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Dedication of the Lateran: Read: 1 Cor
3, 9c-11.16-17; Jn 2, 13-22
Cecil B. De Mille’s rendition of “The Ten Commandments”, with Charlton Heston as Moses, is unforgettable
for more than one reason. As a 7-year old child I was especially struck by the radiance on Moses’ face as he came down
from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, after having been with God, face to face for 40 days and nights. Many years later,
I came to understand that Moses received very much more than the Ten Commandments when he was up there. Part of this was some
kind of vision or understanding of God’s own dwelling place, not on the mountain, but in heaven itself. God even told
Moses that, “according to the pattern he had seen” on the mountain top, he was to erect an elaborate tent for
Yahweh to camp with Israel on its journey to the Promised Land. Once Israel was settled in the Promised
Land, that moveable tent became the immoveable Temple, built by King Solomon according to exactly the same pattern. Other celebrities
of the film industry have given us an idea of that Temple. Franco Zeffirelli, in his film
“Jesus of Nazareth”, shows us Jesus Himself standing in awe as a little boy before the Temple,
although it was not Solomon’s Temple, but the one rebuilt after the Babylonian exile period. It also portrays the dramatic
scene we heard proclaimed in today’s Gospel: the cleansing of the Temple.
After they had sinned, Adam and Eve could no longer walk with God, remain in God’s dwelling. Sin brought, and
yet brings, exile from God. But God still desires to be with us, to bring us back home. From the beginning of Scripture, right
up to God’s dwelling with mankind as a man in the flesh of Jesus, there is a crescendo of God’s merciful steps
to be with us, to dwell among us. First He appears in visions to Abraham; to Moses, He comes in the burning bush, then “face
to face” on the mountain and in the meeting-Tent; to the people He appears as fire on the mountain or a pillar of fire
by night and of smoke by day. His presence in the Tent of Meeting is signaled by a cloud, yet the people see the light transpire
from within the Tent. He appears to Elijah as a small, still voice but also as a chariot of fire. Once the Temple
is built, Isaiah and Ezekiel speak of His “glory filling the Temple”. The patriarchs
and prophets knew of His closeness in many different ways. At last, He came, not in something made by human hands, nor as
a symbolic force of nature, nor in sporadic visions or voices, but of the Spirit and of Mary, as the Word made flesh who dwelt
among us: the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth. In Jesus the whole crescendo of the previous forms of God’s approach
to mankind finds its final cadence and fulfillment. In Jesus, all the previous messages, visions, prophecies, laws and covenants
are brought together and wonderfully surpassed. And the heart of the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry was precisely
to bring the exiled home to God’s dwelling place, something He achieved by His death, Resurrection and Ascension.
Given, then, the profound meaning of the Incarnation, it is no wonder that Jesus takes a whip to those who would desecrate
the Temple. For the Temple was now none other than Jesus Himself,
and in Him no sin, no uncleanness, exists. To make of the Temple a market-place was to make a market-place
of the incarnate Son: to treat Him as an opportunity for gain, like Judas Iscariot. The Temple
was a House of prayer for all peoples, just as the Tent of Meeting had been where Moses met God face to face to intercede
for Israel. But prayer is not a negotiation process; it’s not a business; to converse
with God is not to do commerce with Him. For God in Jesus is liberal in His mercifulness; he asks only that we admit and reject
sin so as to embrace that mercy honestly. Many, but certainly not all, in the religious establishment of the time had turned
Jewish institutional religion into a means to serve their own avarice for power and money. Jesus Himself foretells the destruction
of the Temple; that hardened attitude of institutionalized self-service had hardened their hearts
to Jesus: their rejection of Jesus and the self-destructiveness of their hearts was symbolized in the Roman destruction of
the Temple in 70 AD. But the destruction of the Temple of Jesus’ Body in death was reversed by His Resurrection after three days. It was this victory over death which was the
sign which gave Him the authority to cleanse the Temple and, more truly, to determine and cleanse all sin.
Jesus had to return to the Father. How then are we to understand God’s presence among us after the Ascension?
St. Paul tells us: “You are God’s building. .. Do you not know that you are the temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” God’s presence to us in the flesh of Jesus
remains, but has now become His presence to us in the Holy Spirit, poured out at Pentecost even on the flesh of all who have
believed in Him. The visible presence of Jesus has passed into the Church and the sacraments. In other words, by the will
of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit we ourselves have been dedicated or consecrated as the living, Mystical Body
of Jesus, as the Church united by the Spirit to Christ our Head. We have become God’s dwelling place with mankind; the
Church is now the Tent of Meeting, the Pillar of Fire, the Temple of the living God. We are the light
on the lamp-stand, the city on the hill-top, the place where all can and must find welcome; we not only symbolize the unity
of the human family, but we are the sacrament of that unity, i.e. by the Spirit’s doing, the Church will eventually
effect the unity of the human race through the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ in all its fullness and through the sanctifying
ministry of the sacraments of Christ.
A few days ago, I read a brief news report saying that, although the effects of the recent pedophile scandal in the
Catholic Church were gradually being overcome, a respectable poll had indicated that Catholics were still reluctant to give
to the Church as much money as they did before. As one does, I wondered whether, beyond the face-value of this statement –which
is surely very understandable- the author of the article, like many others, felt that somehow if no Catholic gave the Church
any money at all, then the Church would fold up and be cast into the dustbin of history as yet another failed attempt by human
beings to dominate their fellows. Other polls tell us how many Catholics disagree with the Church on numerous moral issues,
although, curiously, the only issue of divine faith on which there appears to be disagreement is the admission of women to
holy orders. So I ask: Will the Church fail even when Catholics fail to believe Her teachings? Will She fail because the lack
of money means the closure of schools and hospitals and parish buildings? Will She fail because some of Her priests commit
heinous crimes or because some of Her Bishops fail to deal with those priests? Will She fail because of the unhelpful absorption
into Her members of ideological polarizations, of the desire of some to dominate or exclude others, of pressure groups, or
of interest groups or of the mundane preoccupation for careerism or self-advancement in the ranks of the hierarchy?
My brothers and sisters, She will not fail, not now, not ever. And the simple reason is because the Catholic Church
does not belong to us, failing, befoibled human beings: She belongs to Christ, and Christ will neither fail Her nor allow
Her to fail in the essential mission for which He called Her, sanctified Her and sent Her. To the degree that we sin, we do
indeed loosen or weaken our bond with the Church and we deprive Her of that extra possibility She would otherwise have had
to let the light of Christ shine. Yet while our sins may cloud Her face and limit Her activity, Christ Jesus continues to
shine within Her, and His Spirit, despite our sins, will at last achieve the purposes of the Heart of God for Her. The Church
Herself teaches that She is at one and the same time Holy and sinful: sinful because of Her members, holy because of Her Founder.
So holiness shall prevail in Her, for it does not depend on Her members, but on Her Founder who is Himself alone the Holy
One.
As the Holy One, He continues to cleanse His Temple of sin; one can understand why He might want to take a whip to
the Church today, as in probably every generation of Her history. Yet each of us who blames someone or everyone else for failing
the Church ought, in a moment of reflection, to ask himself whether or not that very accusing or condemning attitude is not
itself worthy of receiving the first crack of the whip. Blaming is easy and wastes a great deal of time and energy. The mind
of Jesus and of the Holy Church is surely that we dedicate that time and energy to mutual understanding, forgiveness
and reconciliation. We need the wisdom of the Gospel to spot the wiles of Satan who gleefully rubs his hands when Catholics
end up in enmity with each other. We need rather to speak the truth in love to one another, and together chasten and chase
Satan and sin out from our midst. We need to stop the subtle attempt by the evil spirit to make us import into the Church
the various polarizations which we see in social and political fora. These horizontal antitheses give glory, not to God, but
to our own egos, groups or parties. Jesus gives us rather the vertical ladder to pass step by step from sin to holiness, from
error to truth, from exile to God. Christ calls us upwards, together. Rather than desecrate the Church with manipulation of
the truth to suit self-concerned preferences alien to the mind of Christ, we need to let Christ dedicate and rededicate us
to the mind of His Church through prayerful listening to His Truth and compassionate understanding of one another from the
vantage point of that Truth. Rather than buying and selling our own opinionatedness, let us receive gratuitously and with
obedient hearts the holiness of the Truth that Christ in his Church bestows upon us as a pearl of great price.
Sure, we must be aware of what society says about the Church, but we must process that only according to the Church’s
mind. Why is it that we listen more willingly to what the TV, the polls or some eloquent dissidents tell us about the Church,
and yet will not listen with faith and love to the Church Herself and to the Lord who speaks to us through Her? Let there
be criticism in the Church and calls for accountability, but let them be loyal and motivated by love. And if we so criticize
and call, let us be willing ourselves so to be criticized and held accountable, trusting ourselves ultimately to the authority
Christ gave the Church for the peace and salvation of mankind. When all is said and done, the Church is the treasure of the
Christian age, and in Her resides the Hope of all ages. No money can ever buy Her, and no greed can ever sell Her, for She
was bought, cleansed and paid for in the Precious Blood of Christ. And His Precious Body She shall for ever remain.
Msgr.
Peter Magee
Sunday,
November 9th, 2003: St. Matthew’s Cathedral, DC – 10.00
am.
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