Homily for Saturday, 25th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Saturday
of the 25th Week of Ordinary Time

September 28, 2019

Year I

Zech 2: 5-9, 14-15                                                  

Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

I am going “to measure Jerusalem, to see how great is its width and how great its length” (Zech 2: 6).

Like the priest Ezra and the prophet Haggai, from whom we read this week, the prophet Zechariah belongs to the period in Jewish history when the exiles were starting to return to Judah and Jerusalem, devastated 70 years earlier by the Babylonians.

Nehemiah Views the Ruins of Jerusalem (Gustave Dore')

In the 1st verses of ch. 2, the prophet promises that the enemies surrounding the Jews will be crushed and kept at bay.  In today’s verses, he foresees a peaceful and secure Jerusalem, large enuf to require special measurement of its dimensions, safe enuf that it doesn’t need protective walls but, instead, will be like “open country” (2:9).  God himself will circle the city with his own protection (2:8).

In the previous history of Israel, God had dwelt among them in the Temple.  Thru Zechariah he promises to return:  “See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the Lord” (2:14), and the Lord’s presence will be an attraction that will draw many nations to join the Jewish people.  God’s presence will be widely known and desired (2:15).

In spite of what Zechariah and some of the other prophets preached, Jerusalem, even with its rebuilt Temple, did not become a focal point for the nations, nor did Israel open its heart to receive the nations.

It remained for God truly dwelling with the human race, God enfleshed in Jesus Christ, to welcome the Gentiles and thru that son of Judea to join to the Lord all the nations of the earth.  Thanks to the gift of salvation offered by Jesus, the new, heavenly Jerusalem is indeed “open country,” open to men and women of every race and nation of the earth, and no wall suffices to contain them all.

How good God has been to bless us with his Son, who dwells among us—not in a static building like the single Temple on Mt. Zion but wherever his followers assemble and in the Holy Eucharist everywhere on earth, as well as in his sacred Word addressed to us every time we open the Scriptures.  How good God has been to call us to be his apostles, especially to the young—to make people aware of God’s love for us all, of his presence among us, of his desire to be an encircling wall to defend us against any enemies, especially the enemy of our souls.