THE JOY OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

SUNDAY, FOURTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Isa 66: 10-14; Ps 66:1-7,16,20; Gal 6:14-18; Lk 10:1-9

The Joy of the Spiritual Jerusalem

Our Gospel today tells of Our Lord sending his seventy-two disciples to preach ahead of him to announce the advent of the Gospel he was bringing with him to these places. The Good News is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the Good News. He sent his seventy-two disciples out as the bridegroom's attendants to invite the people to the marriage banquet. We use the very name he used for them when answering the question that the disciples of John the Baptist asked him concerning his disciples not fasting with them and the Pharisees. Our Lord’s answer and his reference to his disciples as bridegroom’s attendants underscore our theme of eternal gladness of the redeemed for the week. By calling his disciples the bridegroom’s attendants, he expressly reveals himself as the heavenly bridegroom. As such, he is the king of the heavenly Jerusalem and her bridegroom. He is her source of life and joy. Thus, the eternal gladness of the heavenly Jerusalem flows from her king and bridegroom. Since the new Jerusalem is alone and yet to give birth to her children, we see the reference to the Church of God, which still exists alone in her Head. The Blessed Virgin Mary also stands as the type and instance of the spiritual Jerusalem and the mother of the king and bridegroom at the same time. Hence, the Fathers of the Church refer to her as the mother and the first disciple of Jesus Christ, her Son.

As the mother of the Word Incarnate, she is the Queen-Mother, and as the first redeemed by his precious blood, she is the first disciple and the mother of the Church. So, the eternal gladness which is in him is also found in her, for he took flesh in her as the Son of Man. God mystically formed the heavenly bridegroom and his bride in the Blessed Virgin Mary. But of the bride, the Church, which is formed in her and through the grace of the heavenly bridegroom, the prophet says the following words: “Rejoice, Jerusalem, be glad for her, all you who love her! Rejoice, rejoice for her, all you who mourned her! That you may be suckled, filled, from her consoling breast, that you may savour with delight her glorious breasts.” Following the symbol of full and glorious breasts, the prophet employs to portray the heavenly Jerusalem, we arrive at the love and nurture of a mother as the defining qualities of the spiritual Jerusalem. Leaving the physical symbols and ascending to the spiritual denotation, the spirit we receive through faith in the Eternal Word lives and receives its nourishment from the heavenly teachings that flow from the Church. The heavenly teachings continued from Christ to this day because of the mystical union between the body and the Head. God himself causes the river of love and nourishment to flow through Jerusalem. “For thus says the Lord: Now towards her I send flowing peace, like a river, and like a stream in spate the glory of the nations.”

The heavenly Father constitutes the heavenly Jerusalem to be a mother with full and glorious breasts to love and nourish all peoples and nations as her nurslings. Hence, the disciples of Jesus Christ were sent out as attendants before their new birth at the reception of the Holy Spirit, for they had recognised the bridegroom of the heavenly Jerusalem. Therefore, Christ sent them to testify to that effect. “The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him, in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself was to visit. He said to them, ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest.” They have seen the glory of the new Jerusalem, they are already attending to her attractive peace and gladness, they are to testify to what they have seen and heard as attendants. They cannot fast now as attendants because the bridegroom is with them, but a new meaning and mode of fasting would be given to them when God makes them brides. Then, they would consecrate, not only their fasts, but their whole being to attain union with the bridegroom.

Saint Paul reveals to us what it would be like when we attain the status of brides of the heavenly bridegroom. “The only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. It does not matter if a person is circumcised or not; what matters is for him to become an altogether new creature.” God transforms us into children of the heavenly Jerusalem by removing too much attention to externalities of religion and replacing it with spiritual yearning for the Lord Jesus Christ. As heavenly creatures, we cry in union with the Holy Spirit, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’ We recognise the bride by this desire and cry, which defines her relationship with the groom. The Church's fast and all her religious practices are characterised by this desire. The full and glorious breasts of the new Jerusalem nurtures, flourishes, and serves this same desire for union with the Eternal Word, our spiritual milk. To desire any other thing earthly is to have missed the mark. “I want no more trouble from anybody after this; the marks on my body are those of Jesus.” These are marks of betrothal to the Lord. Let us cry out with joy to God, and praise his mighty deeds in and among us.   

Let us pray: O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.