Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! I'm reading the Bible clear through this year, and I invite you to read along with me. But first, let us pray:
Everlasting Father,
All time belongs to you, and all the ages. In signs, in songs, in words of promise, you reassured your chosen ones, “I am with you; fear not.” You taught them through the prophets to trust that your saving deeds were not limited to the past.
When Jesus came, he fulfilled “all that was written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
The Church has found him everywhere in these same holy books.
Help me to find Jesus in my reading today, to listen to him, and to follow him with all my heart.
Amen.
Today's chapters are Joel 1-4.
There is an extra chapter today because the Book of Joel is so short. With Joel, we are time traveling forward into the Second Temple period (maybe; scholars really aren't sure!). At any rate, there is a functioning Temple.
Brief as it is, Joel has made some significant contributions. For example, in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-24, ff.), St Peter cites Joel 3:1-5 in explaining what had just happened on Pentecost morning with the descent of the Holy Spirit leading the tiny Christian community to speak in many languages about the resurrection of Jesus. St Paul cites Joel's "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" when explaining his own mission of preaching the Gospel (Romans 10:13; Joel 3:5).
Joel's prophesying seems to have coincided with a devastating locust invasion, the kind in which massive hordes of insects fly in and devour a nation's entire food supply overnight. For the prophet, this was more than a natural phenomenon. With his apocalyptic language, Joel gives us some of the popular imagery and even language for Judgment Day. His powerful exhortation, "Rend your hearts, not your garments" sums up the season of Lent. In fact, the first reading for Ash Wednesday is Joel 2:12-18.
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