In today’s reflection on the daily mass readings, Fr Richard considers how we can have faith in God’s vision for a world where all of nature is at peace and in harmony.
Readings for Tuesday of the 1st week of Advent: Isaiah 11.1-10; Psalm 72.1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17; Luke 10.21-24. Text of readings can be found here.
It was that great commentator on the Scriptures, Woody Allen, who once offered an interesting take on today’s famous passage from Isaiah. “The leopard shall lie down with the young goat”, said Allen, “but the goat won’t get much sleep!”. That comment perhaps points to a certain degree of cynicism that the sophisticated reader might bring to this passage. It seems so far-fetched, that these pairs of animals, one of which would normally want to devour the other, could ever dwell together in harmony. Just as unlikely would be the prospect of a child playing happily near a venomous snake or the emergence of a leader to take on the mantle of King David, possessed of all the wonderful qualities of which Isaiah speaks.
In the Gospel, however, Jesus rejects the notion that it is the so-called wise and learned, those perhaps endowed with scepticism and cynicism, who have a monopoly on understanding the world. Indeed, he says that the Father has hidden the truth from such people, and instead revealed it to “little children”, no doubt meaning those regarded as uneducated or unsophisticated. They have an openness to the things of God which the wise and learned sometimes find harder. This was certainly true of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day, while the ordinary folk embraced his message.
This is not to denigrate the role of education or learning. But it is to say that these things should not become a barrier to accepting the amazing possibilities that faith offers. Isaiah’s prophecy about the Messiah was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus; and so we can trust that his wonderful vision of a world at peace and in harmony will also one day come to pass.
South Cardiff Ministry Area 