34th Week in Ordinary Time
Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions

1st Reading: Dn 2:31–45

In your vision you saw a statue—very large, very bright, terrible to look at. Its head was of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. As you watched, a rock cut from a mountain but not by human hands, struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, smashing them. All at once the iron, clay, bronze, silver and gold crumbled into pieces as fine as chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind swept them off and not a trace was left. But the rock that struck the statue became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.

That was the dream. Now the interpretation. You, O king, are king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given dominion,  strength, power and glory, and into whose hand he has placed human-kind, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, making you ruler over them. You are that head of gold.

After you, another kingdom inferior to yours will rise. Then a third kingdom of bronze will rule the whole world. Last shall be a fourth kingdom strong as iron and just as iron breaks and crushes everything else, so will it break and smash all the others. The partly-clay and partly-iron feet and toes mean that it will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron, just as you saw iron mixed with clay. And as the toes were partly iron and partly clay, the kingdom will be partly strong and partly weak. Just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, the people will be a mixture but will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

In the time of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom never to be destroyed or delivered up to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and put an end to them. And it will endure forever. This is the meaning of your vision of a rock cut from a mountain not by human hands, the rock which struck the statue and broke into pieces the iron, bronze, clay, silver and gold. The great God has shown the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation reliable.”

Gospel: Lk 21:5–11

While some people were talking about the Temple, remarking that it was adorned with fine stonework and rich gifts, Jesus said to them, “The days will come when there shall not be left one stone upon another of all that you now admire; all will be torn down.” And they asked him, “Master, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”

Jesus then said, “Take care not to be deceived, for many will come claiming my title and saying: ‘I am he, the Messiah; the time is at hand.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and troubled times, don’t be frightened; for all this must happen first, even though the end is not so soon.”

And Jesus said, “Nations will fight each other and kingdom will oppose kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and plagues; in many places strange and terrifying signs from heaven will be seen.”

Commentary

This king’s dream in the Book of Daniel represented the kingdoms of the earth, that would successively rule the nations and influence the affairs of the Jewish people. The head of gold signified the Chaldean empire, then in existence. The breast and arms of silver signified the empire of the Medes and Persians. The belly and thighs of brass signified the Grecian empire, founded by Alexander. The legs and feet of iron signified the Roman empire. The Roman empire branched into ten kingdoms, just like the ten toes of the feet. Some were weak as clay; others strong as iron.

The stone cut without hands represented the kingdom of God, which should be set up in the world, upon the ruins of Satan's kingdom. This was the stone the builders refused, because it was not cut out by their hands; but, it became the corner-stone…..Christ! Christ shall reign, not only to the end of time, but when time and days are no more. As far as world events have gone, the fulfillment of this prophetic vision has been most exact and undeniable; future ages will witness this stone, destroying Satan’s image and filling the whole earth with love and hope!

________
Claretian Communications Foundation, Inc., 8 Mayumi St., U.P. Village, Diliman, Quezon City, U.P. P.O. Box 4, Diliman, 1101 Quezon City; Tel. No. (02) 921-39-84; Fax No.: (02) 921-62-05 E-mail: cci@claret.org; Websites: http://www.claretianbpublication.com (Claretian Publications) & http://www.claretphilippines.org (Claretian Missionaries in the Philippines) Claretian HOPE CENTER: Aurora Milestone Tower, 1045 Aurora Blvd., Loyola Heights, Quezon City E-mail: hopecenter07@yahoo.com/hopecenter07@gmail.com