Dominica IX post Pentecosten: “Quod a flente Dómino”

Titus Destroying Jerusalem by Wilhelm von Kaulbach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From the Holy Gospel according to Luke

Luke 19:41-17
At that time: When Jesus was come near to Jerusalem, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. And so on.

Homily by Pope St. Gregory the Great.
39 on the Gospels.
No man that hath read the history of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Princes Vespasian and Titus, can be ignorant that it was of that destruction that the Lord spoke when He wept over the ruin of the city. It is these Princes that are pointed at where it is said "For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee." The truth of what followeth: "They shall not leave in thee one stone upon another" is even now fulfilled in the change of site of the city, which hath been re-built round about that place without the gates, where the Lord was crucified, while the ancient city hath been, as I am told, rooted up from the very foundations.

What the sin of Jerusalem was which brought upon her the punishment of this destruction, we find written after: "Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." The Maker of men, through the mystery of His Incarnation, was pleased to visit her, but she remembered not to fear and to love Him. Hence also the Prophet Jeremiah, rebuking the hardness of man's heart, calleth the birds of the air to testify against it, saying "The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time and the turtle, and the swallow, and the crane, observe the time of their coming but my people know not the judgment of the Lord." viii. 7.

Let us pray.
May Your merciful ears be open, O Lord, to the prayers of those who humbly entreat You; grant that they may ask for what pleases You so that You may fulfill their desires.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
R. Amen.