NOTES for Isa 60:1-22

A time will come when God will dwell with humanity forever, when poverty and violence will disappear, and the Lord's eternal light will shine in the holy city. The builders of half-ruined Jerusalem had little reason for such hopes. From a human point of view, there was no reason for joy among the persecuted early Christians when Saint John wrote his inspired Apocalypse, filled with images from the chapter we read today.

Many people also have a hard life today: some are confined to bed by a painful illness; others have never lived in peacetime and have known the sound of automatic gunfire and bombing since childhood. Those who live in relative comfort, too, frequently fall into despondency and depression. Yet both then and now the Spirit awakens in the prophets this dream — or rather, this knowledge — that God will triumph over evil and will live with us.