Greetings, Church fans! The gist of the homily is below. If you want to see the whole Mass, go the St. Pat’s Facebook Page here. If you just want to see the homily, go to our YouTube page here. Blessings!
The cleansing of the Temple is a very good example of Jesus the Prophet. Like Isaiah and his two smoking firebrands (Is 7:4) or Ezekiel digging a hole through the city wall, (Ez 8:8) Jesus is doing exactly the kind of dramatic act that prophets had always done. Since Twitter and Instagram were not around yet, it was how they got the peoples’ attention.
Pastors do the same thing sometimes. At present, I am cleansings the office cupboards. I’m not sure why we need 46 (Count em! Yes, 46!) different boxes and Ziploc bags of tea, 8 jars of coffee, and 23 coffee mugs, not to mention several pounds of condiments and spices. I also found a large variety appliances of dubious purpose. Clutter creeps up on us and we sometimes don’t realize it until we are staring at a mountain of extraneous encrustations.
Jesus saw this happening in the Temple of Jerusalem and took action. So too for us, Lent is a good time to identify the clutter in our lives, how it blocks our path to Christ, and then to get rid of it in no less dramatic fashion. One way of doing so, is to think in terms of “Three Temples.”
The first temple mentioned in today’s gospel passage is the Temple of Jerusalem. For the people of Jesus day, this was the dwelling place of God and proof of his abiding presence with his people. It was where true worship was offered to God, and a sign of God’s protection over his chosen people. It was also big business. Endless streams of pilgrims would come, especially in the holy seasons. Obviously, they would need to obtain the necessary animals for sacrifice. This used to happen in the surrounding neighborhood, but as we see, it found its way onto the Temple grounds and even in parts of the Temple itself. Since one could not use Roman coins within the Temple precincts to make the purchase, one needed to change Roman coins for Temple script. Of course, the money changers would charge a nice little commission for their service. This also was big business. This is what really ticked Jesus off. By driving them all out, he makes the point in no uncertain terms that they have profaned the Temple and all it stands for. Jesus is very much the prophet calling the people to true worship in the manner of the expected Messiah.
But then we learn of another Temple, the temple of his own body. This makes a lot of sense once we understand that all previous sacrifices ever offered under the Law of Moses, whether they were to establish covenants, to forgive sins, to remember or to give thanks, were fulfilled and perfected in the one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In a very real sense, once he offered himself on the Cross, all previous sacrifices became superfluous. Our eucharistic sacrifice here today is a propitiary sacrifice by which we participate in the one, perfect sacrifice of Christ.
Finally, there is a third temple we need to be aware of. Namely, every one of us who is part of the Mystical Body of Christ. As St. Paul reminds us, “Do you not know that your body is a temple* of the holy Spirit within you…) 1 Cor 6:19) We would do well to play the prophet with ourselves this Lent. What are those worldly things that crept into our lives that get between us and our relationship with God and others? Lent is a great time to take stock, to make changes and to cleanse the temples of our lives.