Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 399

They will in those days no longer say,
"The ark of the covenant of the LORD!"
They will no longer think of it, or remember it, or miss it, or make another.

Jeremiah's prophecy must have aroused great fear among the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Every religious structure in Jerusalem, from the temple to the trappings and vestments to the rituals and priestly assignments was built around the Ark of the Covenant. Without it their religion would disappear; or so they must have believed.
The Ark was comparable in Judah to the Blessed Sacrament in Catholicism. We cannot and would not want to imagine faith without it.
History changed all that. Jerusalem was conquered; the temple, razed; and the ark disappeared. 2 Maccabees says that Jeremiah personally oversaw its removal to hidden cave somewhere in the mountains, saying,

“The place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy.

But 2 Maccabees was written centuries later and the story is as mythical as Spielberg's movie about it. The conquering Babylonian army probably destroyed the old wooden box and its clay tablets with careless contempt as they collected the temple's gold and silver vessels. Jeremiah's prediction in 2 Maccabees concerns God's promise of gathering his people and showing them mercy, not the whereabouts of an old relic.
Jeremiah also saw the end of a major formative era for Judaism. Jews dispersed to Africa, Asia and Europe; there would be no nation of Israel until 1948; but by then the religion had evolved. It is no longer a state religion, upholding a king and his government. This was, in part, Jeremiah's doing as he encouraged the refugees to settle wherever they landed. He wrote:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their fruits. Take wives and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters. Increase there; do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you; pray for it to the LORD, for upon its welfare your own depends. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners who are among you; do not listen to those among you who dream dreams, for they prophesy lies to you in my name; I did not send them.

The Jews should be blessings to their new homelands as immigrants are to the United States. Catholics in the United States are also sent as a blessing to this country, to support its government by their familial, religious and civic duties; even to supporting its military defense, if not its aggression.
We should never forget our "homeland" -- which is not here. We are sojourners passing through, on our way to that mysterious kingdom which God has promised to his people. We will need no weapons in that home for the Lord will be our defense; nor will we need to store up provisions for tomorrow. There will be no more sorrow, nor grief. For the Lord will be our comfort.
Amid overwhelming tragedy, Jeremiah taught his people to expect a glorious future. We have seen that future even more clearly in the resurrection of Jesus and the communion of the saints.