256th Meditation
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, prosperity for your homes!” (Ps 121:6).
Just by hearing the word “Jerusalem”, beloved Father, many people’s hearts begin to beat fast and light up. We want to love all that you love, and therefore we want to know more deeply your love for Jerusalem.
The Old Testament is full of Your declarations and expressions of love for the Holy City, which You Yourself chose. Your love is unquenchable! Jerusalem is the incomparable city (cf. Lam 2:13), which witnessed your work of salvation for humanity.
Although your City often did not correspond to your love and you had to admonish her to convert, because she often acted as an unfaithful bride; although your own Son was nailed to the Cross in her, you never gave up your love for Jerusalem.
To this day people make pilgrimages to the Holy City. Most come to visit the holy places which You chose and sanctified forever through Your Son.
Therefore, beloved Father, we wish peace to the City you love so much. Only your peace will adorn it with the fullness of the beauty you have prepared for it. Only your peace can bring among its inhabitants the reconciliation that endures. Only your peace can heal hearts, only your peace can save from straying, only your peace can unite what must be united.
But how can this peace come to Jerusalem?
In your Son you have already given it! He Himself is the peace you promised through Him to the disciples (Jn 14:27). He is that peace which the world cannot give. He is the peace that is capable of transforming everything.
So, if we want to implore peace over Jerusalem, as the psalmist invites us to do, this means to pray for her to acknowledge the One Who, weeping over her, exclaimed: “If you too had only recognised on this day the way to peace! But in fact it is hidden from your eyes!” (Lk 19:42).
Where, then, does true peace come from? Only from welcoming your Son and recognising the Redemption which He, sent by you, brought into the world.
These are your plans of salvation, which have not changed and which must be fulfilled. Only by acknowledging your Son can one truly know your love and receive true peace and true security.