NOTES for Eze 37:1-2

Ezekiel lived in an age of catastrophes. So do we. Human beings generally live in times of catastrophes that they inflict on one another. In a vision, the prophet sees a field of dry bones. Only a field—in those days, destruction was not carried out on the scale it is today.

The Lord asks the prophet the same question that confronts us today: “Can these bones live?” What will become of you? What will become of these people? How will you go on living? “Lord God, You alone know.”

The prophet sees that even dry bones can become human beings again when God's creative word intervenes in history. The Fathers of the Church saw in this prophecy a prefiguration of the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. At the end of history, despite all its horror and darkness, God can restore everything that we have disfigured, ruined, and destroyed. If we believe this, then, in fulfilling our Christian prophetic calling, we must address this world filled with human bones: “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!”...