Ninth Sunday after Pentecost—22 July A.D. 2018

In this morning's epistle (I Corinthians: X. 6-13.) Saint Paul is reminding the Corinthians of some of the unfortunate events associated with the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt. Although they had been held in bondage, they had been living in civilization, and had some of the amenities that go along with city life. The Exodus was an arduous trek, the food wasn't too good—Manna was something that they picked off the ground out of the morning dew. If they kept it overnight it was likely to spoil or acquire maggots. Wild quail were the alternative. They encountered hostile tribes, were tempted by the women of some of the tribes, and tempted to worship the false gods of the tribes. Everyone is familiar with them making a golden calf to worship while Moses was away on Mount Sinai. God referred to them as a “stiff-necked people,” an “adulterous generation.” Sometimes they drew God's bitter wrath—Paul mentions twenty three thousand that died in one day—apparently a different episode from the poisonous snakes that plagued them.

While we are talking about Old Testament events, it will help to understand the Gospel if we understand the significance of the City of Jerusalem. After the Exodus, Jerusalem was the only place permitted by God for His sacrificial worship. (One of the Jewish criticisms of the Samaritans was that they had set up a rival temple in their territory, in defiance of God's command. In the book of Genesis we read that Abraham had prepared to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac—and the place where he went to do this was called “Moriah,” the very same Mount Moriah where the Temple would be built nearly a thousand years later. Moriah was adjacent to Golgotha, “the place of the skull,” where legend had it that the priest-king Melchisedech had deposited the skull of the first man, Adam. Above all, before the time of Christ, the Temple in Jerusalem was the only location where the real presence of God dwelt—the Shekinah, in the Holy of Holies.

Indeed, God's presence might have continued to abide in the Temple if the Jews of Jesus' time had recognized “the things that were for their peace, but we're hidden from their eyes.”[1] What a different history they would have lived if they had accepted the heavenly kingship of Jesus Christ. Instead they crucified Him, “and behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent.”[2] The real presence of God left dramatically. And about thirty seven years later the Romans came and finished the job, leaving very little of the Temple or the city. “Flat to the ground ... With not a stone upon a stone,” was not a great exaggeration! The Roman's built a temple to Jupiter, and in 691 the Moslems built The Dome of the Rock to commemorate Mohamad's alleged ascension into Heaven.

The Church has us consider the prophesied destruction of Jerusalem as a warning to everyone who has heard the Gospel, yet refuses to make the appropriate response to it. Those who fail to love God, fail to love our neighbors, and otherwise fail to keep God's commandments are in very much the same situation as those who rejected Him in 33 AD. This is the time of our visitation! This is the time to respond to the grace's given us—the intellectual graces we have received from the Gospel, as well as from hearing sound sermons and reading good Catholic literature—but, even more importantly, the sanctifying graces that come to us in prayer and in the Sacraments.

The Roman sack of Jerusalem was incredibly violent. Beyond the destruction of the buildings, no food was allowed into the city and the wells were poisoned. There may have been some cannibalism. What little food they had was confiscated. Any and all resistance was met with the sword. And when the Roman's suspected anyone of swallowing their valuables to hoard them, that person's stomach was opened with a sword and their entrails pulled out on the ground to be searched!

I certainly hope that none of us ever has to face such violence! But even though such violence is as possible in our world as it was two thousand years ago, we ought to consider how human violence pales by comparison with the loss of God and the pains of Hell. Hell and its pains are real—we have this on no lesser authority than that of Jesus Christ, Himself, repeated many times in the Gospels:

It is better to enter lame into life everlasting, than having two feet, to be cast into the hell of unquenchable fire: Where their worm dies not, and the fire is not extinguished.[3]

Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.[4]

Do not be fooled by modernist talk about Hell being only for the devil and his apostate angels; or that the fires will one day go out; or that the souls of the bad will just cease to exist. God is merciful, but the “flip side” of Mercy is justice. There would be no justice if God rewarded bad people equally with the good people. Our Lord tells about the judgement:

And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting.[5]

So, today is our day of visitation. Resolve now to follow Jesus Christ—to know His words and to keep His commandments—resolve not to suffer the awful punishments of those who reject Him.

NOTES;

[1] GOSPEL: Luke xix: 41-47 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drl&bk=49&ch=19&l=41-#x

[2] Matthew xxvii:51 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drl&bk=47&ch=27&l=51-#x

[3] Mark ix: 44-45 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drl&bk=48&ch=9&l=44-#x

[4] Matthew xxv: 41 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drl&bk=47&ch=25&l=41-#x

[5] Matthew xxv: 46 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drl&bk=47&ch=25&l=46-#x