Homily for Wednesday
34th Week of Ordinary Time
Nov. 24, 2021
Dan 5: 1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28
Intended for Ursulines, Willow Dr., New
Rochelle, N.Y.
“I have heard that the Spirit of God is in you” (Dan 5: 14).
One of the themes of the Book of Daniel is
that wisdom comes from God. Thus on several
occasions—like yesterday’s 1st reading—Daniel, faithful servant of the true
God, is able to interpret mysteries that the wise men of Babylon cannot. If we want to interpret our lives rightly, we
must interpret them in the light of God’s word, in the light of Jesus Christ,
in the light of the authentic charism of our religious family.
We speak of “reading the handwriting on the
wall,” meaning seeing some unfortunate event impending. We don’t need divine handwriting to know, as
Daniel says, that our life breath is in God’s hands and our lives ought to
glorify him (5:23).
Jesus has told us that the hairs of our
heads are numbered (Luke 12:7), which is probably more serious than the
numbering of Belshazzar’s kingdom and its weighing (Dan 5:26-27). Our lives may not be weighty as human beings
measure them. All that matters is that
God counts them valuable, so valuable that “not a hair on our heads will be
destroyed, and by our perseverance we secure our lives” (Luke 21:18-19)—or,
more precisely, God secures them. In
truth, we count on it!
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