Some prophets may leave little information about themselves. The Prophet Joel is a post-exilic prophet we know little about, yet he offers an important insight into the mystery of God in our readings from him this week at Mass.

The Day of the Lord will come, Joel says, when Judea is a desolate, impoverished land, without rain and infested by locusts. In those dire times the Day of the Lord will come. God will hear the cries of his people complaining about their enemies’ taunts: “Where is your God?”

He even predicts the place the Day of the Lord will come, bringing God’s justice and peace: the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Kidron Valley, lying between the Mount of Olives and the temple of Jerusalem. There God will destroy his enemies and pour blessings on Jerusalem and his holy people, and for this reason Jews through the centuries wished to be buried there. (Joel 4, 12-21)

Jesus crossed the Kidron Valley on his way to the Mount of Olives the night before he died. On that dark night, he pleaded with his Father in heaven to take away the cup of suffering. He faced the great enemy Death, that cries out: “Where is your God?” He died and rose again in Jerusalem, on the Day of the Lord.

Surely Jesus remembered the words of Joel as he prayed on the Mount of Olives, facing the Kidron Valley and the Holy City.

The Apostle Peter quoted Joel when he spoke in Jerusalem at Pentecost forty days after Jesus’ death and resurrection: “It will come to pass in the last days, God says, that I will pour out a portion of my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams…I will work wonders in the heavens above and signs of the earth below…” (Acts 2, 17-19)

The Spirit is “poured out” on the living and the dead on the Day of the Lord.