The ancient Greeks had a saying, from the dramatist, Euripides, “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.” The devil, when he is preparing to destroy, at first deceives, being a liar and the father of lies. Then he destroys (Jn.8:44). In today's Epistle, for instance, we hear that the Israelites coveted evil things and fell into idolatry, and many were “destroyed by the destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:6-11). No doubt the devil was envious because God planned that salvation would be from the Jews (Jn.4:22).
The Messiah would be the “bud from the root of Jesse” (Is. 11:10), the “Lion of Judah” (Hos. 5:14). But as the Gospel shows us today, Christ’s own people, the chosen people of God, were deceived by pride and worldly ambition, would reject Him. So, we see Jesus weep over Jerusalem.
In today’s Gospel our Lord prophesies that Jerusalem will come to ruin because of their refusal to repent and turn toward the Lord. Our Lord’s prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple came true when the Roman armies would surround the city in the year and there would not be left “a stone upon a stone.”
The Emperor Nero sent a powerful army and laid siege to the city. Factions formed. They fought in the streets day after day, each struggling for control. The streets were red with blood, Jews fighting Jews. Meanwhile, Nero’s army encircled Jerusalem. The Emperor Nero was murdered at Rome in the year of our Lord 68; his successor Galba soon died, and the soldiers placed their beloved commander Vespasian upon the imperial throne.
He then left Jerusalem with his army, but within the year he sent his son Titus with a new army to Judea, with orders to capture the city at any price, and to punish its inhabitants. The supply of food in the Holy City was soon exhausted. Famine and pestilence came upon the city. The leader of a faction of savage revolutionists, John of Gischala, caused the houses to be searched, and the remaining food to be torn from the starving.
When the Roman army under Titus captured them with his cavalry, anyone who was armed was crucified. Nearly 500 men, and sometimes more, were daily crucified in sight of the city, so that there could not be found enough of crosses and places of execution. But even this terrible sight did not move the Jews to submission. Incited by their leaders to frenzy, they obstinately resisted, and Titus finding it impossible to take the city by storm, concluded to surround it by walls in order to starve the inhabitants.
In three days, his soldiers built a wall of about ten miles in circumference, and thus the Savior's prediction was fulfilled: “Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side.” The famine in Jerusalem caused people to do unimaginable things. From April 14th when the siege commenced, to July 1st there were counted 158,000 dead bodies; 600,000 others were thrown over the walls into the trenches to save the city from infection.
All who could flee, fled; some reached the camp of the Romans in safety; Titus spared the helpless, but all who fell into his hands armed, were crucified. The Roman soldiers had learned that many Jews had swallowed gold to secure it from the greed of robbers, and so the stomachs of many were cut open. Two thousand such corpses were found one morning in the camp of the Romans. The attempts of Titus to prevent this cruelty were unavailing.
At last, the Romans trying to enter the temple of Jerusalem, threw a flaming torch it into one of the rooms attached to the temple. The flames quickly spread into the inner temple, and totally consumed it, so that this prediction of our Lord was also fulfilled.
The first century historian Flavius Josephus also recorded a legend that sprung up about the Temple. While the Temple was on fire and there was tremendous looting, killing and rape many rushed to the Temple to die rather than become Roman slaves. When the flames leaped through the roof and the smoke had risen in thick columns one of the priests supposedly climbed to the top of the main tower. He had in his hand the key to the sanctuary. When he reached the top he cried out, “If you, Lord, no longer judge us to be worthy to administer Your house, take back the key until You deem us worthy again.” As the legend goes, a hand appeared from heaven and took the key from the priest. With this the sacrifices of the Jewish temple came to an end.
As the Jews fled from the walls of Jerusalem, the Romans butchered all the inhabitants whom they met, and Titus having razed the ruins of the temple and city, ploughed it over, to indicate that this city was never to be rebuilt. During this siege one million, one hundred thousand Jews lost their lives; 97,000 Jews were sold as slaves, and the rest of the people dispersed over the whole earth. Thus, God punished this impenitent city, and thus was fulfilled the prediction made by Christ in today’s Gospel. The people of Jerusalem were hard-hearted. They would not repent.
What about us? We call ourselves children of God yet we have pride too. We are stubborn too. We are sinners too. How many times have we been exhorted by to reform our lives? We have heard it in the pulpit, the confessional from the priest. Children have heard it from their parents. We hear it in the Gospel from Christ Himself.
If we have an ounce of wisdom, we will listen to the good advice we are given, repent on our knees in confession, and begin again. God will be merciful to us if we are sincere in our desire for conversion. But if we give no ear to these admonitions. If we continue doing our will and are hard of heart – if we are obstinate right to the very last, then, according to St. Gregory the Great, we are running with our eyes blindfolded to the gates of hell. This is why Christ wept over Jerusalem.
How many times has Jesus wept over each one of us and our sins? How many times! But before the devil destroys us in hell, he first deceives us in the here and now, and in these times he has succeeded in deceiving on a grand scale, knowing that destruction must surely follow. Jesus weeps, and His plaintive cry is: “Jerusalem, thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straighten thee on every side, and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone.” The prophetic vision of Jesus beheld the destruction of the souls whose salvation He had purchased with His precious blood.
Will you grieve His sacred Heart by being among the number? Say to Him, rather: “No, dearest Lord and Saviour, those tears shall not be shed in vain, for sincere repentance shall cause my own to flow; and thus, through the memory of those precious drops of sorrow, and the infinite merits of Christ, may my soul at last reach the home of eternal bliss!” Amen!
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