Responsorial Psalm Ps 96:10, 11-12, 13
Gospel Lk 21:5-11
Jesus hears some people admiring the majestic beauty of the Temple. There’s no doubt about it, the Temple was a marvel of architecture and engineering and beauty. Jesus takes the opportunity to warn these admiring people not to put their trust in stones. These buildings will disappear. It’s the Kingdom of God that will endure.
Such was the awed reverence the Jews had for the Temple that they thought it would be there until the end of time. When they hear Jesus speak of its destruction, therefore, they presume that he is speaking of the end of the world, so they ask him, “When will all this happen and what are the signs we are to expect, that will indicate that that day is approaching?”
Jesus doesn’t answer the question. He simply says, “Don’t be misled. There’ll be a lot of false prophets around claiming to be me, claiming to know the day and the hour. Don’t believe them.”
We’ve often seen in the papers pictures of cult religious leaders. They’re convinced that the Bible tells them that this will be the day, this will be the hour. They gather their followers about them on a mountain top, along the shore of the ocean. They have sold all they had and they wait together for the end, the rapture, the being swept up to heaven with Christ. It doesn’t happen.
Jesus never answered the question often put to him. Far better that we spend our time forming ourselves in holiness, forming the world about us in the image of the Kingdom to come.