What may not be so accessible is the yearly dip into Revelation that has been with us most of the week and continues tomorrow, the last day of the 2010 Liturgical Year. Not being a Scripture scholar, I sought assistance on the Internet with my desire to share a bit of wisdom, albeit someone else’s, on today’s First Reading from Revelation. Alas, I found no help there, though please don’t let that keep you from searching if moved to do so. Not that there weren’t plenty of places to look, the more files I opened the more confused I became. Rather, I am left with a basic understanding that the Book of Revelation is poetry and has presented artists over the centuries with vivid visioning of the Lamb, angels, thrones, all with the final promise of God’s deliverance of the Just. If you pray with images, this may be of help to you. Today’s Response for Psalm 84 offers more familiarity: “Here God lives among God’s people.” Well worth reading is the entire psalm; here are the first and last verses from the Jerusalem Bible: “How I love your palace, Yahweh Sabaoth!” Ps.84:1 and “Yahweh Sabaoth, Happy are those who put their trust in you!” Ps. 84:12. In today’s Gospel, Christ tells yet another parable using the fig tree as an example. When the fig tree blooms, He explains, have burst open, summer cannot be far away. Neither then is the Kingdom of God when they see “these things” happening. And what were these things? This verse is followed closely by the beginning of the Passion. In fact, Christ’s image of the Kingdom of God motivated all that He did. (Cannato, Judy, Field of Compassion, 2010). “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities, for I was sent for this purpose.” (Luke 4:43) Jesus does not preach here-after vision but rather a here-now Kingdom of God where God’s will for all of humanity is being realized by the intention of human beings to join with God in co-creativity. Precisely when and how to do that is revealed to us each day If we are looking for the kind of activities that may be involved, we can read the account in Luke of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth when the words of Isaiah were read. (Luke 4:18-21). |