We
will celebrate Passover, as we do each year, by celebrating the Easter Triduum:
the three Holy Days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday culminating
with the Easter vigil. The Jews
celebrate Passover to remember and by remembering relive their liberation from
slavery in Egypt. Our celebration
is a remembering and a re-living of our liberation from sin and death through
the death and resurrection of the Lord.
Our
Lord goes to Jerusalem, the holy city, because it holds the Temple. Herod had rebuilt and refurbished
Solomon's Temple to be one of the biggest temples in the ancient world. The original Temple was built on a hill
so most of Herod's Temple was a platform upon which the Temple proper and the other
buildings stood and that platform was about 150 ft high. That's only a few feet shorter than the
spire of this church! It covered
an area of about 144,000 sq m. or 157, 480 sq. yards. To give you a sense of its size: it was
an irregular rectangle with one wall equal to most of the length of the South
Mall, from the corner of the Grand Parade to up near Parnell bridge and another
stretched from the National Monument on the Grand Parade to Daunt's
Square. That would cover most of
Cork City centre from the Grand Parade to the Merchant's Quay Shopping Centre
and from the South Mall to the far side of Patrick's Street, all under one
building, a huge beautiful building and the pride of the Jews. It must've dominated Jerusalem. Imagine trying to get planning
permission for it today!
The
Temple was where the sacrifices commanded by the Law were offered. It had various courts separated by
screens or walls. There were
people from all over the Jewish diaspora there to pray. There were tour groups and priests
giving guidance to those who were lost or had a query. It was a noisy, busy place. Upon the wall that divided the Northern
court, the Court of the Gentiles, from the others there was a sign threatening death
to any non-Jew who went beyond that point. It was this Northern court that was supposed to allow the
gentiles to come and pray to Israel's God and it was in that court that those
who sold the animals for the sacrifices and the money-changers had set up. The cattle dealers were there because
there were strict rules on what kind of animal could be sacrificed and it made
it easier for people if they didn't have to bring their own. There they had their corrals for their
cows and sheep. That must've been
messy and very 'organic.' With the
sacrifice and slaughter of animals just inside the Temple sanctuary there was
the smell of blood and burning flesh.
I'm not sure all the incense offered there would cover that. The money-changers were there because there
were many currencies, most of them pagan with pagan images on them, and those
coins were not accepted in the Temple.
All this made it difficult if not impossible for gentiles, the non-Jews,
to come and pray.
Our
Lord arrives and he drives the dealers and the money-changers out but with the
minimum force, a whip of cords, (you see how gentle He is?) and with His Divine
wrath. Can you imagine the noise
and the upset? Animals and men
were sent flying in fright. People
must've been shouting and complaining and our Lord in the midst
unstoppable. He has come to unite
us with God for Whom we were made and here people are prevented from even approaching
Him in the Temple itself. The Temple
was for prayer and communion with God not for business. It was there so that man might approach
God. It was not to be made into a
market.
The
cattle dealers and money-changers no doubt provided extra income for the Temple
and its priests. By His actions our
Lord is disrupting the established order.
The Jewish leaders, the priests and the Levites of the Temple, seek a
sign, something that will establish our Lord's authority for his actions. The Lord makes reference to His
resurrection that it to come but they do not understand. With all their knowledge and devotion
they cannot see beyond the material and the temporal. They have no faith in Him.
Now
the Lord describes the Temple as His Father's House. Yet He also means that the true Temple is His own body. Is not the true house of the Father our
Lord's own body? St Paul tells us that
we are part of the Body of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit. If what our Lord says about the Temple
really applies to us then we must ask ourselves the question: how have we
turned the temples of our bodies, our souls, into markets?
We
turn the temple that is our body, our mind, our soul and by extension our life
into a market by investing time and energy into unnecessary things: TV, computer
games, newspapers, and worrying about those things we cannot change. We do it by gossip and worse, slander
and calumny. We do it by stealing,
lying, and by infidelity. We do it
by laziness, arrogance and failing to live by the laws of God and His Church.
We allow ourselves to be upset with what this or that person says or does
instead of keeping our peace and seeking the one thing necessary: listening to
the Lord and doing His will. More
importantly we import the muck and filth of the world through our sins: greed,
lust, anger, pride, gluttony, folly, vainglory, by unforgiveness, meanness, and
lack of compassion. By our
thoughts and deeds, by evil done and good neglected we make of our lives, our
bodies and our souls, instead of temples to God, dens of corruption.
Through
Baptism and Confirmation Christ has made us His Body, His Temple, holier than
the Jerusalem Temple could ever have been. He wants to be at the centre of our lives. It is so easy to let the noise and the
filth of the world contaminate our lives unless we take the three-strand whip
of prayer, fasting and charity to them and drive them out of the sanctuary of
our hearts. His grace will turn
our small effort to great effect.
We
were made for real communion with God.
We were made for the peace and joy of knowing not that some other human
being loves us but that God our creator loves us and that love no one, no
thing, can ever begin to equal.
All other loves are but dim echoes of His love. This Lent cleaning out your hearts and your
lives and letting God enter the Temple that is His by right.
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