Fr. Michael Williams

The Temple in Jerusalem was a hugely impressive structure, that made a deep impression on all who saw it. This Cathedral also makes a deep impression on many. many people. Impressive structures like the Temple in Jerusalem or this Cathedral are designed to help raise one’s mind and heart to God, and to think of eternity.

Yet Jesus makes a terrifying prophecy about the Temple, that ‘the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another: everything will be destroyed’. The destruction of the Temple came in 70AD, which was thirty or forty years after Jesus made the prophecy. The Temple was destroyed by the Romans in retaliation for a Jewish uprising, and so this wonderful monument of Jewish worship became a heap of ruins.

Our Lord’s words shocked His listeners, but Jesus was keen to stress the fleeting nature of this world and its monuments. As we worship in this Cathedral today, we could presume that it will be here forever: it won’t. One day ‘not a single stone will be left on another’. And so the message of Our Lord is clear: ‘all things on this earth have their sell by date’ (O’Flynn).

After Jesus speaks of the fleeting nature, of the seemingly indestructible monuments of this world, the alarm bells start ringing for His listeners, and so they ask Him, ‘Master when will all this happen’. Jesus develops His point by saying that they, the true temples of God, will also face attack. He tells them, ‘men will seize you and persecute you…some of you will be put to death. You will be betrayed…You will be hated…on account of my name’.

This prophecy has also come true, because throughout the ages, countless men and women have chosen death, rather than renounce their faith in the Lord. In Rome, last month, four hundred and ninety-eight men and women, who were killed in Spain during the 1930’s, for their faithfulness to the Lord, were declared blessed. These martyrs were men and women of different ages, vocations and social classes who paid with their lives for their fidelity to Christ and his Church.

Over the last twenty centuries, since Christ founded His Church, countless men and women have borne witness to Christ and His law of love, by dying for Him. We can expect there will be many more in the future.

After speaking of the fleeting nature of this world and its persecutions, Our Lord is keen to tell His followers, ‘Your endurance will win you your lives’. Enduring without compromising will inevitably lead one to suffer for following Christ, but more importantly it will open the way to eternal life.

One of the Spanish martyrs who was beatified last month, Bartolomé Márquez, understood this well, when he wrote to his girlfriend from his prison cell, just before he was executed. This is what he wrote: ‘in killing me, they grant me true life and in condemning me for always upholding the highest ideals of religion and family, they swing open before me the doors of heaven [because] in the end, worldly goods and delights are of no avail if we do not manage to save our souls’.

Most of us are not called to die for the faith, but all of us are called to be faithful to Christ and His teachings. On the day of the beatification of the four hundred and ninety eight Spanish martyrs of the 1930’s, Pope Benedict said, ‘Baptism commits Christians to participating courageously in the spreading of the Kingdom of God, if need be cooperating with the sacrifice of life itself…Of course, not everyone is called to martyrdom by bloodshed. In fact, there is a non-bloody \“martyrdom\” which is equally significant…this is the silent and heroic witness of so many Christians who live the Gospel without compromise, doing their duty and dedicating themselves generously to the service of the poor’.

Let’s pray for the grace to endure in our faithfulness to Christ, and so win our lives for eternity, which lasts a lot longer than any earthly monument or earthly suffering.