Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 465

Gird yourselves and weep, O priests!
wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God!
The house of your God is deprived
of offering and libation.

The Book of the Prophet Joel ponders the crisis of a locust infestation. We can try to imagine the dread that fell upon the city of Jerusalem as the sky darkened with a black cloud of flying, biting, voracious insects. Billions of these “warriors” would fall upon fields of grain, olive and fruit trees and consume everything. With neither compunction nor remorse the locusts would strip the land of every green plant, leaving the people and animals to starve.

There was no international economy to alleviate the catastrophe. There was no crop insurance for the farmers; the emperor and his minions would not send relief. Travelling merchants with their camels and mules carried expensive perfumes, jewelry and fine clothing, not food. That was grown locally or not at all. When swarming clouds of locusts darkened the sun, people died.

The Prophet Joel could see this only as the long-feared Day of the Lord. The Prophet Amos had spoken of it many centuries before, long before the conquest of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile. 

Since the time of Amos, Hebrew prophets had predicted a Day of the Lord; they differed about its meaning. It might be a day of wrath or of deliverance. Isaiah predicted idolaters would dump their idols into caves on that day, and then crawl in after them to hide from the terror of the Lord.  He also saw a Day when the faithful turn away from their tormentors and back to the Lord, 

On that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no more lean upon the one who struck them; 

But they will lean upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

 From exile in Babylon, Ezekiel saw That Day as of incredible blessings for God's people:

On that day I will make a horn (of power) sprout for the house of Israel, and I will let you again open your mouth in their midst; then they shall know that I am the LORD.

Jesus announced the Day as wonderful: 

He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

It was in fact, "a year acceptable to the Lord." 

Traditionally the Church has not always been as confident about that Day. Some of us old folks sang as children,

DIES irae, dies illa, solvet saeculum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla.

which is translated, 

THAT day of wrath, that dreadful day, shall heaven and earth in ashes lay, as David and the Sybil say. 

Modern preachers still differ about That Day, depending upon their temperaments and political beliefs, but most are pessimistic. 

In my prayers I take the attitude of looking forward with hope to God's Judgment Day. It will be a Great Day for God and for all those who love God. Of that I am sure! That's reason enough to rejoice. 

For myself and my loved ones I pray, "Mercy on That Day." I remind the Lord we can praise God's name with far more gratitude and enthusiasm from Heaven than from Hell, although He certainly deserves praise in either case. 

Trials are temptations when many give up hope; they become cynical and hateful. I have traversed that vale of gloom and doom several times. I cannot say I did so in exemplary fashion. I was pretty darned unhappy and I made people around me unhappy. 

O what shall I, so guilty plead? and who for me will intercede? when even Saints shall comfort need. 

O King of dreadful majesty! grace and mercy You grant free; as Fount of Kindness, save me! 

Recall, dear Jesus, for my sake you did our suffering nature take then do not now my soul forsake!

As we await Dies irae it doesn't hurt to do penance -- to confess our sins, seek forgiveness and make atonement. There will be time aplenty for rejoicing when God's kingdom appears on that Great and Glorious Day.