Listen to this consoling sentence from Sunday's First Reading

You who fear my name,
 for you there will arise
  the sun of justice
   with its healing rays.

Justice. Healing rays! We have wanted this for a long time now!

But what about fearing his name, as in the first line? A lot of us have fear. Especially now, with Ukraine and elections, etc.

Well, scripture is not talking about the fear we experience in horror films. Not that strange noise when you are alone in the house (fears, as well-motivated, especially in the present time). No, the Hebrew text uses an older meaning of "fear": there it refers to a "reverential wonder," an awe before that which is very much bigger than us. This kind of "fear" is crucial for you and me.

Only then when we have it can we begin relating to God, to start maturing in our relation with the Most High. Only then do we being to suspect what it really means to say that God is Love.

Saying that God is Love requires a continuing revolution in our lives, like the one Copernicus brought about. Remember? He showed that the sun does not revolve around the earth but that the earth revolves around the sun. Well, spiritually, most of us are pre-Copernican. We think God’s job is to circle around us, as if we, who are small asteroids, were at the center of the universe. We often declare that God is just someone to assist us, to answer our prayers, to make us peaceful, to make our side win the ball game, and so on.

Nothing is really wrong with any of these.

Yet we stand in terrible need of a Copernican revolution. God does not exist to serve me. Just the opposite. God is center of the universe! God quietly maintains all that is: stars, galaxies, lands, oceans, cities, humans hearts, butterfly wings, and so on. We owe reverence to God. It takes a spiritual transformation to think in this way.

What would happen if you or I tried it?

First, we would be living truth instead of pretense. What truth? That human beings are created to welcome this true God within each of them as the source and goal of who they are. If God is greatest, why would we make something else the center of our life?

Second, the “sun of justice with its healing rays” would shine upon us. God’s love would appear to us as truth instead of as just a bauble to play with, or just a way to find a parking place. We would begin to see God as the gentle source of life and the affectionate mother of the entire universe.

Third—believe it or not—since Advent is coming very soon, we will be preparing to receive our tender invitation shown forth in a child. In pre-Advent (now) we are supposed to be receiving God’s grandeur in an awe filled and fear- invoking stage ... in order that soon we will be humble enough to prepare for the baby.

This is why the First Reading and the Gospel thunder on about the day of reckoning when “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,” etc. Isn't that what we are experiencing today?

Can we climb down from our thrones and pray in hope for those unjust wars!