Translation of the Holy Gospel According to Luke
At that time, when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept over it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, and thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee; and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation. And entering into the temple, He began to cast out them that sold therein, and them, that bought, saying to them: It is written, “My house is the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And He was teaching daily in the temple.
A Message From St. Pope Gregory the Great’s Homilies on the Gospels: 39
But since we know that Jerusalem is now destroyed and changed by its destruction into a better city, since we have learned that the robbers have been driven out of the Temple and that the Temple itself has been shot down, we must shoot some comparison of these external events, and to inspire us with the overthrow of those edifices made of walls to fear the ruin of our manners.
Seeing the city, he wept for her, and said, ‘Ah! if you had recognized, you too. He shed his tears once, when he announced that the city was going to be destroyed; but our Redeemer also continues to spread every day through his chosen, when he sees some people abandon their holy life to adopt morals of reprobate. So he weeps over people who do not know why they should be crying because, according to Solomon’s own words, they rejoice to do evil and indulge in the worst deeds (Prov 2:14 ). If they knew the damnation that threatens them, they would mingle their tears with those of the elect to cry over themselves.
The following sentence is well suited to a soul that is lost: At least in your day, what could bring you peace; but this has been hidden from your eyes. The perverted soul has its day here on earth when it finds joy in this passing time. What she has at her disposal may bring her a certain peace: she puts all her joy into temporal things, she takes pride in her honors, she softens herself in the pleasures of the flesh, and she does not fear the punishments to come; although having in all this a certain peace in her day, it is the overwhelming horror of her damnation which she will have to undergo in the day of adversity. For she will be afflicted on this day when the just will rejoice. And all that now contributes to her peace will be changed for her into a subject of bitter reproach, because she will begin to reproach herself for not having dreaded the damnation which afflicts her, and for having closed the eyes of her soul to these future misfortunes, not to see them. Hence the word which the Lord addresses to her: But this has been hidden from your eyes. The sinful soul, all addicted to present things and softened by earthly voluptuousness, conceals the misfortunes to come, since it refuses to think in advance of a future that ruins his present joy. But is it not throwing into the fire with closed eyes that to surrender oneself to the charms of the present life? Hence the just word of Scripture: In the day of happiness, do not forget misfortune (Sir 11:25). In the same sense, Paul declares, Let those who rejoice be as if they do not rejoice (1 Cor 7:30). For we must live the joys we can meet in the present life without ever forgetting the bitterness of the judgment to come, so that pierced by the fear of final punishment, the soul soothes all the better the anger that will follow let her temper her present joy. Is it not written, Blessed is the man who is continually in fear! But he who has a hardened spirit will fall into misery (Prov 28:14). Indeed, the weight of [God’s] anger will be all the more heavy to bear in the coming judgment that we fear less now in the midst of his sins.
Wit Stwosz, ca. 1500
The text goes on: There shall come on you days when your enemies shall trench you. Are there any greater enemies of the human soul than the evil spirits who come to besiege it as it goes out of her body, after having excited her by deceptive delights when she lived in the love of the flesh? They surround her with trenches, putting the faults she has committed under the eyes of her soul, and endeavoring to drag her into their common damnation, so that she is surprised at her last moments, while seeing by what enemies she is surrounded on all sides, yet she can not find a way to escape, because she can no longer do the good she refused to do when she could.
It is still about these spirits that we can understand the rest of the text: They will shut you up and hug you everywhere. The evil spirits tighten the soul on all sides when they come to remind him of the faults that she has committed not only in deeds, but also in word and even in thought: the soul who here has taken at ease in sin in many ways is thus, in his last moments, squeezed by all the sides during the punishment.
The text continues: They will overthrow you on the ground, you and your children who are in your walls. The soul is defeated on the ground by the thought of its faults when its flesh, which it believed to be all its life, is threatened to return soon to dust. His children fall into death when the evil designs to which the soul now gives birth vanish in the chastisement upon which his life comes to an end, as it is written, In that day all their purposes will perish. (Psa 146:4). These hardened designs can also be signified by stones. Indeed, the text goes on to say, And they will not leave stone in stone for you. When a perverse soul adds another to a perverse thought, which is even more so, what does it do, if not to put a stone on a stone? But once the city is destroyed, it does not leave stone on stone, because when the soul is led to its punishment, all the construction of his thoughts is dispersed.
The cause of this punishment is given later: Because you did not recognize the time you were visited. Almighty God is accustomed to visit every sinful soul in many ways. He visits her relentlessly by her commandments, sometimes by a trial, sometimes even by a miracle, so that she hears the truths she did not know, and – if still she remains full of pride and contempt – that she returns to God in the pain of compunction, or else, overcome by the benefits, that she blushes for the evil she has committed.
But because this soul has not recognized the time when it was visited, it is delivered at the end of its life to enemies whom it will be obliged, by a judgment of eternal damnation, to share forever society. Scripture says it elsewhere: “When you present yourself with your adversary before the magistrate, try, on the way, to free yourself from him, lest he drag you before the judge, and the judge delivers you to the exactor, and let the ruler put you in prison (Luke 12:58). Our adversary on the way is the word of God, which opposes our carnal desires in the present life. To free oneself from it is to submit humbly to one’s commandments. In case of refusal, the adversary will deliver to the judge, and the judge to the exactor, that is to say that the sinner will be convinced of his fault in the court of the Judge by his contempt for the word of the Lord. The Judge gives it to the Executioner, because it allows the evil spirit to lead that soul to chastisement, so that this spirit forces it to follow to the torment the one who has voluntarily agreed with him to sin. The Executioner throws the sinner into prison, since the evil spirit sends him violently to hell, waiting for the day of judgment, from which they will be tortured together in the flames of hell.
After describing the ruin of the city, where we recognized the loss of the soul, the text immediately adds: Then, entering the Temple, he began to drive out the sellers and the buyers…
The Temple and the house of God also represent the soul and conscience of the faithful. The evil thoughts that the soul sometimes conceives against the neighbor, when they pierce the innocents of their sword, are a little like robbers in their cave, who kill those who pass without suspicion. For the soul of the faithful is no longer a house of prayer, but a cave of brigands, when, having turned away from innocence and holy simplicity, it endeavors to find a means of injuring the neighbor.
But since, through the Holy Scripture, we are constantly instructed against all these wickedness by the words of our Redeemer, it is because, according to our gospel, until now, what has happened is still happening: And every day he taught in the Temple. For when the Truth learns in detail from the soul of the faithful how to turn from evil, it teaches daily in the Temple.
Let us be aware, however, that the words of the Truth can only really teach us if we constantly consider with fear the ultimate misfortunes that threaten us, as a wise man declares: In all your works, remember your end, and you will never sin. (Sir 7:36) Yes, we must think every day of what we have heard through the very voice of our Redeemer: At least in your day, what could bring you peace; but that has been hidden from your eyes. For while the harsh Judge is patient without letting his hand fall again to strike, during the short time that we still remain a semblance of security before the final settlement, we must think of misfortunes that are about to follow, to groan while thinking about it, to avoid them by moaning; and we must constantly consider the sins we have committed, weep, consider them, and erase them weeping. Let us not be softened by any of these joys due to a temporary prosperity, nor to block the eyes of the soul by the things that pass, nor lead by them blind to the fire [of hell]. For if one thinks of it seriously, one can discover by the mouth of the Truth what weight has the reproach addressed to the carefree negligent of the future: At least in your day, what could bring you peace; but that has been hidden from your eyes.
It is necessary to consider what terror will accompany the hour of our death, what a trembling of mind, what a memory of all our bad actions! It will be well forgotten, then, happiness passed! But what fear, what apprehension before the Judge! What pleasure can we put in the present goods, when all must pass in one and the same instant, without the punishment that threatens us, when what we love is destined to disappear completely, to make room for suffering? who will never go away? The evil spirits seek in the dying soul what they have accomplished there; they remind him of the faults they have inspired him in order to draw him into their torment.
But why are we speaking here only of sinful souls, while the evil spirits also go to meet the dying elect to find, if they can, something that would belong to them? Now there has never been more than one man who can say boldly before his Passion: I will not talk much with you, for here comes the prince of this world, and he has nothing in me. (John 14:30). Indeed, the prince of this world, seeing that Christ was a mortal man, imagined that he could find in him something that belonged to him. But it was without sin that he came out of this world of corruption, the one who had come without sin in the world.
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So we must take care to meditate every day in tears with what fury and under what terrifying aspect the prince of this world will come, the day of our death, to claim what in us belongs to him, since he dared to address even to our God when he died in his flesh, to seek in him something [which belonged to him], without being able to find anything.
What can we say or do – unhappy men we are! – we who have committed innumerable mistakes? What shall we declare to the enemy when he seeks and finds in us many things belonging to him, if not the only truth which is for us an assured refuge and a solid hope, namely, that we become one with in whom the prince of this world sought something which belonged to him without being able to find anything, since he alone is free among the dead (Psa 88:6)? And we are henceforth delivered from the servitude of sin by a true freedom, since we are united with him who is truly free. It is certain – we can not deny it, and we even admit it in all loyalty – that the prince of this world has in us many things which belong to him; he can not, however, take possession of us at our death, since we have become the members of him in whom he has nothing.
But what good is it to be united to our Redeemer by faith, if we are disunited by our morals? Is it not Himself who affirms, Not all who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 7:21). Let us therefore join the righteousness of works to the righteousness of faith. Let’s erase every day with our groans our past bad deeds. Let us triumph in us the righteousness of the works inspired by the love of God and of our neighbor on our disturbances of yesterday. Let us not deny our brothers any of the services we can render them. For there is no other way for us to become members of our Redeemer than to adhere to God and to sympathize with the sufferings of our neighbor.