November 28, 2025
Friday of the Thirty-fourth
Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 507
Reading
1
In a vision I,
Daniel, saw during the night,
the four winds of heaven stirred up the great sea,
from which emerged four immense beasts,
each different from the others.
The first was like a lion, but with eagle's wings.
While I watched, the wings were plucked;
it was raised from the ground to stand on two feet
like a man, and given a human mind.
The second was like a bear; it was raised up on one side,
and among the teeth in its mouth were three tusks.
It was given the order, "Up, devour much flesh."
After this I looked and saw another beast, like a leopard;
on its back were four wings like those of a bird,
and it had four heads.
To this beast dominion was given.
After this, in the visions of the night I saw the fourth beast,
different from all the others,
terrifying, horrible, and of extraordinary strength;
it had great iron teeth with which it devoured and crushed,
and what was left it trampled with its feet.
I was considering the ten horns it had,
when suddenly another, a little horn, sprang out of their midst,
and three of the previous horns were torn away to make room for it.
This horn had eyes like a man,
and a mouth that spoke arrogantly.
As I watched,
Thrones were set up
and the Ancient One took his throne.
His clothing was snow bright,
and the hair on his head as white as wool;
His throne was flames of fire,
with wheels of burning fire.
A surging stream of fire
flowed out from where he sat;
Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him,
and myriads upon myriads attended him.
The court was convened, and the books were opened.
I watched, then, from the first of the arrogant words
which the horn spoke, until the beast was slain
and its body thrown into the fire to be burnt up.
The other beasts, which also lost their dominion,
were granted a prolongation of life for a time and a season.
As the visions during the night continued, I saw
One like a son of man coming,
on the clouds of heaven;
When he reached the Ancient One
and was presented before him,
He received dominion, glory, and kingship;
nations and peoples of every language serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not be taken away,
his kingship shall not be destroyed.
Responsorial
Psalm
Daniel 3:75, 76, 77, 78, 79,
80, 81
R. Give
glory and eternal praise to him!
"Mountains and hills, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever."
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him!
"Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him!
"You springs, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever."
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him!
"Seas and rivers, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever."
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him!
"You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever."
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him!
"All you birds of the air, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever."
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him!
"All you beasts, wild and tame, 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 told his
disciples a parable.
"Consider the fig tree and all the other trees.
When their buds burst open,
you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near;
in the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that the Kingdom of God is near.
Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away
until all these things have taken place.
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112825.cfm
Commentary on Daniel 7:2-14
For our last two
readings from Daniel we go to the second half of the book (chaps 7-12) which
consists of four visions of Daniel expressed in what seems to us strange and
obscure language. This is the apocalyptic style in which symbols and exotic
images, used to describe apparently past events, are in fact conveying a
prophetic message of hope to people living under oppression and persecution. It
is a kind of code language only fully understood by the initiated.
We will be reading
only one of these visions (from chap 7) followed tomorrow by an interpretation
of its meaning. This first vision, known as the Vision of the Beasts, comes to
Daniel as he lies in his bed. It is the first year of the reign of King
Belshazzar.
The vision will
correspond to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in which he saw a huge statue made of
different metals. To the four succeeding world kingdoms, Babylonian, Median,
Persian, and Greek, is opposed the messianic Kingdom of the people of God. The
four metals (the kingdoms) of the dream, shattered by the stone breaking off
from the mountain are now represented by four beasts succeeded by (in the
NRSVue translation) “a human being”, but more commonly translated as “a son of
man”. The imagery of this chapter is used extensively in the Book of Revelation,
where it is applied to the Roman empire, the persecutor of the early church.
As the vision
opens, Daniel sees the four winds of heaven stirring up the “great sea”. This
refers to the world of nations and peoples. In its original sense, the term ‘great
sea’ was the primordial ocean beneath the earth, according to the cosmological
structure of the world in ancient times. This sea was thought to contain
various monsters, and in particular, mythological monsters symbolising the
chaos which God had vanquished at the time of the Creation (see Genesis 1). But
here Daniel speaks of a different kind of chaos, a spiritual and moral chaos,
in the world.
Four great beasts
now emerge from this sea, each one different from the other. Beasts are chosen
because the insignia or symbols of many nations were represented by beasts or
birds (think of the American eagle or the Russian bear).
The first beast is
like a lion with eagle’s wings and, as the visionary watches, the wings are
torn off and it stands up like a human and has a human heart. The winged lion
represents the Babylonian empire, as this was a common motif in Babylonian art.
The two wings plucked off represent Kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, who
were both removed from their thrones (perhaps Babylon is also represented by
the lions in the den with Daniel who are rendered impotent by God’s protection
of his servant). One may ask if standing up and having a human heart
(considered the seat of reason) reflect the two kings’ positive reactions to
Daniel’s predictions, even though they did not favour them.
The second beast
is like a bear, rising up on one side, with “three tusks [bones or ribs in
other some translations] in its mouth among its teeth. A command is heard:
Arise, devour
many bodies!
The second beast
represents the Medes, who are seen by the author as the immediate successors to
the Babylonians. The three tusks in its mouth symbolise its destructive nature.
Hence the command to “devour many bodies”. The three tusks may also represent
the three principal conquests of the Medes: over Lydia (546 BC), Babylon (539)
and Egypt (525).
The third beast
is:
…like a
leopard. The beast had four wings of a bird on its back and four heads, and
dominion was given to it.
This is the
Persian empire. The winged leopard represents the swiftness with which Cyrus
establishes his kingdom. The four heads correspond to four Persian kings. The
three kings who follow Cyrus are uncertain, since there were more than three
Persian kings between Cyrus and the collapse of the empire. The fourth,
however, seems to be Xerxes I (486-465 BC), the great campaigner against Greece
(e.g. the famous battles of Thermopylae and Salamis). However, another
interpretation sees in the four heads the four main divisions into which
Alexander’s empire fell after his untimely death in 323 BC: Macedon and Greece
(under Antipater and Cassander), Thrace and Asia Minor (under Lysimachus),
Syria (under Seleucus I), Palestine and Egypt (under Ptolemy I).
The fourth beast,
described as “terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong” is normally
identified with the Greek kings, Philip of Macedon and his famous son,
Alexander the Great, who conquered the whole of West Asia and even reached as
far as India. This beast differs from the others in that it came from the west
(Macedonia) rather than from the east (e.g. Babylonia, Persia). This beast has
iron teeth, eats its victims, crushes them and tramples their remains. It
differs from the other beasts in having 10 horns. The horns represent the kings
of the Seleucid dynasty formed after Alexander’s death when his empire was
divided among his top generals. This is the part which particularly concerns
the author.
While the
visionary looks at the horns, he sees another little horn sprouting from the
others. Three other horns are “plucked up” to make way for it. This refers to
Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who caused so much suffering to the Jews and who came
to power only after getting rid of several rivals to the throne. On this horn:
There were eyes
like human eyes…and a mouth speaking arrogantly.
This refers to the
blasphemous tongue of Antiochus.
The text now moves
into poetic form as it describes a very different vision. As the visionary
watches, thrones are set in place. These are for judges. According to ancient
Jewish tradition (the Book of Enoch), the saints of God are privileged to sit
in judgement at God’s side. Later, the promises of Jesus are even more
explicit. In Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples:
…you who have
followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. (Matt 19:28)
Then the “Ancient
One took his throne”. This is a vision of the heavenly throne of God (the
“Ancient One”), who sits in judgement over the nations. He has an appearance of
pure whiteness, of absolute perfection:
…his clothing
was white as snow
and the hair of his head like pure wool…
The throne itself
is flames of fire with burning wheels. It recalls the divine chariot described
in the first chapter of Ezekiel. A stream of fire pours out from his presence.
Around the throne are innumerable courtiers (angels?):
A thousand
thousands served him,
and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.
Then:
The court sat
in judgment,
and the books were opened.
These are the
records of people’s actions, both good and bad. There are many references to
these ‘books’ in both the Old and New Testaments. The idea is central to the
hymn, Dies Irae, once used in Requiem Masses. One verse of this
hymn reads:
Liber scriptus
proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.
This translates
as:
The written
book shall be brought forth,
in which all is contained,
from which the world will be judged.
As Daniel
continues to watch:
…because of the
noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking…the beast was put to
death and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.
As already
mentioned, the “arrogant words” of the horn refer to the blasphemous arrogance
of Antiochus. He is destroyed and his body committed to the flames. The other
empires, however, are given a reprieve for an indeterminate period. They are no
longer a threat to the faithful once God’s people cease to be subject to them.
Now comes the
climax of the vision. As he gazes into the visions of the night, the visionary
sees:
…one like a
human being [son of
man] coming with the clouds of heaven.
In contrast to the
worldly kingdoms opposed to God, which appear as beasts, the glorified people
of God that will form his kingdom on earth is represented in human form. Just
as our Lord applied the figure of the stone hewn from the mountain to himself
(see this past Tuesday’s reading), he also made the title, ‘Son of Man’ his
most characteristic way of referring to himself, as the One in whom and through
whom the salvation of God’s people would come to be realised.
As noted above,
the more commonly used phrase, ‘Son of Man’, is translated in the NRSVue simply
as “a human being”, but from the description, this human being is someone very
special and points—in Daniel—to the expected Messiah, the King and Liberator of
suffering Israel. And he will be enthroned as ruler over the whole earth
(previously misruled by the four kingdoms mentioned), and his kingdom “shall
never be destroyed”, whether on earth or in the life to come.
In Mark’s Gospel,
during the trial before the Sanhedrin, Jesus says to the high priest:
You will see the
Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and ‘coming with the clouds of
heaven.’ (Mark 14:62)
This is a clear
reference to today’s passage.
The “human being”
(son of man) is now led into the presence of the Most Ancient One. On him is
conferred “dominion and glory and kingship” while all nations and peoples of
every language serve him.
His dominion is
an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed.
This is clearly a
reference to the Messiah-Christ, the Saviour King who will come in the person
of Jesus. But Daniel is speaking in terms of hope; he does not yet know who the
Messiah is going to be.
We know, but that
is not enough. We need to come to know our Messiah personally and not just know
‘about’ him. We have to make him truly the King and Lord of our lives and
follow him along the Way he has shown us.
Comments Off
Commentary on Luke 21:29-33
Today Jesus
continues his admonitions about readiness for the future. The key is to watch
out for the telling signs.
Just as with the
fig tree (or any tree), the emerging buds of green indicate that summer is on
the way. When the things Jesus has been mentioning are seen to happen, terrible
as some of them seem to be, they are in fact the sign of a ‘summer’ where:
…the Kingdom of
God is near.
On other
occasions, Jesus had said that the Kingdom was already present, but the Kingdom
can be seen in different ways. The Kingdom is present wherever the values of
the gospel are being lived, but it will not be fully realised until the very
end when all are gathered in Him:
Truly I tell
you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.
When Jesus says
that “this generation” will not have passed away until all this takes place, it
is not to say that Jesus’ final coming will happen in the lifetime of his
hearers (as some imagined), but rather that, with his own suffering and death,
the new and eternal dispensation which he inaugurates with the Kingdom will be
under way. Ironically, the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy is set in motion by
the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. It initiates a new presence of God in
the world, a presence in “spirit and in truth”. However, Jesus’ words could
also mean that the Jewish people (here referred to as “this generation”) will
continue to exist till the end of time, to the final coming of Jesus.
Lastly, the world
in which we live will one day disappear, but the words of Jesus, words of Truth
and Life, will be forever valid because they represent a vision of life and
those timeless values which we understand as emanating from God, and to which
every single human being is innately called.
As we come to the
end of the Church year, it is a time for us to make our decision whether we
want to belong to the Kingdom that Jesus is inaugurating, and not only to
belong, but also to make its spread our life’s work. Then, no matter when he
comes to call us, we will be ready.
Comments Off
https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1346g/
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: 29-33
Jesus told His
disciples a parable; “Look at the fig tree and indeed every tree. As soon as
you see them bud, you can see for yourselves that summer is now near. So with
you when you see these things happening: know that the kingdom of God is near.
In truth I tell
you, before this generation has passed away all will have taken place. Sky and
earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.”
Reflection
•
The
Gospel today presents the final recommendations of the Apocalyptic Discourse.
Jesus insists on two points: (a) the attention which should be given to the
signs of the times (Lk 21: 29-31) and (b) hope founded on the firmness of the
word of God which drives away fear and despair (Lk 21: 32-33).
•
Luke
21: 29-31: Look at the fig tree and indeed every tree. Jesus orders them (and
us) to look at nature: “Look at the fig tree and indeed every tree; as soon as
you see them bud, you can see for yourselves that summer is now near. So with
you, when you see these things happening know that the kingdom of God is near”.
Jesus says we can contemplate the phenomena of nature to learn how to read and
interpret the things that are happening in nature. The buds or sprouts on the
fig tree are a sign that Summer is near. In the same way, when the seven signs
appear, they are proof that “the Kingdom of God is close at hand!” Discerning
this is not easy. A person who is alone does not become aware of this. By
reflecting together in community, the light appears. The light is this: to
experience in everything that happens the call to open ourselves to the
present, to keep the horizon open, and to perceive everything that happens as
an arrow directed toward the future. But, nobody knows the exact hour of the
coming of the Kingdom. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus says: “But as for that day or
hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, no one but
the Father!” (Mk 13: 32).
•
Luke
21: 32-33: “In truth I tell you, before this generation has passed away all
will have taken place. Sky and earth will pass away, but My words will never
pass away.” This word of Jesus recalls the prophecy of Isaiah which says: “All
humanity is grass and all its beauty like the wild flowers. The grass withers,
the flower fades when the breath of Yahweh blows on them. The grass withers, the
flower fades, but the word of our God remains for ever”. (Is 40, 7-8). The word
of Jesus is the source of our hope. What He says will survive!
•
The
coming of the Messiah and the end of the world. Today, many people worry about
the end of the world. Some, basing themselves on a mistaken and fundamentalist
reading of the Apocalypse of John, try calculating the exact date of the end of
the world. In the past, beginning at “one thousand years” quoted in the
Apocalypse (Rv 20: 7), it was usually repeated: “The year one thousand has gone
by but the year two thousand will not pass!” Because of this, as the year two
thousand approached, many were worried. There were some people who, anguished
because of the coming of the end of the world, committed suicide! But the year
2000 arrived and nothing happened. The end of the world did not arrive! The
Christian communities of the first centuries faced the same problems. They
lived in the expectation of the imminent coming of Jesus. Jesus was coming to
carry out the Final Judgment so as to finish the unjust history of the world
here on earth and to inaugurate a new phase of history, being the New Heavens
and of the New Earth. They thought that this would take place between one or
two generations. Many people thought they would still be alive when Jesus would
appear glorious in Heaven (1Th 4: 16-17; Mk 9: 1). There were some people who
no longer worked, because they thought that the end would arrive within a few
days or weeks (2Th 2: 1-3; 3: 11). This is what they thought. But even today,
the coming of Jesus has not arrived as yet! How can this delay be interpreted?
On the streets of the cities people see writing on walls and billboards which
say Jesus will return! Is He coming or not? And how will His coming be? Many
times, the affirmation “Jesus will return” is used to frighten people and
oblige them to go to a particular church.
•
In the
New Testament, the return of Jesus is always a reason for joy and peace! For
those who are exploited and oppressed, the coming of Jesus is Good News! When
will this coming take place? Among the Jews, there were various opinions. The
Sadducees and the Herodians were aristocratic and incorporated Hellenistic
views as an elite class. For this reason they did not accept change and they
fought against the preaching of Jesus who invited people to change and convert
themselves. The Pharisees said: “The coming of the Kingdom will depend on our
effort in observing the law!” These two parties made up the Great Sanhedrin.
Among the Christians there were the same variety of opinions. Some of the
community of Thessalonica, the Greeks, basing themselves on Paul’s preaching,
said: “Jesus will return!” (1 Th 4, 13-18; 2 Th 2, 2). Paul responds that it
was not as simple as they imagined. And to those who did not work he said:
“Anyone who does not work has no right to eat!” (2 Th 3, 10). It was likely a
problem of people who would beg others for food at meal time. Other Christians
thought that Jesus would return only after the Gospel had been announced to the
whole world (Ac 1, 6-11). They thought that the greater their effort to
evangelize, the more quickly the end of the world would arrive. Others, tired
of waiting, said: “He will never come back!” (2 Peter 3:4). Others basing
themselves on the word of Jesus merely said: “He is already among us!” (Mt 25,
40).
•
The
same thing happens today. There are people who say: “The way things are in the
Church and in society are alright”. They want no change. Others are waiting for
the immediate coming of Jesus. Others think that Jesus will return only through
our work and announcement. For us, Jesus is already among us
(Mt 28:20), in the
stranger, the poor, the sick and those who are “the least” (Mt 25:40). He is
already at our side in the struggle for justice, for peace and for life. But
the fullness has not yet been attained. For this reason, we wait with
perseverance for the liberation of humanity and of nature (Rm 8:22-25).
Personal questions
•
Jesus
says to look at the fig tree to contemplate the phenomena of nature. In my life
have I already learned something by contemplating nature?
•
Jesus
says: “The sky and earth will pass, but my words will not pass”. How do I
embody in my life these words of Jesus?
Concluding prayer
Lord, how blessed
are those who live in Your house; they shall praise You continually.
Blessed those who
find their strength in You, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. (Ps 84:4-5)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét