Praise God for His Prophets!

Daniel 12:13

But go your way till the end; and you shall rest, and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.

Daniel and the other Old Testament prophets had something in common with us: they were waiting.  We are awaiting the Second Coming of Christ.  They were awaiting his First Coming.  They could look back on the covenants with Abraham and Moses, but in the present tense, they had to survive on faith and a certain amount of sheer grit.  And perhaps the hardest part of that was the realization (summed up in today’s verse) that the thing they awaited was not coming in their lifetime.  That required tremendous faith, particularly since they did not have the sorts of sacramental helps that we have lavished on us today by Christ through the Church.  Daniel had to “go his way” until he died (“rested”) and live only in the hope of the resurrection, not in its post-Easter light, as we do.  Today, thank God for the great saints of the Old Testament who kept the flame of Abraham’s and Moses’ faith burning until Jesus came and inaugurated the “end of days” that will culminate in his Return and the Resurrection of the Dead.

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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