Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 497

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111912.cfm

MSF Picnic
2012

Blessed is the one who reads aloud 
and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message 
and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time is near. 

Lectors who read the scriptures during our liturgies should notice this special blessing that Saint John of Patmos extends to them. They enjoy a particular blessing and a great responsibility. 

When The Book of Revelation was written few people could read and none would have had a copy in hand to read with the proclamation. At that time, the reading would have sounded even fresher; this public event was the liveliest medium in the world. It was as exciting and as real -- perhaps more real -- than our movies, television or Internet communications. They heard these readings and "saw" the visions of Saint John more clearly than we do on our electronic screens. 

The listeners also understood that this "prophetic message" was coming at them boldly. It could not be ignored or dismissed. The word of prophecy is God's voice speaking to his Church. They and we must understand, "the appointed time is near." 

 

I am fascinated by the scriptural concept of the "fullness of time." We hear it often in the New Testament: "when the fullness of time had come." It means, among many things, that Jesus could have been born only "at that time," in the days of Caesar Augustus. He could have been born only of the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem. 

I suppose something similar could be said about you or me. Each of us was born of particular parents in a particular place and time. We are as much people of our "time" as Jesus was of his time. It is nonsense to say, "Had I been born then..." Had I been born then, I would not be me. I would be someone else. But that someone else was born then. 

The child that is born at 11 pm on December 31 has a different experience of the world than the one born at 1am on January 1. The later child is the "first of the new year." The hospital might pay special attention to that child, with little gifts and trinkets for the first of the new year. But the former baby is just one more of last year's children. 

Growing up in certain places and times, we are shaped by our culture. I was born to hear the Beatles, who burst on the scene in the early 1960s. I was too young for Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley, and too old for Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don't even care much for Michael Jackson, though I might admire his talent. Birth dates make a difference, as does the place where we're born. We are shaped by our experience. I could not have been born of Baptist parents, nor of Muslim; though I should appreciate their religious beliefs. 

Jesus was born on our Planet Earth! He is flesh like you and me, of all the elements and chemicals, germs and organisms that enable our flesh to thrive on this peculiar planet. 

Knowing who I am, where I was born and when, of whom, and how my world has shaped me, I am all the more ready to hear the prophetic word of God. I am ready to say with Samuel, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening."