Daniel 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28. Give glory and eternal praise to him! – Daniel 3:62-67. Luke 21:12-19.

Today’s Gospel reading presents a bleak view of the future for Christians: people will bully, arrest and imprison them; Christians will have to defend themselves for their faith before civil authorities. Worse, family members will expose believers: parents, brothers and relatives will at different times hand their kinfolk over for punishment because of their belief. All this came to pass. Jesus makes clear that, although Christian belief and practice is rational and admirable, it is inimical to unregenerate human nature. Families trying to keep their children in league with natural human impulses will find a strange response from those who adopt Jesus’ unconventional teachings. While family loyalty can co-exist with Christian faith, mere family bonds cannot generate Christian faith. He was also right that those defenders of faith would be given words and wisdom that the opponents could not contradict: the success of Christianity against a pagan empire demonstrates that.