Today's Gospel falls under that type of literature we call 'apocalyptic'. The Gospel is always good news, and apocalyptic here is in no way to be understood negatively. 'Apocalyptic' means 'revealing'. Events of destruction and havoc can also reveal a deeper meaning of what we go through; to the recovery of a deeper meaning.

Jesus' long discourse about the future refers to the times of persecution facing Christians, to the times of the city's destruction, and the times of the Son of Man. It is important here to maintain a steady focus and not to give in to speculation as millenarians do. This discourse surely has an important function in Luke's overall narrative.

We already have an older tradition of such prophecy in Israel with Jeremiah the prophet in his speech against the temple in Jerusalem (Jer. 7). With hindsight, Luke shows how what Jesus said about the temple and the city had already been fulfilled. And this creates confidence in the expectations about the Son of Man. But we have to keep in mind that by the time Luke was published, the events surrounding the fall of the city were almost certainly already in the past. From what Paul writes to the Thessalonians in the second reading, it is clear also that this discourse about the end of time was wrongly interpreted. Paul speaks of idleness, of waiting passively, of the danger of delivering double messages regarding Christian commitment in society. The belief that life here is transitory in no way implies that we are just in a waiting room killing time.

There is a general feeling of destruction in us today, the feeling that things are getting out of hand, the feeling that the civilisation that gave us identity is no more. It is the fragmentation even of the Christian world itself, our sense of being lost. This is the revelation that comes through from the Jesus' catastrophic previsions in the Gospel: "The time will come when not a single stone will be left on another". It brings to mind our feelings and perceptions about secularisation in modern times. There is parallelism between the destruction of the temple as forecast by Jesus and the fragmentation of our collective religious conscience today. But the Scriptures this Sunday are only a wake-up call from historical idleness or even historical slumber. At certain points in time Christian spirituality was synonymous with flight from the world. But nothing could be further from Christianity's basic truth. Being disincarnate is betraying our call. Jesus of Nazareth is our memory. But he is also our future. Responding to God's Word calls us to enter into the heart of the world. The destruction of the temple predicted by Jesus seems to tell us that faith and believing is not finding refuge in sacred spaces.

Jesus did not come to destroy but to save. In the first reading from the prophet Malachi, the end of time has two meanings, one catastrophic, the other of fullness. The former sees the end of time as a day of reckoning, the latter as a time when "the sun of righteousness will shine out with healing in its rays".

Against our background today of cosmic insecurity and political unrest, even with our feelings of disarray where religion is concerned, God's revelation through Christ offers the sure reference points we need. It is true, Jesus in today's Gospel opens with predictions of destruction; but his closing words are words of reassurance: "Not a hair of your head will be lost". And further: "I myself shall give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist or contradict."