Holy Monday B

While we were yet sinners and deserving of punishment, the Father had mercy on us, but now, we need to count that as a grace and heed his voice calling us to return to him.

“We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” 2 Corinthians 5:19,20.

With this as our backdrop, the first thing we need to note is that during Holy Week, the Holy Trinity will continually be calling us to be reconciled to The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What a sublime kindness and attentiveness to our souls this is on the part of God! Always sustaining us and calling us back.

Jesus and the twelve are continually journeying back and forth from Bethany to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem back to Bethany on Sunday to Thursday of Holy Week. Why, what’s going on here?

What is going on is a fulfillment of the prophecies in the Old Testament. God who sees with an eternal mind, to whom all human history and future is continually present, was able to speak of these world-altering events from centuries before through his chosen prophets.

So to Ezekiel a vision is shown wherein the glory of the Lord leaves the temple through “the entrance of the east gate of the Lord’s house” (10:18,19), and then God’s glorious presence proceeds east of the city to the Mount of Olives (11:23). Finally, Ezekiel sees the glory of the Lord return to the temple via “the gate facing east” (Ezekiel 43:1–5). This vision finds its fulfillment in Jesus returning to Jerusalem, the temple, from the east, not once, or twice, but several times so that if by the first couple of times you didn’t see what was happening, by the third or fourth it was amply clear that Jesus IS the Lord of Glory, who is about to restore glory to the temple who had lost it through ungodly sin and corruption. The temple he “raises and restores” however is a number of things: his own body, our own body, and the place of sacrifice… no longer the Holy of Holies allocated in the one Temple, but now, on all the Altars of the Catholic Church which he instituted for this precise reason, he will become present and reside in every single one of its tabernacles. God will not be confined, nor limited in his love and generosity.

We read that on Palm Sunday, having come from the east, riding on a donkey, which is another fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy through the prophet Zachariah (“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" 9:9.) “Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve” Basically, our Lord, on Palm Sunday enters the temple in the evening, and the fact that “…he looked around at everything” indicates to us that what he saw needed to be addressed, because the following line presumes he would have done something about what he saw, had it not been too late; “…but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve” Mk 11:11.

Therefore, after spending the night back in Bethany, most likely at the residence of the siblings Lazarus, Mary Magdalene and Martha, on Monday of Holy Week, according to Matthew 21, Mark 11 and Luke 19, Jesus and the apostles make their way back to Jerusalem heading straight for the temple. On route, something significant happens which the apostles will remember, just prior to arriving at the temple. The two events are recorded in this manner;

“On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it,

“May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it” Mark 11:12-14.

This strange encounter with the fig tree will serve as an important lesson in the day to follow, and which we will therefore reflect on tomorrow, Tuesday of Holy Week.

After this, they get to Jerusalem and he enters the temple;

“And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers’” Luke 19:45-46.

According to many biblical authorities, not least of which were some Fathers of the Church (like Saints Chrysostom and Augustine as we shall see), this is the second time Jesus is recorded to have cleansed the temple in the New Testament pages of the Sacred Scriptures. The first time Jesus did this can be found in the second chapter of Saint John’s Gospel who explains that during the Passover, Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem, made a whip of cords, and drove out the money changers who were doing business there. He also poured out the money and turned over the tables (John 2:13–15). Jesus said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” (John 2:16).

John describes the cleansing of the temple as occurring during the first Passover (of three) mentioned in his Gospel. Meanwhile, in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all describe the temple-cleansing as taking place just days before Christ’s Crucifixion, on Monday of Holy Week where his language intensifies in telling the crowd that they had turned the temple into a “den of thieves” (Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46). 

Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican theologian, picks up on this and reminds us that there was a particular purpose in Christ cleansing the temple twice. He comments on the first cleansing with references to the second which happen here on Holy Monday:

“Jesus says, ‘stop making my Father’s house into a marketplace.’ Note that Matthew 21:13 says: ‘Do not make my house a den of thieves,’ while here he says, ‘a marketplace.’ Now the Lord does this because, as a good physician, he begins first with the gentler things; later on, he would propose harsher things. Now the action recorded here was the first of the two; hence in the beginning he does not call them thieves but merchants. But because they did not stop such business out of obstinacy, the Lord, when driving them out the second time (as mentioned in Mark 11:15), rebukes them more severely, calling robbery what he had first called business.”

Aquinas is only following Augustine and Chrysostom on this, and the latter says for example:

“Another Evangelist writes, that as He cast them out, He said, Make not my Father’s house “a den of thieves,” but in John 2.16; “Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise.” They do not in this contradict each other, but show that he did this a second time, and that both these expressions were not used on the same occasion, but that He acted thus once at the beginning of His ministry, and again when He had come to the very time of His Passion. Therefore, on the latter occasion, employing more strong expressions, He spoke of it as (being made) “a den of thieves,” but here at the commencement of His miracles He does not so, but uses a more gentle rebuke.” – Chrysostom

And now for Saint Augustine;

“It is clear that the Lord did this thing not once but twice; the first time is told by John, this second occasion by the other three.” (de Cons. Ev. ii. 68.)

This is a beautiful proof of Jesus’ mercy and patience, in that he is not only restoring proper order to God’s house of prayer, but he is also putting in good order the souls of the wayward money-changers who had lost their way on dependencies and addictions to money. He had cleared them out before, but they evidently came back and set up shop again. God is patient with us.

Now the main temple Jesus wants to purify is us—me, and my body and everything that makes up who I am, because as Paul reminds us, God not only dwells in the temple, but now he dwells in the very body of all those who would follow Jesus. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” 1 Corinthians 6:19,20.

How shall we allow Jesus entrance into this temple with whip in hand and begin to cleanse us? How do we let him in? An examination of conscience which is sometimes painful, because we have to own up to our imperfections and sins. How does he actually make us clean? Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation he applies his saving passion and he will cleanse us. Bowing our heads we say, “Forgive me Lord, for I am a sinner.”

John’s Gospel also records that he rebuked the unbelief of the crowds on this day. Faith is so important. A gift that can be lost if not practiced, nurtured and treasured.