Please read this passage before reading this homily.
The prophet Daniel lived about two centuries before Christ, long after the official exile and long after the prophet Jeremiah. Yet, Jeremiah and the exile are very much present to Daniel on this passage. To Daniel, the persecutions his people experienced under Greek kings was like an extension of the Exile and the consolation Jeremiah gave the original exiles was needed in Daniel’s time.
Daniel’s people had no king. They were deprived of their homes and God’s temple. They may have been living in their own country, but to them it was virtual exile, home without being home. Where was the consolation the prophet Jeremiah had given his people? Daniel concludes that only by a wholesale returning to God could the exile within the homeland be ended and peace restored to God’s people.
Daniel does not blame the Greek overlords nor condemn their enthusiastic persecution of the people. Rather he sees that the salvation of the people will come from their repentance and wholehearted turning to God in penance and conversion.
We are in a virtual exile as we ponder this reading. In these forty days before Easter, we are to focus more on our transgressions than on those of others. With Daniel, we can say that we have sinned, have rebelled and have not obeyed the prophets sent by the Lord.
Do we today stand shamefaced for having sinned against God even though for us as for them compassion and mercy describe who God is? From what must we be converted in this time before Easter? To what word of God must we listen today?