Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 508

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120112.cfm

And he said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true, 
and the Lord, the God of prophetic spirits, 
sent his angel to show his servants what must happen soon." 
"Behold, I am coming soon." 
Blessed is the one who keeps the prophetic message of this book.

The Book of Revelation closes the liturgical year with assurances: These words are trustworthy and true.

We are, finally, the people who believe in God's word. We place our faith neither in the work of our hands nor the wisdom of our discoveries but in the Truth that God has revealed to us. That revelation organizes and clarifies all our experience. 

We've had bad experiences, many, and they continually insinuate themselves into our thinking: this is the way life really is. 

I knew a fellow who was the only child of only children. He had no brothers and sisters, no aunts or uncles, brothers or sisters or cousins; and he never knew his grandparents. His parents were older, professional people when he was born; they had little time for their only son. To make matters worse, he had been born prematurely in the 1930's; he spent his first several months in an incubator, bereft of all human touch. Early in life he arrived at the obvious conclusions: no one else cares, there is no one else. That was his experience and the affection he eventually received, the rough-and-tumble touch he found among his schoolmates, and his sordid sexual experience could not overcome his isolation. 

But he believed in the Word of God and he found healing.

On either side of the river grew the tree of life
that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month;
the leaves of the trees serve as medicine for the nations.

Each of us bring troubled experience to faith. No one has had it easy. We have been betrayed and disappointed and humiliated. We have suffered physical, psychic and spiritual injuries. Though much of our experience has also been reassuring and affirming, unfortunate events haunt our memory. It doesn't take much to traumatize a human being. 

But God's word also persists. He does not quit on us. Always there is that reassuring word. It might not be heard over the din of troubles but in every moment of quiet it is there. God's voice is silence and the word often comes in silence. 

As the liturgical year ends we hear again the promise; Our God is God: 

Nothing accursed will be found anymore.
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it,
and his servants will worship him.
They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
Night will be no more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun,
for the Lord God shall give them light,
and they shall reign forever and ever.