The rumble of cataracts

Sunday April 11, 2021

The rumble of cataracts

An abyss calls another abyss at the voice of your cataracts ; all your waves and waves have passed over me. Psalm 42:7 FRDBY

Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother : This child is destined to bring the downfall and upliftment of many in Israel and to become a sign that will cause contradiction. You yourself will pierce your soul with a sword. Thus, the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. Luke 2:34,35 S21

A few kilometers upstream from Niagara Falls, the water of the river flows quietly between the banks. During the summer months, you can sit on the edge of these shores, listen to the song of the birds and the lapping of the waves which come to die on the stones of the edge. It is a scene full of calm and gentleness and which would be very similar to what one can see on the banks of all rivers, if one did not hear the dull roar of 'a waterfall. We think then that these peaceful waters will become torrential, that all this calm will turn into a cataract. We are struck both by the contrast between two so different aspects of the same river in motion, and by the continuity that exists between the two.

Thus, from the first pages of the Gospel, a rumor of death is present. We already perceive it in the story of the nativity, in the prophecy of the old Simeon ; his voice becomes louder at the time of Jesus' baptism ; the Jordan rolling towards the Dead Sea is indeed the image of this life, sacrificed in advance. In the majestic saying of John the Baptist : Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), we hear the anticipated sound of cataracts.

As you advance, the landscape becomes more austere, the sky darker and the march towards death becomes more pronounced. If a few lines are devoted to the nativity and the thirty years that follow, on the other hand, the evangelists spend a great deal on the last week. And the few hours which go from Thursday evening to Friday afternoon take the capital place in each of the Gospels... We feel that, for the evangelists, all that they transmitted of the acts and words of Jesus was as the preface to his death. As the river rolls down to the abyss, so the sacred stories roll down to the cross where all the waves and floods of the righteousness of God have passed over the soul of our Lord. It was necessary for Christ to suffer these things in order to lead us to peaceful waters.

According to Ruben Saillens

Source (Pleasing the Lord)