Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in
Ordinary Time
(I Maccabees 2:15-29; Luke 19:41-44)
Political cartoonist Bill Maudlin was able to capture the people’s imagination throughout the middle of the last century. His characterization of foot-soldiers Willie and Joe during World War II etched a trail of admiration in the American mind for the G.I. However, a single cartoon drawn almost twenty years after the war ended had even greater impact. After President Kennedy was assassinated, Mauldin drew a cartoon of the Lincoln Memorial. But, instead of a straight back Lincoln stolidly looking forward, Mauldin drew the sixteenth president bent over crying in his hands. It was the way the whole nation felt. Lincoln’s tears are reminiscent of Jesus’ in today’s gospel.
Jesus cries over Jerusalem for not heeding his call to repentance. Jerusalem, David’s capital, is symbolic of the whole world. Most people follow their egotistic designs rather than Jesus’ example of humility and commandment of love. Wars never seem to end because egotism turns violent when a nation does not get what it wants.
We must learn to curb our egos – both individual and national. It is certain that with nuclear weapons the world cannot sustain another total war. If World War II was not the last total war, then World War III definitely will be.
