The Temple of God, which You Are, is Holy"


Today's Mass Readings

The readings for today are so appropriate to commemorate the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, which is the official church of the pope. Most people think St. Peter’s Basilica is the pope’s official basilica, but in reality the Lateran Basilica, which is where most of the previous popes before modern times lived, is actually the official basilica of the bishop of Rome, the pope. In today’s Gospel reading from St. John we find the most violent portrayal of Jesus in all of the Gospels. Jesus makes a whip and drives out the money changers along with animal, and he overturned various tables. What is going on here? The text mentions that the time of Passover was near. This is significant, not only because it is the first of three Passovers in St. John’s Gospel, and occurs right after the Wedding at Cana where Jesus performed His first sign by turning water into wine. It is also significant because during Jesus’ time it was around the time of Passover that all of the religious Jews from around the known world who were able would come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Passover at the time was focused on the slaughter and eating of a Passover lamb, but the lambs could only be killed at the Temple in Jerusalem. This was also the time when religious Jews who were not members of the priestly class would come to the Jerusalem Temple to offer animal sacrifices for any sins they would have committed the previous year. So Jesus would have a large crowd as pilgrims were beginning to come into Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover which was nearing.

Essentially what Jesus does is a prophetic act. What was intended as a means to help people spiritually (providing animals for sacrificial offerings) had become a corrupted economic practice which preyed on the poor especially. Jesus criticizes the corruption, but He also points to the Temple’s future destruction in His prophetic act. Jesus Himself will replace the Temple, a fact to which He alludes when He discusses the Temple’s destruction as a way of referring to His own life. He is basically saying His future death is the destruction of the true Temple, which is His body. But, He will be raised again to new life, which represents the restoration of the true Temple. St. Paul, in today’s second reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, affirms our bodies are God’s Temple. This is the case because we are the very Body of Christ. Through our Baptism and the Eucharist, we are truly Christ’s body, and therefore, we are the Temple of God. The Eucharistic and baptismal connection here is made even stronger with our first reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel where we see living water flowing from the future eschatological heavenly Temple. Ezekiel was writing after the first Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians. His image goes along nicely with the vision of the heavenly Temple in the Book of Revelation where we see that God and the Lamb (Jesus) is the true Temple. The river of life, the river that turns salt water into fresh water, and produces all sort of creatures, in a new creation, was interpreted by the early church fathers as the Sacraments.

Whenever we participate in the Sacraments, we are growing spiritually from this rich river of life, flowing from Christ. Let us, then, approach the Sacraments recognizing that they incorporate us into the Body of Chris, making us the Temple of God. Let us live lives worthy of such a holy and divine calling.

- Jeff Morrow