Hard times — a Congress locked in venom and contempt for those with whom one must negotiate, “partisan” is a common adjective for elected officials at the national level; Detroit city caught in uncertainties about bankruptcy that stir mistrust and fear for the future; UDM negotiating a McNichols faculty contract turned acrimonious and hurtful.
Monday, October 7
Yesterday at Sunday mass, one of my favorite prophecies popped up out of the grass, Habakkuk. Habakkuk’s time of composition is obscure. The Jerusalem Bible suggests c. 600 shortly before the first Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 597. Hard times for sure for the prophet’s hearers. In light of the troubles of those years, this short oracle is daring and demanding. Patient waiting for a vision and its hope in hard times is outrageous. Sometimes I wonder, with challenges like this, how the words, or the obscure name Habakkuk, survived and is still remembered.
Such, perhaps, is the story of bravery all over the world, time after time. Lots of bravery on our three campuses too.
john sj
The Lord Says:
Write the vision down.
inscribe it on tablets
to be easily read,
for the vision has its own time,
and presses on to its own fulfillment;
it does not deceive;
if it delays, wait for it,
for come it will, without fail.
Habakkuk 2:2-3