November 17 - Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jesus left the Temple and departed from it

 

 

First Reading Malachi 3:19-20
The day of justice is coming, says the Lord.

 

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 98:5-6,7-8,9
Sing praise to God, who rules with justice.

 

Second Reading 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12
Paul urges the community to follow his example and to earn their keep.

 

Gospel Reading
Luke 21:5-19

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus portrays for us, graphically, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. For Jews, the destruction of these two things was equivalent to the end of the world. Precisely for this reason, the Church uses this gospel passage as one of its readings for the end of the liturgical year. It wants us to reflect on the end of the world. But what’s the significant it has in our lives? What does it mean to us personally? We read the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus, before His prediction of the destruction of the Temple, ‘left the Temple and departed from it’ (24:1). Jesus not only went out of the Temple, He also departed from it and never returned to it. He did not depart on His own accord, they drove Him off; He did not reject them, rather they had rejected Him. When He departed from the Temple, its sanctity, glory and defense departed. The most beautiful and magnificent Temple in the world turned into the most ruinous heap. Three days after He departed the veil of the Temple was rent – making everything in the Temple common and unclean. Woe descends upon anyone from whom the Lord departs. If we drive away His presence from our souls, it will become desolate, as desolate as the Temple of Jerusalem. That will be the end of the world to us. When Jesus departs from my life, that is going to be my experience of the end of the world.