Thursday of the Thirty-ThirdWeek in Ordinary Time
The devil always destroys
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.” Lk 19,41-44
Jesus cries because he foresees what it will happen in Jerusalem thirty-seven years later, by the 70s a.C, when the roman army, by order of the emperor Titus, destroyed the temple and the entire city, not leaving stone over stone. This will happen – Jesus says – because ”you did not recognize the time of your visitation” by the Lord. Jesus cries, but he cannot do anything to prevent the destruction, not even a prayer to the Father, because the devil has his rights and, since Jerusalem has rejected Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, he wants them all. And when the devil exercises his rights, he destroys, because he knows only to destroy and he enjoys about. The destruction, however, satisfies him only for a moment, after he must destroy again, as it happens to the addicts, for whose the drug effect lasts only a bit and then they have to take the drug again, more and more often. Incidentally, it would be enough to take this common behavior into account to understand that the drug is nowadays the most widespread mean by which the demon destroys. He also uses other means of destruction: the affection to the money, the sex for its own sake, the smoking, the alcohol, the hatred and the revenge. Even the excessive food, which in the right measure is a grace of God, beyond a certain point becomes a drug too and thus a manifestation of the devil. As any destruction has the devil as the prompter and the director, so the peace, the love and the forgiveness have the Lord as inspiring. Jesus is powerless in front of the destruction of those who reject him, but he can do everything to protect and bless those who accept him as Lord. The Providence, the peace, the consolation, the joy, the equilibrium, the compassion, the common sense, the desire to share a sense of proportion in acting and speaking, are all events arising from the Lord’s blessing. We have never seen any man of God to deteriorate up to exceed, to overdo or to lose the equilibrium, while we know many persons who from time to time have the wind blowing in the head, they lose self-control and they abandon themselves to illogical and sometimes dangerous attitudes for themselves and for the others. Also the wind in the head can be a manifestation of the devil, who always acts on the weaknesses of the people. The Lord cannot do nothing for those who reject him, as he could not do anything to prevent the destruction of Jerusalem.