DANIEL 12:1-3
At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
HEBREWS 10:11-18
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.
SECOND READING: ALTERNATIVE
If it is desired that the second reading also accompany the message of the other two, this passage from the Letter to the Romans 8:14-23 might be appropriate:
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
This magnificent text is an example of a different kind of eschatology, entirely unrelated to disaster, to naive speculations about the collapse of the stars and similar speculations. Paul is introducing another image: that of childbirth, an excellent image because it is evidently parabolic and there is no danger of it being confused with reality.
The parable of childbirth is similar to that of the chick about to break the shell of the egg and come out to life, or the butterfly that breaks its cocoon and leaves it to take flight. The best thing about these images is undoubtedly that within the womb or the egg, the creature cannot even imagine what awaits it outside, and may feel fear in the face of an unknown and therefore frightening future.
The creature enclosed may think that the only reality is the one it is living, but that is only ignorance: the best, the true life, is yet to come; and it is surprisingly richer and better than the enclosed and incomplete life they have.
This is a message little used and even overlooked by our preaching and our personal religiosity: facing the “end,” death, with fear or with desire. An inevitable evil is feared; but when a promised good is expected, one wishes for it to arrive, even for it to arrive as soon as possible.
The coincidence of many saints in this feeling is notable. Paul, Teresa of Jesus, John of the Cross, Ignatius of Loyola, when it comes to thinking what is better, to live or to die, do not hesitate: it is better to die, but it is necessary to serve here and be useful to the brothers.
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain…. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain alive… Philippians 1:22
It is also a characteristic theme in Francis Xavier, in two aspects: the first, the longing for the true life, as he shows in a letter from Malacca, in June 1549, on the eve of his departure for Japan:
“For this is not life, but a continuous death and exile from the glory for which we are created”
The second, the lack of fear of death as a characteristic of those who believe in Jesus:
“Through contempt for death we show ourselves superior to these proud people… and by this contempt for life that our doctrine inspires in us, they will be able to judge what God is.”
It seems to me that contemporary culture tries to marginalize any mention of suffering and death. Death is the contradiction and failure of all its values. I believe we would do a great service to our brothers by knowing how to die, showing faith in God, the Almighty Father, showing that dying is, as it was for Jesus, surrendering into His hands, into very good hands.
T O P I C S A N D C O N T E X T S
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL GENRE.
This literary genre is very special and needs to be well interpreted. It is called “eschatological” because it refers to the end, the end of time, or of the individual… to “consummation.” Naturally, this topic cannot be treated descriptively: no one has seen it. Therefore, it is treated in the form of “visions,” of “prophetic announcements.”
But the content is not events, but ideas. This is what is sometimes not interpreted well, and leads to very unfortunate conclusions. The “prophetic visions” do not mean that the writer has been transported to the future and then tells us what he has seen. They mean that the writer creates images to express what his faith tells him about the future.
This is very normal in Hebrew literature. Therefore, the images are the wrapping of the message, not the message itself. In this way, we can read the book of Daniel, in the Old Testament, and the Apocalypse, in the New Testament. The eschatological genre is usually “catastrophic.” It narrates the end of times as a great cosmic catastrophe. The stars “fall from the sky”…
It is clear what those who wrote it knew about astronomy…. It is clear that it is an image, and that the catastrophic nature is something cultural, not precisely a content of revealed faith. In the opposite sense, the Apocalypse shows the end of times as “the victory of our God,” extends the number of the “saved” to innumerable multitudes from all races and places, and imagines the end as the arrival at the “Holy City,” in which there is no longer pain or darkness.
José Enrique Galarreta