Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-6. Psalm 24:1-6. Luke 12:54-59:

One of the maxims coming from Vatican II is the statement that we are "to read the signs of the times." That means knowing what is going on in the world, and then, when the trends are not in accord with the laws and spirit of the Gospel and theTanach, to be counter-culture. This is reading the signs of the times and then trying to improve the situation through action and thought. John Paul II, for instance, lived out a culture of life while going counter to the "culture of death" surrounding us in terrorism, suicide, wars, oppression, capital punishment, abortion, etc. The list is longer than any system of virtues! This saintly Pope John Paul II gave witness to this by continuing to live in the spirit of the Gospel up to his very last breath. He asked that someone read the Passion Narratives to him while he was dying. Now, in today's pericope from Luke, I think Jesus was speaking about how to read the signs of the times at a deeper level than predicting the weather.

I recall reading the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch who lived just after the Gospel were written (he died around 110 A.D.), and finding for the first time the same expression "reading the signs of the times." I mused over this and had mentioned in class that anyone who could tell me who used this expression for the first time would get a good grade. To my surprise one young man challenged me on the fact about Ignatius of Antioch by going back to what Jesus says here in today's Gospel. I marvelled at this and the lad did very well in class; not that he needed an extra credit!

In a tool called a Gospel parallel, I checked out if another Evangelist had recorded this saying of Jesus. Matthew does, but without as much development of the expression as we find in Luke. Matthew says, "You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but cannot interpret the signs of the times." (Matthew 16:3). The expression thus goes back to the Sayings Source (usually those passages found in Matthew and Luke where the similar sayings of Jesus go back to an oral source or tradition), thus we are very close to the historical time of Jesus himself when we learn of this saying.

We are to be counter-culture and prophetic in our thinking and actions when it comes to confronting those trends or wrongs in society which injure people and destroy life. To be prophetic and counter cultural we need to adhere to the message of the first reading given to in the Epistle to the Ephesians. There we are told to be living lives worthy of our calling by living humbly, patiently, lovingly. We will know were correctly reading the signs as a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew when we have the virtues Paul is speaking about. It is the Holy Spirit of God that is the binding force of such love which eventually brings about peace and unity into our lives and into the world. May God's will be done! Amen.