34th Week, Tuesday, Nov 25; St Catherine of Alexandria
Daniel 2:31-45 / Luke 21:5-11
The king has a strange dream; Daniel interpreted the king's dream.
The four kingdoms of Babylonia, Media, Persia and Greece took turns dominating the Near East for over 300 years. The king's dream foretells that these four kingdoms will all be replaced by a kingdom established by God. The gospel writers interpreted Jesus to be the unhewn stone that destroyed the statue (the composite symbol of the four kingdoms). Luke says of Jesus: “The stone which the builders rejected (left unhewn in the mountain) has become the cornerstone.', It will crush anyone on whom it falls." Lake 2.17-18
New Testament writers also interpreted the kingdom of God, preached by Jesus, to be the eternal kingdom foretold by Daniel.
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Do we believe God is at work in our world and that his plan for us cannot be frustrated? "I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light.” Mary Prainard
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In a time of unrest in the Church, with our search for living our faith in a renewed way, the readings of today bring us a message of hope and trust. Kingdoms built without God will decay, destroy one another, and be ultimately replaced by God, the Lord of history, with God’s indestructible kingdom. This is the message of the Book of Daniel to the persecuted Jews.
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We often say that the past is history and the future is mystery. Sounds rather poetic. And good poetry often makes a reflection on the harsh reality but puts it across beautifully. So as much as we know the history of the past, we do not know the mystery of the future.
It is because we do not know the future, we tend to live in anxiety. And we may secretly like to think that if we know what is going to happen in the future, then we may be relieved of this anxiety. Well, king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about the future. And Daniel interpreted that dream for him. But did it quell his anxiety?
Similarly in the gospel, the people asked Jesus about the time and the signs of the future. And Jesus did tell them something about the future, but did it quell their anxiety? It is not good to be too anxious about the future, but yet we can turn that anxiety into something creative.
We can use that anxiety to build the foundations of our lives so that we won't be thrown about by the worries of what is to come.
The prophet Daniel mentions in the 1st reading of a stone, untouched by human hands. We, of course, know that the stone that he was talking about was that stone that was rejected by the builders but which became the cornerstone.
May Jesus be that cornerstone that forms the foundations of our lives. It is in Jesus that we can have security in a future that is a mystery. Because with Jesus we can truly live in the HERE and NOW. Without Jesus, we will be NOWHERE
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Jesus speaks of times of trials, directly of the fall of Jerusalem, which is a symbol of the end time. We may not forget that for us here and now the time of judgment is now: we prepare it now, we undergo, or better, create it now, by the way, we live individually and as a community. “Do not be misled,” says Christ. In other words, his message is meant to shake us, to wake us up to live the Gospel now.
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Opening Prayer
Lord our God, our faith is not a quiet possession of the truth and of rites that may give us security. Make us realize that it is tested and that you call us to be credible witnesses in our time and our situation of the passion and resurrection of your Son. Give us your Holy Spirit to guide us and to keep our hope alive that Jesus is our Lord and you our God forever. Amen
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Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Feast Day November 25
She was about eighteen and her name was Catherine. She lived in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, the city that Antony the Great of Egypt had once visited and that was the home of Athanasius.
Catherine lived during the reign of the Roman emperor Maxentius and was famous throughout the city for her beauty. Despite this, she was the sort of person who liked to spend her time reading and studying. Indeed, she was just as famous for her intelligence as she was for her good looks.
Now it so happened that Emperor Maxentius made a visit to Alexandria, which was part of his empire. While he was there, he heard about Catherine’s beauty and intelligence. He commanded his servants to bring her to meet him. As soon as he saw her, he decided he wanted to marry her. Immediately. But there was a problem.
Maxentius already had a wife.
Maxentius (who continued to worship the ancient Roman gods) didn’t think this mattered at all. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll have two wives at the same time. I’m the emperor, I can do what I like.” Catherine was having none of this. She refused his proposal, saying that as a Christian she couldn’t possibly agree to such a relationship.
Maxentius then gathered together a great number of teachers and professors who also believed in the Roman gods. He told them to persuade Catherine that her Christian faith was nonsense. She listened to them for a while and then started answering their points convincingly and persuasively. The result was that, far from getting Catherine to change her mind, these wise men began to change their own minds.
The emperor was not only angry; he was alarmed. What would happen if Rome gave up its worship of the old gods? He didn’t want any of what he described as “this Christian nonsense.”
So he gave orders that Catherine should be put to death in a particularly horrible way. He had a large wheel made, with sharp blades set into the outside rim. Then Catherine was to be tied around this edge, and the blades were intended to cut her to pieces as the wheel was rolled along.
It didn’t go according to plan. When Catherine was bound to the wheel, it broke and the blades flew off in all directions, flashing in the light and wounding the soldiers who were supposed to be putting her to death. Some people say all this was caused by lightning striking the wheel. Whether that is true or not, Catherine’s executioners didn’t try making another wheel. They beheaded her at once.
It is said that a flight of angels then descended from heaven and carried her body to Mount Sinai, where, centuries before, God had given the Ten Commandments to Moses. Even today there is a monastery named Saint Catherine’s there.
People also remember the death of Saint Catherine with the firework that is named after her, which is supposed to spin around as her wheel did.
