Not a hair of your head will be lost. Homily for 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.

For almost a thousand years the Temple had been the centre of Jewish life. It was the central symbol and institution of Judaism. The disciples must have been utterly bewildered when Jesus foretold its destruction. And, indeed, what Jesus foretold came to pass some forty years later, in 70 AD. Keep in mind that by the time that Luke wrote his Gospel the Temple had already been destroyed. The evangelist is therefore telling his readers that just as the prophecy of Jesus about the destruction of the Temple had come to pass, so also will his words of assurance to the disciples: not a hair of your head will be lost.