This is undoubtedly one of the most moving passages in the Gospel. Pilgrims to Jerusalem visit the Church known as Dominus flevit (The Lord wept) and can look out over the city of Jerusalem just as Jesus did. Like Jesus, we should weep for Jerusalem. As he wept, Jesus expressed the reason for his sorrow. As we mourn with Jesus for Jerusalem, let us pray that one day in the not too distant future, this holy city will once again indeed be the city of peace for all humanity, the "path to peace" in our very broken world.

In the Gospels, the tragedy of the Jews was that they knew the sacred places, but they failed to recognise the sacred time, the time of God's visitation, as Jesus expresses it. So, Jesus warned them several times: "you will look for me when I am gone." When a Samaritan woman asked Jesus about the proper place in which to worship God, Jesus spoke about a sacred time: "a time is coming and is already here when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth" (Jn. 4:23).