DAILY- HOMILY

November 23, 2017 – THURSDAY, 33RD Week in Ordinary Time

St. Clement I, Pope and Martyr 

St. Columban, Abbot 

Bl. Miguel Agustin Pro, Priest and Martyr

Green

1 Mc 2: 15- 29 / Lk 19: 41- 44

     St. Clement I, Pope and Martyr (d. 99), the third Pope after St. Peter, wrote a famous Epistle to the Corinthians.

     St. Columban (543- 615), an Irish monk and missionary in France, founded various monasteries in Europe and denounced court immorality and lax bishops.

     Bl. Miguel Agustin Pro (1891 - 1927), a Mexican Jesuit priest, was martyred during fierce persecution against the Church.

FROM THE FIRST READING:          1 Me 2: 19- 22

     Mattathias answered in a loud voice: "Even if all the nations included in the kingdom should abandon the religion of their fathers and submit to the order of King Antiochus, I, my sons and my family will remain faithful to the Covenant of our fathers. May God preserve us from abandoning the Law and its precepts. We will not obey the orders of the king nor turn aside from our religion either to the right or to the left."

GOSPEL READING:           Lk 19: 41 - 44

     When Jesus had come in sight of the city, he wept over it and said, "If only today you knew the ways of peace! But now your eyes are held from seeing. Yet days will come upon you when your enemies will surround you with barricades and shut you in and press on you from every side. And they will dash you to the ground and your children with you, and leave not a stone within you, for you did not recognize the time and visitation of your God."

REFLECTION

     In the first reading we see the fidelity of Mattathias and his family to Yahweh their God and to their people's covenant with Yahweh, despite the order of King Antiochus that they abandon their religion or suffer death.

     In the Gospel reading Jesus weeps over Jerusalem: he wept not only because Jerusalem rejected his teaching and salvation but also because the city itself would be destroyed and annihilated, "they will dash you to the ground and your children with you, and leave not a stone within you, for you did not recognize the time and visitation of your God."

     Jesus loved Jerusalem: it was the city of David, it was the seat of the temple of Solomon, it was the seat of the Holy of Holies. It was the city of Yahweh, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

     Yet Jerusalem did not recognize and welcome the Messiah when he same. Instead Jerusalem crucified the Messiah on Calvary, just outside its walls.

     We pray that we may "recognize the time and visitation of our God" in our lives. We pray that our eyes may see and recognize him, that our ears may hear and listen to him and that our hearts may embrace and love him.

Finally, we pray for one another, for those who have asked our prayers and for those who need our prayers the most. 

Have a good day!

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