They will smash you to the ground and your children within you

20 NOVEMBER (Lk 19,41-44)

The destruction of Jerusalem was always caused by the idolatry of his children. Even the holy temple has become a ruin several times. Then the people were converted, and the Lord showed himself again rich in mercy and compassion. Idolatry generated destruction. Conversion produced aresult of reconstruction.

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, his God. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up against him and bound him with chains to take him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also carried away to Babylon some of the vessels of the house of the Lord and put them in his palace in Babylon. The rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, the abominable things that he did, and what therefore happened to him, can be found written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king. Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months (and ten days) in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. At the turn of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him and had him brought to Babylon, along with precious vessels from the temple of the Lord. He made his brother Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, his God, and he did not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke the word of the Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart rather than return to the Lord, the God of Israel. Likewise all the princes of Judah, the priests and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. Early and often did the Lord, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy. Then he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men in their own sanctuary building, sparing neither young man nor maiden, neither the aged nor the decrepit; he delivered all of them over into his grip. All the utensils of the house of God, the large and the small, and the treasures of the Lord’s house and of the king and his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. They burnt the house of God, tore down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire, and destroyed all its precious objects. Those who escaped the sword he carried captive to Babylon, where they became his and his sons’ servants until the kingdom of the Persians came to power. All this was to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah: “Until the land has retrieved its lost Sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled” (2Cro 36,5-21).

With Jesus, the Messiah of the Lord, something unheard of and completely new came to pass. The conversion is no longer to the God of Sinai, it is instead to the God of Mount Calvary, to the God of Golgotha. It is getting converted to the Crucified God that one gets convert to the true and onlyGod. The Crucifix that is Risen one is the true temple of God. This is the reason why the old temple of Jerusalem was never rebuilt. That temple is no longer the house of the Lord. Today, He lives in a living house. He rules the world from the body of Jesus, from his new temple which is the Church, which is every disciple of Jesus the Lord.

As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

To the ancient people of the Lord the conversion is only one: the acceptance of Jesus as the true, the one, the only Messiah of God, the one, the onlytrue Mediator between God and humanity, the one, the only true Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, the One who came to give us the grace andtruth. Without faith in Jesus Christ and affiliation to the new people of the Lord there is no conversion. The God of Moses is today the God of JesusChrist. It is the God of the Gospel. It is the God of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints give us the true conversion.