November 9, 2014
Sunday
Dedication of the Church of St. John Lateran
1st Reading:
Ezk 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
2nd Reading: 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17
Gospel: John 2:13-22
As the Passover of the Jews was at hand, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple court he found merchants selling oxen, sheep and doves, and money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the Temple court, together with the oxen and sheep. He knocked over the tables of the money-changers, scattering the coins, and ordered the people selling doves, “Take all this away and stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture: Zeal for your House devours me as a fire.
The Jews then questioned Jesus, “Where are the miraculous signs which give you the right to do this?” And Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then replied, “The building of this temple has already taken forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?”
Actually, Jesus was referring to the temple of his body. Only when he had risen from the dead did his disciples remember these words; then they believed both the Scripture and the words Jesus had spoken.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple (see also Matthew 24:2, Mark 13:2, and Luke 20:5-6). Jeremiah made a similar prediction when he said that the Temple could end up like Shiloh (destroyed by the Philistines (Jer. 7:1-15)) if people continued sinning. Jeremiah continued: “But if you do amend your behavior and your actions, if you treat each other fairly, if you do not exploit the stranger, the orphan and the widow, if you do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow alien gods, to your own, ruin, then here in this place I will stay with you…”
Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple as Jeremiah did. The fate of the Temple was not irreversible, though. People only needed to repent. But they did not. The Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. That’s history we can do little about. But it can serve as a warning to us on the urgency of repentance. If we continue to render God lip service, we become the resurrected presence of the Pharisees of old. What is at risk? This Temple called the Body of Christ will be at great risk if we continue to live split-level Christianity. We are the body of Christ. Jesus had promised to be with us until the end of time. But if we refuse to repent, that promise of abiding presence may be powerless in averting the destruction of our “temple”.— Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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