Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The conversation in today’s gospel occurs during the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. He and his followers had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Each day between that first Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday, Jesus went with this Twelve Apostles to the Temple, to teach and preach, trying to convince the leaders and the people that he was the Messiah. At the end of the day, Jesus and his disciples would walk back to the town of Bethany, just east of Jerusalem, where they were staying. On this occasion, they stopped and sat down to rest on the Mount of Olives, looking down upon mighty Jerusalem, with its magnificent marble Temple and stone palaces glittering in the afternoon sun.

Jesus then told his disciples about the future. He describes the coming destruction of this ancient city, and of the Temple – a destruction which in 70 AD, just forty years later, occurred just as he described. But the destruction of Jerusalem, the symbolic end of the Old Covenant, was also a foreshadowing of the end of history itself, when this fallen world will be destroyed and replaced by a fully redeemed world. That is Judgment Day, the second coming of Christ.

Between Christ’s conversation with his disciples and the destruction of Jerusalem, the Twelve Apostles experienced persecution, hardship and martyrdom, just as Jesus predicted. Between the time of the Apostles and Judgment Day, his Church will experience the same thing. And so, what Jesus tells them is meant for us too: tough times are part of his plan, because they will “lead us to give our testimony.” In other words, our Christian response to the hardships of life in this fallen world will serve as advertisements for Christ and bring others to salvation.

Love,

Fr. Jason