From His words in today's gospel, Jesus can easily be labelled as a prophet of doom. but He is not. The first Christians whom Luke is addressing had already experienced the fall of Jerusalem. So the words of Jesus are only a warning against deception. Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament, addressed the people's false sense of security leading to neglect of God. John the Baptist is the connection between Malachi and Jesus. All three of them give us a warning that 'the day is coming'. When Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple, He is referring to the heart of the Jewish religion and also to the religious upheaval we all go through personally. He is telling us that it's no use staring at the Temple and envying the good old days. Jesus came to substitute the old religion. When focusing on the return of Christ, the Scriptures today warn us about alienation, and urge us on our priorities. We seem to be at a point in time when the so called coomon good of society seems to be at stake; when the survival of Christianity itself seems to be put to question. And this may generate in us the feeling of being lost. Religious life essentially originates within the 'Self'. Otherwise it's something cultural. God is still here; He still whispers and makes signs to us !
