Open Bible:
November 2002 

la bilbe 

 
They came out of great tribulation
 

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They came out of great tribulation
(Rev 7, 13-14)

Humans have always wondered in what kind of world they are living.

pires atrocités Having to deal endlessly with the worst atrocities as well as the most generous and giving actions, how is it possible to understand who we are and to give a meaning to our personal life and to the human history?  

These fundamental interrogations are enforced by the modern means of communication like the Internet that allows us to be almost instantly and efficiently in contact with the whole world.

The Book of Revelation describes the vision that John, the servant of God, had about the end of time. "What are these which are arrayed in white robes? And whence came they?… They …came out of great tribulation" (Rev 7, 13-14).

Does John the Apostle mean only that the bad or hard times we experience in our lives, these hazards are unavoidable in order that we can become more mature? Through the effort of each generation fighting for more justice and solidarity, is there not a great purpose that animates and orients human history?

From an incomplete universe would the purpose be to build a world at the measure of God?   Au départ d'un univers

A world in which the divine ways of doing would be reigning: the beatitudes of which Jesus lived and came to teach when he was among us. Would the progressive installation of the Kingdom of God be the goal and the meaning of the great tribulation in which we are engaged?

What an extraordinary vision that gives a true dimension to our daily hazards and engagements!The Book of Revelation suggests and proposes this vision. We are a people of nomads on our way to the Promise Land under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  un peuple nomade

In reality this great goal that is given to the responsibility of human beings is at the same time linked to a constant and enlivening presence of God. Is there a complete contradiction or a full harmony between the constant presence of God and the total and full human liberty?

mystère de l'amour It is the mystery of love that brings the persons close together but allows them to develop in each one a sense of engaged autonomy and of being responsible. 

Beyond the person of Jesus of Nazareth that the Christian tradition has progressively understood as being entirely from God and fully human, is not the condition of all of us that is strangely becoming enlightened?

Could it be that what we are searching for and what is happening in our personal lives would be included in this immense plan that John the Apostle is describing in the Book of Revelation? That is the great adventure in which we would be involved and that would explain our thirst for the infinite that is emerging in the small details of our daily lives.