Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth once stated that preachers of God's word ought to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Barth saw an important relationship between the word of God and the word of the day that was important in the way we live out our faith in the reality of the modern world. God’s word and the reality of our day are intrinsically bound together in such a way that one always interprets the other. The Second Vatican Council understood this as well, as the fourth paragraph of Guadium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the modern world, states that: "At all times the Church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the Gospel." Today's Gospel from Luke addresses how some in Jesus' day could interpret the weather from the clouds and the appearance of the earth, but they were not able to discern the signs that Jesus put before their very eyes in his proclamation of God's kingdom. And isn't it even more true today? We are so technologically advanced, we pride ourselves in our scientific advances and all the technology we use in our everyday lives, yet we so often miss the message that God is trying to convey to us. Yes, according to the Second Vatican Council, we are call to dialogue with our modern era and to infuse our world with our faith, yet we are also called to be true to the original message of Jesus and the message preached by the early Church fathers. May we never forget this connection.
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