Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

"Jerusalem, if only today you knew what makes for peace!"
“I rejoiced because they said to me, 'We will go up to the house of the Lord.' And now we have set foot within your gates, O Jerusalem” (Ps 122[121]:1-2). What Jerusalem is this? On earth there is a city of this name but it is a mere shadow of that other Jerusalem. What kind of happiness is there in standing in a Jerusalem here below that is unable to stand of itself but which fell to the ground in ruins?... It is not of the Jerusalem here below that someone speaks who has such great love, such great longing, such great desire to come to the Jerusalem, “our mother”, of which Saint Paul says that it is “eternal in the heavens” (Gal 4:26; 2 Cor 5:1)...

“O Jerusalem, may your peace be in your strength” (Ps 122[121]:7). That is to say, may your peace be in your love, for your love is your strength. Hear the Song of Songs: “Love is strong as death” (8:6)... And indeed, love destroys what we have been so that we might become, through a sort of death, what we were not... This was the sort of death that was working in him who said: “The world is crucified to me and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). It was of this death that the same apostle was speaking when he said: “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). Yes, “love is strong as death”. If love is strong then it is powerful; it has great strength; it is strength itself... So may your peace be in your strength, O Jerusalem. May your peace be in your love.

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"Jerusalem, if only today you knew what makes for peace!"

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