And that house was completely destroyed

10 SEPTEMBER (Lk 6,43-49)
Nothing was more solid than the temple of Jerusalem. It had been built on the rock. It could have had an eternal life. But it is not the material rock which makes it stable, but the loyalty of the people of the children of Israel to the Word of the Covenant. The people did not remain faithful to the Lord and it is as if the temple were built on muddy waters. The north wind blows and it collapses. It is destroyed. Its downfall is great. The wonder of the land becomes the subject of ridicule and insult to Israel.

After Solomon finished building the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and everything else that he had planned, the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him in Gibeon. The Lord said to him: “I have heard the prayer of petition which you offered in my presence. I have consecrated this temple which you have built; I confer my name upon it forever, and my eyes and my heart shall be there always. As for you, if you live in my presence as your father David lived, sincerely and uprightly, doing just as I have commanded you, keeping my statutes and decrees, I will establish your throne of sovereignty over Israel forever, as I promised your father David when I said, ‘You shall always have someone from your line on the throne of Israel.’ But if you and your descendants ever withdraw from me, fail to keep the commandments and statutes which I set before you, and proceed to venerate and worship strange gods, I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them and repudiate the temple I have consecrated to my honour. Israel shall become a proverb and a byword among all nations, and this temple shall become a heap of ruins. Every passerby shall catch his breath in amazement, and ask, ‘Why has the Lord done this to the land and to this temple?’ Men will answer: ‘They forsook the Lord, their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt; they adopted strange gods which they worshiped and served. That is why the Lord has brought down upon them all this evil'” (1Kings 9,1-9).

Jesus prophesies that the temple of Jerusalem will not remain stone upon stone, because it is founded on the sand of infidelity, idolatry and rejection of conversion.

Jesus left the temple area and was going away, when his disciples approached him to point out the temple buildings. He said to them in reply, “You see all these things, do you not? Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down” (Mt 24,1-2).

Our life is very similar to the temple of Jerusalem. Besides, we are the temple of God, of the Holy Spirit, the body of Christ Jesus, that is the new temple of the Lord. If we are firmly grounded in Him, in His Word, in a very pure obedience to his Gospel, our house will remain stable forever. It is a house that will never collapse. On the contrary, if we base our lives on the thought of men, or even worse on the word of the prince of this world, we will be like the temple of Jerusalem. No stone upon stone will remain of us. We will be destroyed, annihilated and reduced to dust. We will end up in the eternal fire of hell. We will be thrown away to burn in the same way that in the Jehenna all the rubbish of Jerusalem were brought.

“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them. That one is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.”

How do we know if we are built on rock or sand? It is sufficient to observe our works. If we always do good, we are founded in the Word of Jesus. If we act evil, we are built on sand. There will be no future for us.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us live only by the Gospel.