Sunday 17 November 2019: Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Your endurance will win you your life

...Jesus certainly brings the message that the hopes of Israel are to be realised; but it will be a realisation that shows such things as the Temple as only a pale foreshadowing of God’s final blessings – ‘the hour is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem’ (Jn 4:21). The dismayed reaction of the disciples reminds us how attached old Israel was to their venerable institutions; and the history of the early Church shows how difficult it was for them to accept that the new order of things brought by the Saviour was the fulfilment of their hopes. In what Jesus has to say after the prediction of the destruction of the Temple, he anticipates the turmoil that will follow, as people struggle to understand the designs of God. About to experience a violent rejection by his own people, he prepares his disciples for the persecutions they will experience as they bring his message to the world...

Extract by John Thornhill sm - read more at The Emmaus Series