As we proceed gradually and hopefully graciously through Lent, towards the great feast of our Lord’s conquering death for our sakes… the passage from this life to beatitude, which we call his “Passover” (Pasqua, in Italian) we see Jesus honing his sights on Jerusalem. Why? Among some other reasons, that’s where the Holy of Holies is, the temple of God, where "God dwells," and he came to restore that temple to its original glory.
It is not accidental therefore, that on Monday of Holy Week, Jesus goes into the temple and begins cleansing it. He is restoring purity and holiness in the place of worship, in fulfillment of prophecies which spoke about how the Messiah would reinstate the temple's former glory, as in the days of Solomon.
The gospel today however is an account of an earlier cleansing of the temple. Whereas the one I just mentioned happens at the end, this one, in today’s gospel is said to have begun at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Ambrose, Augustine, and a slew of other Fathers and scholars all agree that there are at least, two recorded cleansings of the temple in Scripture.
And of course, because God’s words and deeds are so profound, so full of wisdom and meaning, we need to try to draw from what merely happened exteriorly to the more spiritual realities they are indicating… like the sacraments – visible signs through which God imparts his invisible grace and presence.
So for instance, Jesus tells his shocked persecutors, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will make it rise again.” And no one of course understood that he was making a prophecy about how he would rise from the grave, three days after being put to death. We are told the apostles, after he rose from the dead, remembered he had said this. In other words, they remembered what he had said three years prior to the resurrection. And do we notice all the threes? Three days, three years, a reflection of the mastery of the plan and tapestry woven in unison by the Three Persons of the Divine Trinity, the Master Weaver?
So Jesus is in the temple, and yet he indicates a greater temple… that of his body. Now which temple is Jesus most concerned about? Remember how Saint Paul reminded us to look after ourselves for our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? We get a hint as to what is most important to Jesus’ heart, when we read the last sentence of today’s gospel: “…he could tell what a man had in him.” This is the temple most important to Jesus: that which is deep inside us, the core of what makes us who we are, our identity, our wholeness, our well-being, the state of our soul, and he wishes to purify it, again and again, as many times as needs be, so as to keep it beautifully adorned to be able to give fitting praise and worship to God.
This is what we do with our churches. We beautify them, we adorn them with the most beautiful stained-glass windows, paintings, sculptures, lighting, sound system, altar, etc, why? Because we are trying to make it more and more fit to render service unto God. So too it is with our bodies and souls. Jesus continually wishes to adorn them with more and more virtue so that we, the temples of the Holy Spirit, can offer to God fitting sacrifice; a humble and contrite heart, which he will never spurn.
And what do we usually do to make anything clean? We get rid of the dirt, and what is not supposed to be there. Saint Francis got rid of all the earthly wealth which was keeping him from trusting more in divine providence, and hence he saw money as an enemy to someone who wishes to wholeheartedly trust in the God, from who alone all good things come. The money that was being obsessed over on temple grounds, was the same kind of obstacle to these people, and so veiled beneath Christ’s anger, was his loving concern for them to return to a life of prayer, and confide once again in God, and not in money.
As we seek to get our house, our temple in order, let us also try to pray over and discern what things in our lives may be occupying space where they shouldn’t be. Let us ask ourselves which markets, fixated on money and self-gain, are to be found in our souls. It is those markets of earthly ambition and lusting desires for material security that the Lord wishes to drive out, so as to allow us to look towards heaven, and to make our temple resplendent again. And on the last day, just as he spoke about how he would rebuild his temple, he will rebuild our temple, our body by raising it up again resplendent and glorious on the day of judgement. May he give us the grace to be ready so that we may joyfully greet him, when he returns in glory.
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