Please read the passage before the homily:
An agricultural society in the Middle East would live in constant fear of droughts or plagues of locusts. Usually locusts do not invade when drought happens. Drought one year and locusts another would be distinct possibilities. Without rain, there is no crop, and where there is no crop, there is hunger and starvation. When locusts attack, they devour everything and the result is the same, no crop and plenty of hugner and starvation.
The prophet announced the coming of the day of the Lord, ss a day of darkness as when locusts swarm and block the sun. Or again, the day of the Lord could be like locusts whose swarm like the rising sun and at the same time block the sun with their swarming.
The day of the Lord, did the prophet mean real locusts and real drought, of did he want to say that the day of the Lord would be as bad as locusts or drought? We do not know. The people knew what happens when drought and locusts strike. It meant slender eating and no feastings. It meant living with hunger that could not be assuaged. The day of the Lord would also be like a city being attacked by an enemy when the noise of trumpet and the clash of weapons would spread panic throughout the city. All would be gloom, confusion, and panic.
The day of the Lord is coming. Joel calls us to repentance because there is no one equal to the powerful God when God comes. We. cannot escape nuclear weapons. We have man-made droughts. We can manufacture our own doom. Joel also calls us to repentance, or else.