Monday of the
Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
(Daniel 1:1-6.8-20; Luke 21:1-4)
The Book of the Prophet Daniel is misplaced alongside of
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Where the
latter exhort the people of Israel to change their ways or suffer God’s wrath, Daniel
tells the story of a Jewish man’s faithfulness and God’s ultimate destruction
of his persecutors. Daniel was written
centuries after the events it relates in order to shore up the flagging hopes
of Jews under persecution by the Hellenist tyrant Antipas IV Epiphanes. It is rightly regarded as historical fiction.
Today’s reading from Daniel introduces the main character
and his companions. The moral is
self-evident – it is not a superior diet that makes one excel but attention to God’s
law.
Most people today do not suffer the religious persecution
of Daniel and friends. Yet there is a cultural
imperialism promoting casual sex and the marginalization of religion to be
dealt with. Daniel serves us also an
example of faithfulness to God in an age that would just as soon forget His
presence.
