“They interpret the signs of the times… but they do not understand the signs of the present time.”

Today’s Gospel speaks to us of the signs of the times and of the folly of not knowing how to interpret them. This puzzled Jesus, who was in turn the great interpreter of God’s signs in nature and in life. Several of his parables arise from Jesus’ contemplative gaze at nature and history, and from his ability to discover there the action of God who does everything with love. Today in the society of science, technology and progress, those simple but eloquent signs of nature go unnoticed. We have other signs that speak perhaps more strongly and challenge us: they are not signs of life like those, but signs of death, of dehumanization, of generalized violence, of destroyed nature. What attention do we pay to these signs? What do they tell us, what do they call us to? Isn’t that the field to which we most urgently need to apply our ability to discern?