Day 20: Weeping for the Church
Luke 23:26–31
When they led him away, they grabbed one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it after Jesus. A great multitude of the people followed him, including women who also mourned and lamented him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves
and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell the hills, ‘Cover us.’ Hosea 10:8 For if they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?”
Secrets
of Heaven 9325
‘The barren’ is used to mean gentile nations who are being summoned to the Church, and to whom the Church is transferred when the old Church has come to an end, that is, when those who formerly belonged to the Church no longer possess faith because they do not have any charity. This old Church is meant by ‘the one who has many children has become feeble’ and by ‘her that was married’, while the new one among gentile
nations is meant by ‘her that is barren and desolate who will have many more sons’ and by ‘the barren one of the house [who dwells as] a joyful mother of children’.... From all this it is evident what the following words spoken by the Lord serve to mean,
The days will come in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts which have not nursed! Luke 23:29.
This refers to the close of the age, which is the final period of the Church.
Reflection
The Lord’s only concern was for the suffering of his people, not for His own suffering. In what ways is it healthy or unhealthy to suffer for the sake of other people?
