phenomena and not
meant to be taken as exact foretelling of events. They conclude with Daniel’s
vision:
Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’
with power and great glory.
It is not intended to fill people with fear and trembling,
except perhaps those who have lived wicked lives.
But for the disciples, the loyal followers of Jesus, it is a
time to:
…stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption
is drawing near.
As we saw in yesterday’s Gospel, sufferings and tribulations
are part and parcel of living the Christian life to the full. Our message and
our vision is a ‘sign of contradiction’, a beacon of light to many and to
others a threat to be radically uprooted.
But for those who have tried to live by the vision and
values of the Gospel, for those who have tried to seek and find Jesus in all
the people and events of their lives, who have spent hours with him in intimate
dialogue, it is the time of their final liberation, a time when there will be
no more sorrows, no more tears, no more hardships, no more disappointments.
Rather, they will be entering an unbroken time of love and intimacy, of freedom
and peace, of joy and consolation. So, as we approach the end of another
liturgical year, we do so on an upbeat note.
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Thursday,
November 27, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening prayer
Lord,
increase our eagerness to do your will
and help us to know the saving power of your love. You live
and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Gospel reading - Luke 21:20-28
Jesus said to his
disciples: 'When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you must realize
that it will soon be laid desolate. Then those in Judaea must escape to the
mountains, those inside the city must leave it, and those in country districts
must not take refuge in it. For this is the time of retribution when all that
scripture says must be fulfilled.
Alas for those with child, or with
babies at the breast, when those days come! 'For great misery will descend on
the land and retribution on this people. They will fall by the edge of the
sword and be led captive to every gentile country; and Jerusalem will be
trampled down by the gentiles until their time is complete. 'There will be
signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by
the turmoil of the ocean and its waves; men fainting away with terror and fear
at what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then
they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold
your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.'
Reflection
•
In today’s Gospel we have the continuation of
the Apocalyptic Discourse which gives two signs, the 7th and the 8th, which
should take place before the end of time or better before the coming of the end
of this world in order to give place to the new world, to the “new Heavens and
the New Earth” (Is 65, 17). The seventh sign is the destruction of Jerusalem
and the eighth is the upsetting of the old creation.
•
Luke 21, 20-24. The seventh sign: the
destruction of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was for them the Eternal City. And now it
was destroyed! How can this fact be explained? Is it possible that God is not
aware of this? It is difficult for us to imagine the trauma and the crisis of
faith that the destruction of Jerusalem caused in the communities both of the
Jews and of the Christians. Here it is possible to make an observation on the
composition of the Gospel of Luke and of Mark. Luke writes in the year 85. He
uses the Gospel of Mark to compose his narrative on Jesus. Mark writes in the
year 70, the same year in which Jerusalem was surrounded and destroyed by the
Roman armies. This is why Mark writes giving an indication to the reader: “When
you see the appalling abomination set up where it ought not to be – (and here
he opens a parenthesis and says) “let the reader understand!”) (he closes the
parenthesis) - then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains” (Mk 13, 14).
When Luke mentions the destruction of Jerusalem, for the past fifteen years
Jerusalem was in ruins. This is why he omits the parenthesis of Mark and Luke
says: “When you will see Jerusalem surrounded by the army, then you must
realize that it will soon be laid desolate. Then those in Judaea must escape to
the mountains, those inside the city must leave it, and those in country
districts must not take refuge in it; for this is the time of retribution when
all that Scripture says must be fulfilled. Alas for those with child, or with
babies at the breast, when those days come. For great misery will descend on
the land and retribution on this people. They will fall by the edge of the
sword and be led captive to every gentile country; and Jerusalem will be
trampled down by gentiles until their time is complete”. Hearing Jesus who
announces persecution (6th sign) and the destruction of Jerusalem (7th sign),
the readers of the persecuted communities in the time of Luke concluded saying:
“This is our day! We are in the 6th and 7th signs!”
•
Luke 21, 25-26: The eighth sign: changes in the
sun and in the moon. When will the end come? At the end, after having spoken
about all these signs which had already been realized, there was still the
following question: “God’s project is very much advanced and the stages
foreseen by Jesus are already being realized. We are in the sixth and the
seventh stages, how many stages or signs are still lacking until the end
arrives? Is there much lacking?” The response is now given in the 8th sign:
"There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on earth nations
in agony, bewildered by the turmoil of the ocean and its waves; men fainting
away with terror and fear at what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven
will be shaken”. The 8th sign is different from the other signs. The signs in
heaven and on earth are an indication of what is taking place, at the same
time, at the end of the old world, of the ancient creation, it is the beginning
of the coming of the new Heaven and the new earth. When the shell of the egg
begins to crack it is a sign that the novelty is about to appear. It is the
coming of a New World which is provoking the disintegration of the ancient
world. Conclusion: very little is lacking! The Kingdom of God is arriving
already!
•
Luke 21, 27-28: The coming of the Kingdom of God
and the appearance of the Son of Man. “Then they will see the Son of Man coming
in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place,
stand erect; hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand”. In
this announcement, Jesus describes the coming of the Kingdom with images taken
from the prophecy of Daniel (Dn 7, 1-14). Daniel says that, after the
misfortunes caused by the kingdoms of this world, the Kingdom of God will come.
The kingdoms of this world, all of them, had the figure of an animal: lion,
panther, bear, and ferocious beast (Dn 7, 3-7). These are animal signs which
dehumanize life, like it happens with the neo-liberal kingdom, today! The
Kingdom of God then appears with the aspect of the Son of Man, that is, with a
human aspect (Dn 7, 13). It is a human kingdom. To construct this kingdom which
humanizes is the task of the persons of the community. It is the new history
that we have to take to fulfilment and which brings together people from the
four corners of the earth. The title Son of Man is the name that Jesus liked to
use. In the four Gospels this name appears more than 80 times (eighty)! Any
pain which we bear from now, any struggle in behalf of life, any persecution
for the sake of justice, any birth pangs, are a seed of the Kingdom which will
come in the 8th sign.
Personal questions
•
Persecution of the communities, destruction of
Jerusalem. Lack of hope. Before the events which today make people suffer, do I
despair? Which is the source of my hope?
•
Son of Man is the title which Jesus liked to
use. He wants to humanize life. The more human it is the more divine as Pope
Leo the Great said. Am I human in my relationships with others? Do I humanize?
Concluding prayer
For Yahweh is good,
his faithful love is everlasting, his constancy from age to age. (Ps 100:5)
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