A Homily for Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
Friday, November 22, 2024
Prince of Peace Catholic Church – 8:00 Mass
Revelation 10:8-11; Psalm 119:14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131; Luke 19:45-48
Audio Recording
As we approach the end of the liturgical year, culminating this Sunday with the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, we’ve been following Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem, where he will ultimately experience his passion and resurrection, establishing his eternal kingship over the entire created universe.
In today’s gospel reading he has arrived in Jerusalem after a long journey and he proceeds immediately to the temple, the center of Jewish life.
Pilgrims coming to the temple would have purchase the animals needed for temple sacrifices once they reached the city. These animals had typically been sold at a market on the Mount of Olives. However, around this time, according to some scholars, the high priest Caiaphas permitted vendors to sell animals in the outer court of the temple itself, the Court of the Gentiles.
This selling of the animals in the temple area infuriates Jesus, who proceeds to drive out those who were selling things. He was infuriated for two reasons:
1. First, quoting Isaiah, he says: My house shall be called a house of prayer. In Jesus’ view, selling interferes with the purpose of the temple, and so should be done elsewhere.
2. Second, Jesus quotes Jeremiah, revealing the deeper significance of his action: you have made it a den of thieves. These merchants selling the animals were using the temple area to exploit the worshipers of God. The money changers took advantage of the poor and forced them to pay many times more than was right – in the house of God no less!
In driving out the merchants, Jesus is showing his LORDSHIP over even this most sacred place, the temple. He is announcing who he truly is. Jesus is not just an itinerant preacher or miracle worker. No, throughout the Gospels, Jesus acts in the person of God. Jesus is boldly claiming through this action to have authority over even the most sacred place in Jewish life.
He was also instituting a new temple, the temple of his crucified and risen body. Jesus himself is the place where God dwells, and we, in the measure that we are grafted on to him, joined to him through our worthy reception of the Eucharist and our love of neighbor, are also temples of the Holy Spirit.
In driving out the dishonest merchants from the temple, Jesus is passing judgment on all of the inadequate, corrupt forms of human religion and is establishing the new and eternal covenant, the new temple, in his own person.
Despite the objections of the religious leaders, no doubt because Jesus was laying claim to their authority in the house of God, the people who listened to Jesus teaching daily in the temple regarded him with great awe and respect. Luke tells us today that “they hung upon Jesus’ words” and this undoubtedly infuriated the priests and the scribes.
This begs the question for us today as to how hungry are we for God’s word? Do we listen attentively when it is proclaimed at Mass? Do we devour God’s word in our personal prayer time, as John was instructed to do in our first reading from the Book of Revelation?
If we approach God’s word with a humble attentive heart and with a willingness to be taught by the Lord, then we are in a good place to allow God’s word to change and transform us in the likeness of Christ. The Lord wants to teach us his ways so that we may grow in holiness.
The question for each of us today is whether or not we allow God’s word to transform us in his way of love and holiness? Do we willingly give Jesus authority over our lives, even when doing so is difficult and requires us to change sinful habits or attitudes?
Let us reflect today on this as we approach Sunday’s great solemnity where we proclaim Jesus Christ as the sovereign king of the entire created universe. If we believe this, then he must also be the sovereign king of every area of our lives. Amen?
God bless you.