Monday – 2nd Week of Lent – A

Now a question may be, what happened to Jerusalem during those decades of exile? And were there no Jews in the land? Was there any, were there any human beings at all residing in the Holy Land during the time of their exile? Was it completely void of any human presence? The short answer to that is no. There were always Jews remaining in the Holy Land during the Babylonian exile, but they were very poor, politically leaderless, religiously destabilized, socially fragmented. And what happened to them becomes enormously important for understanding this prayer that we have from Daniel in today's first reading, a prayer that he makes while he is in Babylon in exile with many of the Jewish people. So we have to understand that the exile happened in waves, and not all at once. The deportations under Nebuchadnezzar the Second occurred in stages. So first, in 597 BC, King Jehoiachin was deported, and so was much of the nobility, the military officers, the craftsmen and artisans, the educated class. So the higher ups were deported. And then, eleven years later, in 586 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. They burned down the Temple, they deported their priests, and the royal court was removed. Any remaining leadership was taken away. And then four years later, in 582 BC, additional deportations following the rebellion that's mentioned in Jeremiah 52:30, where the Babylonian policy was basically strategic. They first removed the leadership, then the skilled labor, then the intellectual elite, but they left behind, and I quote from the Second Book of Kings, “The poorest of the land to be vinedressers and ploughmen” (2 Kings 25:12).

So the land was never empty. Life in Judah during the exile wasn't that great. The people who remained lived among ruins. They had no Temple, they had no king, no sacrificial system, and the Davidic authority that once governed the nation also disappeared. The Babylonians appointed a Jewish governor, Gedaliah, to administer the territory from Mizpah. For a brief moment stability seemed possible. But then Gedaliah was assassinated by Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, and this triggered fear that the Babylonians would retaliate. It triggered internal chaos because now they had nobody to take the lead, and it also triggered a mass flight of remaining Jews to Egypt. So what you had during the Babylonian exile was not just exiles in Babylon, but you had some survivors still remaining in Judah, and you had many refugees in Egypt, all of them covenantally displaced in different ways. Excavations show rural settlements continued. Agricultural activity persisted. Some towns, like Mizpah and Bethel, remained occupied, but Jerusalem itself was largely a ruin for decades. The population levels in Judah dropped dramatically, some estimates suggest by as much as 70 to 90 percent in urban centers. So Judah becomes a land without a center.

Now, why does this matter for this prayer that we find in the ninth chapter of Daniel? Well, Daniel's words make more sense now: “The residents of Jerusalem and all Israel, near and far, in all the countries to which you have scattered them” (Daniel 9:7). So he's referring to those in Babylon, those scattered elsewhere, and those still living amid the devastation in Judah. All of them were covenantally judged, politically humiliated, and awaiting restoration. This is why Daniel prays not for relocation first, but for forgiveness from God. He's praying that there will be reconciliation between God and his people.

Now, of course, this leads us to the main protagonist of the entire Word of God, and that is the Word of God himself, Jesus, who in today's Gospel reminds us: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:36–37). We have to understand that God was displeased with his people not only because they were worshiping false idols, so they were really being ungrateful to him and not interested in a relationship with him, but he was also disturbed immensely because of the way they were treating each other. And that is what the prophets were always calling out, that they were condemning each other, that they were always judging one another instead of uniting in humility, helping each other, living simply off the fruits of the land, sharing all the goods and worshiping the Lord God of Hosts who was in their midst as their Father. And so too it is with us, my brothers and sisters. We too can erect for ourselves in our lives, in our hearts, false idols. We too can treat each other in ways that are displeasing to the Lord. And this is our Lenten journey, our Lenten reflection: how can I improve my relationship with God and my relationship with everyone else he has placed by my side on my journey? As we know, so many difficult things are happening throughout the world today, where we yearn for not only peace but the healing of our lands. But we have to remember that this is primarily found in God alone. That's why our trust and our hope should always be in God alone and in those who serve him. Our Blessed Mother, the angels, the saints, the Church, all of us that are making this journey together. Be of heart, my brothers and sisters. The Lord is with us. May he bless you. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in peace to love and serve him who has loved you from eternity. Amen.