temple

Our lives will be much better when we realize we are temples of the Holy Spirit.

When I was still teaching, I would ask my students if Jesus ever sinned. Inevitably, someone referenced the account from today’s Gospel. In these verses, we read how Jesus, “made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area” (Jn 2:15). Jesus is not sinning here, rather, he is acting in line with prophetic tradition. Jesus is making a bold spectacle to drive home the point that the temple is not a “marketplace” or a “den of thieves” but it is to be a place of worship and right praise to his Father.

We can see prophetic echoes from Zechariah 14:21 where he prophesied that there would be a time when there would no longer be “merchants in the house of the LORD of hosts” and Jeremiah 7:11 where Jeremiah asked, “Has this house which bears my name become in your eyes a den of thieves? I have seen it for myself!” Jesus not only places himself in the line of prophets and professes their words from God, he acts like them in make such bold statements. There is a difference though.

Greater still than the temple, is the people of God. Further down in the text, when those present ask for a sign to justify this act, Jesus said: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). John makes the point clear that Jesus was pointing to his body as the temple of God and referring to his Resurrection to come. Jesus is the new temple and he is establishing a new covenant.

The temple, the house of God, believed to be the corporal presence, the very seat of God among his people, Israel, was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. This left a tremendous spiritual, political, and social vacuum. Two groups that were intimately tied to the sacrificial cult of the temple, the Sadducees and the Essenes, very soon after the destruction, ceased to exist as a sect within Judaism. The Pharisees, who already were moving to a practice of home worship that mirrored the worship in the temple, would survive and be the ancestral root of different expressions of Judaism today. Another sect would also arise as the followers of the new way of Jesus which became the Church, “God’s building” and “the temple of God”.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, his rising after the third day, Jesus becomes the first born of the new creation. Those who are baptized do not just gather in a church, they are the Church, the temple of God.

Each one of us has a unique part to play in the Church. We are called to bear witness and practice, in our own unique way, our faith in our everyday experiences. We may be the only church someone ever enters and the only Bible someone ever reads. This call to put our faith into action is not an invitation to be overwhelmed by nor an excuse to assume a posture of elitism. We are no better than anyone else.

Pope Leo recently said to students participating in the Jubilee of the World of Education: “How wonderful it would be if one day your generation were remembered as the ‘generation plus,’ remembered for the extra drive you brought to the Church and the world.” May we all hear these words, seek and follow Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and allow his truth and his love to shape and transform our lives. When we are willing to encounter and walk together, we learn and grow from one another. We are also less apt to keep other at a distance and become more willing to draw close.

We need to resist all that contributes in any way to the dehumanization, division, hate, and violence by rooting ourselves in Jesus, the living Temple. In doing so, we will become aware that we ourselves are temples of the Holy Spirit. In spending consistent time in silence, prayer, meditation, study, worship, and service, we not only purify our temple, we better know God and his will, become conformed to and empowered by the love of Christ to be instruments of peace, contemplatives in action, and advocates for healing and reconciliation in a wounded and weary church, politics, country, and world.

Photo: God speaks to us in many ways when we give ourselves time to be still, breathe, and look up.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, November 9, 2025

As Jesus purified the Temple, may he purify each of us.

Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out all those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves” (Lk 19:45-46).

Luke’s account of Jesus casting out the money changers is the most succinct of all four Gospels. Luke uses the Greek term for “drive or cast out” – ekballō, eight other times. Each time he used it, Luke was making reference to exorcising demons and unclean spirits. The profanation of the body through possession of evil is equivalent to the desecration of the Temple precincts.

Jesus justified his actions of driving the sellers out of the Temple precincts by saying: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). Jesus showed the dignity of our humanity, when he, as the Son of God, he entered our humanity. He entered into the chaos of our lives, our faults, and foibles, and our sins while remaining sinless himself. He showed that even though we have turned away from God, we were not destroyed and lost beyond hope. He reminds us that what God has created is good and that includes us. Even when we turn away, he continually and infinitely reaches out to us in love and calls us home.

One of the wonderful features of the upcoming holidays is that many families seek to come together and to return home. For some coming home has been longer than for others, for some there may be many miles of separation, and for others, coming home is no longer possible because they have changed their address from this life to the next. There are also those suffering today that are estranged from their families, those who are homeless, displaced, refugees and immigrants, or living in fear of deportation.

No matter who or where we are, Jesus is close. He became one with us to restore our communion with God and one another. He provides the living water that quenches the thirst of our deepest longings. Jesus, our Temple, our new covenant, the dwelling place of God, is alive and present to each one of us in every condition, situation, time, and the place we find ourselves. Through his resurrection, ascension, and our participation in his life, we can become precious stones, each a piece of his Temple.

Jesus meets us where we are and loves us as we are, yet he wants more for us. Jesus, please cast out, as you did in the temple precincts, all from our being that would defile, distract, or divide us, and purge anything that would keep us bound in sin. Send the Holy Spirit to reign in our hearts that we may embody and bear his love with all we meet so to be reconciled with God and one another. May we be inspired to work toward the unity of our human family so that all may have a place at the table.

Painting: By El Greco, 1600 – Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, November 22, 2024

“When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.”

Pilgrims numbering two to four million would ascend to Jerusalem to participate in the annual observance of Passover. During this time the Jewish officials were on edge because their primary concern was to keep order and peace for fear that the Roman military occupation also in presence would step in if need be. If the centurions asserted their enforcement, it would be swift and brutal. Even the slightest infraction of civil unrest would be dealt with harshly.

Jesus whirling a whip made out of chords, driving out the merchants, turning over tables, sending coins flying would have been quite the scene! The disruption certainly would not have gone unnoticed and some biblical scholars believe this was the main incident leading to his crucifixion. In this act of cleansing the Temple, Jesus gave a visual display to his sometimes figurative teachings. Jesus came to shake things up, to wake people up from their spiritual slumber, to bring people back to right worship and praise.

Let us enter the scene of today’s gospel. We are those among the vast crowd in the temple precincts, shoulder to shoulder amidst the hustle and bustle of the day. A cacophony of words echoes about, haggling of prices for animals being purchased for sacrifice mingle with arguments over unjust money exchanges. Then we experience a lull in the crowd, we look over our shoulders and see people stepping aside, parting, and opening. Then Jesus, rope chords in hand, his face hard, and eyes set on the tables ahead of him, strides by us. We can feel the electricity of a gathering thunderstorm, and then he lets loose like a lightning bolt. The first table goes over, coins launch into the air and jingle as they scatter across the stone amidst a chorus of the money changer’s cries of outrage.

The scene shifts. A knock is heard at the door of our own home as we are in the midst of what we do on any given Sunday. We walk to the entrance and spy the same Jesus we just experienced in the temple precincts standing outside. We feel the drop in pressure of a gathering storm, we witness the same hard expression on his face, and in his hand are the same chords. If we do let Jesus in, where does his stride take him, what does he overturn and toss aside? We are invited to allow Jesus full reign and access to every nook and cranny of our home, as well as our heart, mind, and soul.

In both cases, these are not acts of Jesus having a temper tantrum or bad day. They are acts of love and purification. “For when the perfect comes, the partial passes away” (I Corinthians 13:10). Jesus, the perfect, knows what does not and what does belong in the temple as well as our homes and in our hearts. He knows what is preventing us from receiving the fullness of his and his Father’s love. Are we willing to know, to purge, and allow that which is partial to pass away, so that we may enter into a deeper life of authentic prayer, worship, intimacy of relationship with God, and service to each other?

———————————-

Painting: Rosary walk last Fall, St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, March 3, 2024