Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
(I Maccabees
4:36-37.52-59; Luke 19:45-48)
In all
estimation the Jerusalem Temple, when it stood, was the center of Israel’s
life. It was twice constructed. Solomon built a lovely structure in the tenth
century B.C. This building was destroyed
by the Babylonians toward the beginning of the sixth century. When the Israelis returned from captivity in
Babylon fifty years later, they rebuilt the Temple. This second structure was expanded by King
Herod before Christ was born. It stood less
than a century more. The Romans, putting down a Jewish rebellion, almost
obliterated it. What is left, the west
or “wailing wall,” remains a place of pilgrimage for Jews.
Both
readings today focus on the holiness of the Temple. In the first, the Maccabean brothers
celebrate its rededication after being purified of desecration by Greeks and
Jewish apostates. Jesus symbolically does
the same as he drives out merchants. The
Temple was holy because it contained the divine presence from the Scriptures
stored in its inner chambers.
Christians do
not have a single structure with the significance of the Jerusalem Temple. The sacrifice of Christ to atone for the sins
of all is re-presented in all churches which retain the apostolic
succession. Equally true, we see every baptized
person as a kind of Temple. At Baptism
the person receives in his or her soul the Holy Spirit, who is God. It is our sacred duty to keep the Temple of
our soul pure and holy.
