For behold the sovereign the Lord of hosts will take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the valiant and the strong, the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water; the strong man, and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, and the cunning man, and the ancient, the captain over fifty, and the honourable in countenance, and the counsellor, and the architect, and the skilful in eloquent speech. And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate will rule over them. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their devices are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his majesty. The show of their countenance has answered them, and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it. Woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them! Say to the just man that it is well, for he will eat the fruit of his doings. Woe to the wicked to evil, for the reward of his hands will be given him.Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Jerusalem is tending to her destruction. Therefore she is losing all power and, with the rest, the power of understanding. She no longer knows where she is going, and she sees not the abyss into which she is plunging. Such are all those men who never give a thought to the Coming of the Sovereign Judge. They are men of whom Moses said in his Canticle: “They are a nation without counsel and without wisdom: that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end!” The Son of God comes now in the swaddling-clothes of a weak babe, in the humility of a servant and, to speak with the Prophets as the dew which falls softly drop by drop. But it will not always be so. This Earth also, which now is the scene of our sins and our hard-heartedness, will perish before the face of the angry Judge. And if we have made it the one object of our love, to what will we then cling? “A sudden death which has happened in your presence,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “or an earthquake, or the bare threat of some dire calamity, terrify and prostrate you: what then will it be when the whole earth will sink beneath your feet; when you will see all nature in disorder; when you will hear the sound of the last trumpet; when the Sovereign Master of the universe will appear before you in the fullness of His Majesty? Perchance, you have seen criminals dragged to punishment: did they not seem to die twenty times before they reached the place of execution, and before the executioner could lay his hands on them, fear had crushed out life?” Oh the terror of that Last Day! How is it that men can expose themselves to such misery when, to avoid it, they have but to open their hearts to Him who is now coming to them in gentlest love, asking them to give Him a place in their souls, and promising to shelter them from the wrath to come if they will but receive Him! O Jesus, who can withstand your anger at the Last Day? Now you are our Brother, our Friend, a Little Child who is to be born for us: we will therefore make covenant with you so that, loving you now in your first Coming, we may not fear you in the second. When you come in that second one, bid your Angels approach us, and say to us those thrilling words: “It is well!”
