The first reading for the last week of the Church’s year is from the Book of Daniel. This is not considered a prophetic book in the Hebrew Bible but one of the “writings.” The book is not a report of the actions of a historical prophet like Isaiah and Jeremiah but a novelistic reflection on the post-exilic Jewish experience. It addresses this question: how do the people of God preserve their identity after the loss of land, temple and nation? One yardstick was food — keeping kosher would serve as a clear identifier for the Chosen People. Catholics who gave up our identifier of the Friday abstaining from meat have to do the extra work of love to make clear who we are as people of God.
