22 November 2022 - Tuesday of the 34th week in Ordinary Time - St Cecilia - Luke 21:5-11

     We are journeying in our last few days of Ordinary Time as we approach the beginning of the holy season of Advent and the first Sunday of the Church’s new liturgical year. In today's Gospel, we hear about the Temple in Jerusalem, which during the time of Jesus was one of the most magnificent buildings in the ancient world. The people of Jesus’ day admired the beauty, power, and majesty of the Temple, believing that it would last forever. But, then, Jesus foretells the destruction of theTemple. We can imagine the shock and skepticism in which they received Jesus’ message. Just think how just a few years before the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11 in 2001, we would have felt disbelief and skepticism if someone had foretold of the destruction of that great center of the financial power in our own country.       

       In Jesus’ day and in our day as well, there are conspiracy theorists and others who think they can predict events such as the end of the world. Yet, 40 years after Jesus made this prediction, the Jews of Ancient Israel saw the destruction of the Temple and the entire city of Jerusalem. They must have thought it was the end of the world. They could not have imagined their world without the Temple, the center of their Jewish faith, the place where they encountered God. How could Yahweh allow such a thing to happen? Yet, Jesus warns us that we should not misread the signs of the times, that we should not become too alarmed. The Christians of the first century were certain that the end times would come in their lifetime. Now, 2,000 years later, we still wait. The 20th century witnessed many wars and natural disasters. We know that those things will continue. Yet, with Christ as our Savior, we continue our journey, we believe and we endure.  In faith, we make it to the next day. 

      I would be remiss if I did not mention the saint of the day, St Cecilia.  Not too many details are known about her, even though she was one of the most famous Roman martyrs venerated in the Early Church. According to Church Tradition, St Cecilia was born into an influential Roman family. She converted her fiancé to the Christian faith, but Cecilia, her fiancé, and his brother were all martyred. Tradition passes down that there was a church named after St Cecilia in Rome in the early days of Christianity. St Cecilia is known as the patron saint of musicians, although we do not know the true origins of this tradition.  We unite our prayers with the intercessions of St Cecilia today.  We pray for our Church musicians.