"As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it." Every time this passage appears in the daily Gospel, I’m immediately reminded of the view of the city of Jerusalem from the shrine that the Franciscans built on that point on the mountain where, according to tradition, Jesus stopped to weep over the city. There’s so much beauty from that view!
Certainly, Jesus must have truly felt an inner conflict between all that beauty and all the closed-mindedness and indifference of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Indeed, there’s a great deal of beauty in our lives, but sometimes we don't notice it; we waste it. We waste the good that God has hidden for us to discover, we neglect the people he has given us, we ignore his benefits, and we ignore the passing of time.
But the question is, how long can we go on without realizing that certain ways of living and choosing can become irreversible?
"If this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes."
Today the Gospel asks us to open our eyes to all the good and beauty in our lives and not to waste it. And if someone thinks instead that their life has no beauty or good in it, then let them ask the Lord for eyes to see what they are currently incapable of perceiving. Only believing that there is good puts us in a position to recognize it.
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Father Luigi Maria Epicoco is a priest of the Aquila Diocese and teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University and at the ISSR ‘Fides et ratio,’ Aquila. He dedicates himself to preaching, especially for the formation of laity and religious, giving conferences, retreats and days of recollection. He has authored numerous books and articles. Since 2021, he has served as the Ecclesiastical Assistant in the Vatican Dicastery for Communication and columnist for the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
