The first reading today introduces a section that has been called the Book of Consolation in Jeremiah. The passage opens with a command from God to write down that future generations will know the promise that God will make to the people of both Israel and Judah. The Lord makes the unbelievable promise that there would be restoration, that buildings would be rebuilt, that their people would return to the state of happiness they remembered from the days of the past, and that they would be ruled by a leader of their own people. Finally, God promises once again, that they would be His people and He would be their God.

Reading these words in the context of our own time when the world finds itself at war on many fronts, with the economic world order in confusion, an environmental catastrophe in the making, and a seeming lack of any leadership able to deal with our problems, we can see ourselves in a similar situation to that of the people in our reading who are suffering the consequences of our own sins and failures to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable world. Yet the Lord makes the same promise to us as He made to the people of Israel and Judah, that if we return to live by the values of the Gospel and cooperate with Him in the building of the Kingdom of God, our world can yet be restored to wholeness and disaster averted.