Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Scripture

Have you noticed this week that the "psalm" (literally "song") for each day is not from the Book of Psalms, but is from the book of Daniel?  These verses from chapter 3 (today's verses are 75-81) are not in Protestant Bibles - the rest of chapter 3 is there, but not these verses. These verses follow after the story of Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego who are thrown into a fiery furnace but emerge unharmed.  This is the song that is sung when Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego are freed. And the king who had thrown them into the furnace was king of the evil Babylonian empire, but recognizes that these are servants of the true God and turns to God himself. 

And I'm not kidding when I say that that simple fact is one of the reasons I converted to (a word which literally means "turning toward') God, too, and became Catholic. Whenever I hear the words from this exultant, joyful, exuberant song (see all the verses, 52-87), I am taken back to the first moment I heard this prayer from the Book of Daniel - it was in a small chapel in the San Luis Valley in Colorado, and I was praying the liturgy of the hours with some monks. (It was all part of my general exploration of various religious traditions.) I heard these words spoken, and I thought, "Oh - this truly reflects great joy. How wonderful!" It is not just the joy of any one person - it is the joy of all creation, as well as all the people of God, celebrating and luxuriating in God's presence.  (Those of you who pray the Liturgy of the Hours will recognize this as the psalm we say at morning prayer during Easter week, and also in the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the psalm cycle.) And then a couple Sundays later, I heard these words sung by those same monks, complete with drums and tamborine and a refrain that everyone gladly chimed in to sing - "Give praise and glory!"  It was clear that these people wanted to praise God in the greatest way possible and couldn't think of any more words with which to do it - so when words fail, turning to scripture's a pretty good way to go. 

Well, quite simply, I wanted to be a part of that joy, and so (eventually, eight years later) I joined the church.  I turn to these words from Daniel both when I am feeling joyful myself and want words to express it, and also when I am feeling sorrowful - for these words remind me of the fact that joy does exist, even if it is not in my life just at the moment.

There is great joy but sometimes we overlook it.  Sometimes it is especially difficult to see the joy of our faith when we read readings like the others we have for today, which are dark and portentous and feature strange, even horrific, imagery and warnings.  But a closer look suggests that these readings, too, lead to joy.

More than in other weeks, today's reading must be read as a continuation of all the previous' days readings, up through the Feast of Christ the King last Sunday.All of this week's readings have come either from the book of the prophet Daniel or from the Gospel of Luke.  The prophet Daniel writes an apocalyptic message by using deep symbolism and by focusing on time in the future, when God will show people quite clearly who it is that has dominion over all creation.  All week, Daniel has been giving us descriptions (from chapter 7) of what the end of time looks like, leading to today's description (Daniel 7:2-14) of terrible beasts and the son of man, who "receives glory and honor and kingship." 

Then too, all week in the readings from the Gospel of Luke give us Jesus' own description of what the end of time looks like, when God's kingdom will finally be here.  Jesus has spoken of wars and persecutions and great troubles even for nursing mothers and young children.  His message today (Luke 21:29-33) is to admonish all his followers to keep watch for these events, for they are the signs that Jesus' kingdom is coming.  These are scary words, but significantly, at the end of today's passage Jesus gives us just a little bit of comfort in the face of all his words of doom: he says, "my words will not pass away." 

The two texts taken together depict the son of man who has glory and honor and kingship, and who is eternal.  These readings are meant to reinforce what we heard on Sunday: Christ is the King, the one who has all power.  Any number of things can threaten us, but ultimately, there is greater power even than war and destruction and persecution.  Whatever else happens, Christ is our power.  These texts are all written in terms of future events that have apparently not happened yet, so it is a mark of faith that we Christians say, "Christ IS King" now - we proclaim already now what we believe will happen in the future.

Because of this faith, Daniel calls upon us to be joyful - to give praise and glory with all our being and with all the rest of creation!

- Jana M. Bennett