Sermon, 9th Sunday after Pentecost, August 14, 2011

9th Sunday after Pentecost – August 14, 2011

(Luke 19: 41-47)

Our Lord’s love of Jerusalem is shown by the tears He shed over it. But He told His Disciples of the coming destruction of Jerusalem during what we now call Holy Week,. This happened in 70 AD, and Josephus, a Jew, an historian and a Roman citizen survived the onslaught and recorded what happened to Jerusalem, and his history is in exact accord with what was foretold by Christ. The city was completely uprooted by the Romans and not a stone was left on top of another stone. It was as if the city never existed. The new City of Jerusalem was built over the place where Christ was crucified.

The destruction of Jerusalem was Divine Justice. With few exceptions the people of Jerusalem abandoned the Law of Moses and had given themselves over to the things of this life with no care for their final  judgment. As many times as the books of Moses were read to them in the synagogue they drew a veil over their eyes to block out God’s rules and His mercy. We learn this from Jesus in today’s Gospel, “If thou also hadst known . . . the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thine eyes.” (Luke 19: 42) Their punishment was the complete destruction of Jerusalem “because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.” Because they loved the things of this life, they could not recognize the Christ and therefore rejected Him. Read Deuteronomy 28 starting at v. 49 where Moses promised the horrors of 70 A.D. to the Hebrews if they did not obey God. Even the tears of the Son of God could not hold back the justice of God.

The high priest prior to the destruction was Ananus, brother-in-law to Caiphas. The Zealots and gangsters who flocked into Jeruusalem revolted and murdered most of the illustrious people in the city. They took control of the temple and changed the order of sacrifice and installed an ignorant peasant as high priest. Pressed by the troops of Ananus, the Zealots called in Idumean herdsmen to help. They came into the city at night and found the watchmen asleep and killed them. Josephus reports that Earth itself moaned at their approach. In the morning 8,500 bodies were found. It included Anannus the high priest. In the days following the Idumeans murdered 12,000 Jewish men.

Meanwhile, John of Gischala, an ally of the Zealots, broke away and allied himself with the Galileans, giving them permission to rob and murder at will. Jerusalem looked to one Simon, son of Gioras who had 60,000 cutthroat troops in his army. They cheered Simon as a savior when he arrived, and then he began murdering his hosts. John of Gischala and Simon then fought, and in their hatred they burned the massive stores of grain that would have fed both sides for some time. These two were greater enemies to their own people than were the Romans. This was the end of 69 A.D.

With the approach of Passover in 70 A.D. only armed men, old women and children were left in Jerusalem. This last Pasch was a noisy brawl. The Galileans took advantage of the party atmosphere. They disguised themselves and made their way into the Temple where they attacked and murdered as many as they could. Famine now set in on Jerusalem. One woman was found to have murdered her son and ate his remains. People were tortured to reveal where they might have hidden food. Bodies were left to rot in the streets.

Simon and John of Gischala held out for two months against Roman incursions. The Romans built a trench around the city, fulfilling the prophecy of Jesus. Many escaped the city but many of these were disemboweled by Syrians and Arabs who followed the Roman army because they heard that Jews swallowed their gold. In the space of a few months over 600,000 died in Jerusalem. In the Roman’s final assault the Temple was set on fire. The dead bodies were so numerous that the soldiers could not walk on the ground, but walked across the bodies. The city fell on September 1, 70 A.D., after the death of approximately 1,000,000 men.

There is a lesson learned by the destruction of Jerusalem which should never be forgotten: “that no blessing, no past holiness, is of itself a guarantee that the place thus favoured will not afterwards draw down on itself desecration and destruction” because of its sins. (The Liturgical Year, Abbot Guéranger, St. Bonaventure Publications, Montana, 2000.) The Israelites had only figures and a foreshadowing of the fullness of God’s grace and revelation. We have been given everything. Can we imagine what will happen to the Catholic Church because of the sins of its modernist heretics?

In their faithless diplomacy the High Priest and the Council tried to exploit Christ. They said, “If we let him alone [doing all these miracles] all men will believe in Him and the Romans will come and take away our city and nation. . . From that day therefore they devised to put him to death.” (John 11: 47-53) But God’s divine justice cannot be thwarted by men, and so they were destroyed.

In the face of what happened to Jerusalem and of what might happen to us, let us repeat the prayer from the Introit of today’s Mass: “O God, in thy name save me: and, in thy strength, deliver me.” +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass