Before the hijackers attacked the World Trade Center, there were similar warnings. On November 30, 1998, Peggy Noonan wrote a columm predicting that kind of strike on Manhattan. Perhaps Jesus was similarly using his human shrewdness to analyze the social/political situation of his world. At any rate he had amazing foresight and he wanted his followers to be prepared.*

Nevertheless, Jesus was hardly a Jim Jones or David Koresh, instilling a fatal panic. Rather he calls us to a certain serenity. The great catastrophe will not come immediately. It will be preceeded by lesser ones: wars, earthquakes, famines and plagues. While for most of us those things happen at some distance, still they are telling us to get ready interiorly. Our present comfortable lifestyle will not last long.

How can one expect the worst and still remain serene? It seems an impossible paradox, but one of the serenest people I ever met is a guy who is always expecting the worst. He knows every silver lining contains a cloud and that it always seems darkest before it goes completely black. Yet he is marvellously peaceful and attentive to each person he deals with.

Jesus meant something like that for us: to not imagine we can burrow into a hole and escape imminent disaster which is the common fate of mankind. At the same time to recognize, if we are with him, we do not need to prepare a defense, that "not a hair on your head will be destroyed."

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