No monument goes unpunished

In today’s Gospel, our Lord once again seems a little harsh.

To our minds, building monuments to great people is a good thing – we do it all the time. Why then should “this generation… be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world”?

What a heavy rap.

What’s wrong with building monuments to the prophets? The problem is that monuments of stone and wood are insufficient memorials by themselves.

The most important memorials are those that are built in the hearts, words, and deeds of the people. If those living memorials are absent, then monuments of wood and stone are simply mockeries.

If we build or visit monuments of heroes, without trying to embody their virtues ourselves, we make a mockery of all the good those heroes struggled and died for.

If we make or say nice things about prophets and saints of God, without trying to embody their prophecies and their grace-filled lives, we make a mockery of the God who empowered these prophets and saints.

Each of us need to be living and working memorials, imitating the prophets and the saints as they imitate Christ.