First Reading
Daniel 2:31-45
Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar:
"In your vision, O king, before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind blew them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
"This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.
"After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
"In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
"The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy."
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Responsorial Psalm
Daniel 3
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord,
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord,
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“You heavens, bless the Lord,
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord,
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
“All you hosts of the Lord, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.”
R. Give glory and eternal praise to him.
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Gospel
Luke 21:5-11
While some people were commenting about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, "As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down."
"Teacher," they asked, "when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?"
He replied: "Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,’ and, ‘the time is near.' Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away."
Then he said to them: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and awful sights and mighty signs will come from the skies.”
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There is a consistent theme in the Old Testament and New Testament readings of today’s liturgy. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, saw in a vision an enormous statue, terrifying in appearance, head of gold, torso and arms of silver, midsection and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, crumbled into dust when a stone rolled down the mountain and struck its feet of clay. The Hebrew prophet Daniel, called by the King to interpret his dream, did not mince words with him: The kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar would fall, be replaced by a succession of kingdoms, each less powerful than the last.
How many regimes are represented in Daniel’s prophesy? Babylonia was succeeded by Assyria, Chaldea and Persia, each a less powerful nation than the last. In 141 BC, when the Parthian empire took over the region, the city of Babylon and the surrounding area was in total desolation and obscurity. At the time of Jesus, the area was an outlying and insignificant part of the Sassanid Persian Empire. What about today? A few words will suffice: Babylon is now Iraq, Persia is Iran, and the city of Jerusalem is divided into Jewish and Palestinian sectors.
These same themes are echoed in the Gospel. As people were admiring the beautiful stones and with which the Temple of Jerusalem was adorned, Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down." If the Temple Priests, Teachers of the Law, Pharisees and Sadducees heard him speak, they probably were not worried: Solomon, son of David built the Temple about 900 years BC; it was rebuilt by Cyrus, King of Persia about 500 BC when the Jews were allowed to return from the Babylonian exile. The Roman general Pompey had desecrated the Temple about 60 BC, and it was completely refurbished by Herod the Great about 20 BC. Surely the God of Israel would not destroy His Dwelling Place forever. It was demolished by the Roman General Titus in 70 AD. The Dome of the Rock was built upon the site of the Temple of Jerusalem. The Muslim custom is to build mosques on the site where temples and synagogues had stood. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This last week of November, as we prepare for and celebrate Thanksgiving, is a good time to reflect on the themes of change and impermanence of earthly things – even magnificent buildings built for the worship of Almighty God – and in our own personal lives. The “costly stones” we put in our places of worship will not be permanent, nor will those we place n our lives. What am I most thankful for today? In my life, how do I give glory and praise to God? Which “costly stones” in my worship, my prayer, my life, do I need to examine and re-evaluate?
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2 comments:
Jesus condemns the scribes for devouring widows' houses. Then a widow puts 2 coins into the treasury. Finally, Jesus prophesies the destruction of the temple. Is there is a kind of judgment here? It's as though she had dropped in two sticks of dynamite!
I looked at some images of the widow's mite coin on internet. Some of them are stamped with an anchor (like the Holy Trinity symbol), some with ears of wheat and others with a cup of wine and bunch of grapes. Small crosses are also shown. I was surprised to see that all examples bore such Christian symbols. On some sites, the widow's mite coin can be purchased mounted in place of the corpus on a cross pendant.
Jesus' mother was also a widow by this time. Perhaps Jesus was thinking of her too.
Luke 20:
45While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, 46"Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 47They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.
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Luke 21:
1As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 3"I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."
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5Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6"As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down."
7"Teacher," they asked, "when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?"
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Sarah,since these three episodes are recorded consecutively in the Gospel according to Luke, I thought it best to cite them before responding to your comment on them.
"Is there a kind of judgment here?" you ask. There is! (And we might omit three words "a kind of", for Jesus is speaking about God's judgment, according to which we are each sentenced at the moment of our death, and all of us are sentenced at the Last Judgment.
As I wrote in today's Bear Witness, the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians, its rebuilding by Cyrus, King of Persia, its refurbishment by Herod, and its destruction by the troops of Titus are interpreted as signs of God's wrath, and of his abiding mercy. Why has the Temple never been rebuilt since its destruction in AD 72? The historical reason that can be clearly given is this: The Jewish people cannot build a Temple except on the ground where Solomon built the First Temple -- and that piece of land is now occupied by a mosque.
As for the "widow's mite coin", in Jesus' times there actually was no coin called a mite. However, there was a mite in the time of the King James translation. The Greek original is lepton, a coin of small worth. Actual value is hard to determine, since the economists remind us that the value of food and clothing hasn't increased since we were children, it is the value of money that has diminished. On that note, I'd better stop and go have my lunch.
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