The apocalyptic literature from which our readings are drawn at the end of the Church's year - whether from the Hebrew Scriptures or from the New Testament itself - are often filled with strange imagery and symbols, and frightening predictions for the future. On the one hand, it predicted terrible sufferings, sufferings which the people were actually already experiencing in their own time, but on the other hand, it offered the promise and the consolation that good will ultimately triumph over evil.

In today's first reading we hear from the Book of Daniel the story of an evil king who in his arrogance and pride, desecrates the sacred vessels robbed from the temple in Jerusalem. In a dramatic scene, we are witnesses to God's judgment of the king, and by extension, the judgment of God against all kings, empires, and powers, whether political or economic, which exercise their power as if God did not exist. It offers us the assurance that finally God will triumph over all those powers that today seem so undefeatable. In our second reading, Jesus tells His disciples of the persecutions that await them as they spread the Gospel, but again Jesus assures His followers that the power of God will ultimately prove stronger than those who persecute them. We need not look very far away to find contemporary evidence that faith not only can survive, but even flourish under persecution.