In this Gospel passage, Jesus announces destruction and persecution. Faced with such trials, He emphasises the importance of perseverance.
Francis and Clare of Assisi, following different paths, lived their lives with the final horizon of their lives always before their eyes.
Through divine revelation and undisputed intuition, they understood that the glitter of this world would be the first detractors of souls.
They knew that, in the end, nothing would remain of all that they saw.
And every day, at the first light of dawn, this thought guided them in setting their daily agenda.
The Sources, a bottomless well of the Gospel stories lived by these Giants of the Gospel, tell us, beginning with the Canticle of Brother Sun:
«Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin. Blessed are those who will find themselves in your most holy will, for the second death will not harm them» (FF 263).
Nevertheless, Clare reminds her sisters of the ultimate goal of life:
«Blessed, however, are those who are allowed to walk this path and persevere in it until the end» (FF 2850).
Again, in one of her letters to Agnes of Bohemia, she reminds them:
«How often kings and queens of this world deceive themselves in this regard! Even if they raise their pride to the heavens and almost touch the clouds with their heads, in the end they will be dissolved into nothingness, like rubbish» (FF 2894).
As Jesus announces in the Gospel: «These things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another that will not be thrown down» (Lk 21:6).
They always threw their hearts beyond the obstacle, trusting in God.
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, year C (Lk 21:5-19)
