In today's Gospel, some people approach Jesus and tell him of how some Galileans had been killed by Roman soldiers in the Temple sanctuary. Did they want Jesus to denounce the Roman authorities? Instead, he mentions another incident, apparently a sheer accident when a building fell on some purely innocent people and killed many. Jesus asks his questioners: "Did these people die because of their sin?" It is quite common to meet people who believe that such events are acts of punishment by God. Perhaps even more frequently one meets people who ask why a loving God does not prevent such things happening. As if God was a kind of puppet master who rules the world by pulling strings. When a jumbo jet gets blown out of the skies because of a terrorist's bomb on board and everyone is killed, is it because those passengers were more deserving of death? Does God love those victims less? Are those who escape such disasters more loved by him? Maybe it is the other way round. Those who died may have been ready to meet their God while those who survive are being given an opportunity to put things right with their lives. Jesus gives a clear warning: "Unless you repent, you will ALL die as they did." 'Repent' (Greek, metanoia,) implies not just regret for the past but a radical conversion and a complete change in our way of life in responding to and opening ourselves to the love of God.