Student Daily Reflection

“They will smash you to the ground and your children within you… because you did not recognize the time of your visitation” Luke 19:44

Our Lord closes the gospel today with this stern and dire prediction for the city of Jerusalem. He realizes as he approaches the city that she will soon definitively summate her decision of accepting His Messianic mission by nailing Him to a cross. He mourns the choice, both because he cannot decide it for her and because this choice will forever decide the earthly Jerusalem’s fate.

I’ve never considered myself to have an affinity toward the fire-and-brimstone inspired conversion of life, but I cannot help thinking of this, to a certain extent, upon seeing our Lord’s words. His idea of visitation, rings especially true to my ears. We know that our Lord is constantly drawing us to Him to be made perfect in His sight, yet we also can see from our lives how often we, for our part, miss the mark.

Upon looking at the events of my life, I have noticed how often I have not recognized the time of Christ’s visitation to me, i.e. now, and every other point in my life. At every moment He seeks me as if it were the first time, the last time, the only time. I regret every way in which I have spurned His desire to visit me and to allow Him and the Father to come and make their dwelling in me (John 14:23).

Despite my sorrow, I take consolation in what the Heavenly court cries aloud with one voice in today’s first reading: that Christ has “purchased…those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation.” Rejuvenated in the recollection of my redemption at Christ’s expense, I am reminded ever more the total reliance that I must have on Him. He is my only hope for Life, for only He is Life. Only by welcoming His visitation to my soul and to my life will I experience Life. I pray that I may have the faith, hope, and love necessary to be a worthy guest for my Visitor, our Visitor, Jesus Christ.