FRIDAY HOMILY: It's Time to Cleanse the Temple

By Fr. Randy Sly
11/23/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

We're entering Advent - A time to get ready

In our Gospel today, Jesus cleanses the temple in Jerusalem. His actions and words betray his fundamental concern - that the temple be used for its intended purpose, being house of prayer. While there are passages dealing with areas of physical health, how much more our Lord is concerned with what we put in our soul. The cleansing here speaks of more than just the Jerusalem center of worship. The temple of our body is obviously much more important than anything made out of blocks and boards. The psalmist writes, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made."

Facebook Delicous MySpace

Twitter Stumble Digg

More Destinations

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Mayor Bloomberg has been in the news a lot in the last few years. He wants to be sure his city doesn't get fat. New York has had a ban on trans-fat since 2006 and recently instituted a ban on sugary soft drinks that are larger than 16 ounces.

His latest crusade targets hospitals, which involves removing candy from vending machines and deep fried food from their cafeterias. Certainly, we can see that the mayor wants to make sure the citizens of the Big Apple take care of the temple of their body.

How ironic that the city's soul is not also a target for healthy food. Such annual attractions as Folsum Street East, where every kind of fetish, homo-erotic and perverse behavior is exhibited, underscore a contrary commitment. While New Yorkers are restricted in what they take into their bodies, they are free to do whatever they want with them!

In our Gospel today, Jesus cleanses the temple in Jerusalem. His actions and words betray his fundamental concern - that the temple be used for its intended purpose, being house of prayer.

While there are passages dealing with areas of physical health, how much more our Lord is concerned with what we put in our soul. The cleansing here speaks of more than just the Jerusalem center of worship. The temple of our body is obviously much more important than anything made out of blocks and boards. The psalmist writes, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made."

As we approach Advent, we are coming into a season of preparation; what the Eastern Churches call a "Little Lent." This is a time of self-examination and repentance in preparation for two major events - the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord and the Second Coming. This is why Advent is often called the "Season of the Already-Not Yet."

We are living in between these two events of earth-changing import. While the size of our sodas can make a temporal difference to some extent, how much more our soul needs a great deal of scrutiny. St. Paul told his son-in-the-faith Timothy, "While physical training is of limited value, devotion is valuable in every respect, since it holds a promise of life both for the present and for the future."

Advent is a good time for a good personal temple-cleansing.

In Jerusalem, our Lord was quite thorough about this. St. Luke states that "Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, 'It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.'" (Lk. 19:45,46)

St. Matthew's Gospel goes into a bit more detail saying, "Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, "It is written: 'My house shall be a house of prayer,' but you are making it a den of thieves." The blind and the lame approached him in the temple area, and he cured them." (Mt. 21:12-14)

If Jesus is Lord of your life, He must be Lord of your temple.

Obviously, this cleansing was not a case where Jesus felt that he just needed to quietly ask the "poachers" to leave. He overturned tables, drove out those engaged in unauthorized activities and generally caused a huge uproar. The chief priests, scribes and other leaders already had His death as their major goal by this point. This, then, had added insult to injury.

The presence of money changers and sellers of sacrifice was not only improper; it had also become too familiar! No one seemed to take issue with their presence, which in itself is a bit disconcerting. The meaning of the temple had been compromised.

If you are like me, there are familiar places of compromise in my personal temple. As a temple of the Holy Spirit - a descriptive given to us by St. Paul - I should also see myself primarily as a house of prayer. a house given to the Lord.

Pope Benedict underscored this as the root of our Lord's actions in his second volume of "Jesus of Nazareth."

"According to his own testimony," the Holy Father writes, "this fundamental purpose is what lies behind the cleansing of the Temple: to remove whatever obstacles there may be to the common recognition and worship of God - and thereby to open up a space for common worship."

Compromises are easy to spot, especially when we have something to which they can be compared. Again, Paul to the rescue with a list:

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Phil 4:7)

Given the variety of gates into the soul - particularly through the eyes and ears - this list is compromised over and other again, especially in our world of media ...

1 | 2 Next Page

Rate This Article

Was this helpful to you? Very Helpful Somewhat Helpful Not Helpful at All

Would you be interested in more articles like this? Yes, I am Interested No, I am not Interested

Rate Article

1 - 8 of 8 Comments

judy claar
5 months ago
Indeed a great article! I see by the posts it has got us to thinking! "...opening the door of your heart , and letting our Lord cleanse us of those things which keep us distant of Him". And after reading mike robertson's post and a few others, I thought I indeed have housecleaning to do too!

I am the one who has to confess my resentment toward ANY Obama Catholic. No matter what their race. I will not even begin to name said resentments. But the main one, is going against the Church.

Father, this is a wonderful article, that hits home to anyone who reads it. Somewhere they should see something meant just for them. Please pray for all of us. Thank you..Blessings...
Dallas
5 months ago
@Robert Burford - You post made me think of our Lord explaining that it's not what goes into a man's body that defiles him, but what comes out.
Ana
5 months ago
Wonderful piece; instructive/guiding/practical. If you can post, please direct people to Natural Family Planning International for moral and practical online-instruction on this perfect tool for purity. An easy home-study option has the USBishops approval for content. Not just for the married, the brief, unique, question & answer section on the moral teachings of married love can be downloaded and studied to help build chastity in our society.
Willy
5 months ago
Let us cleanse the Church of the presumptions- Republicans on the side of death or Democrats on their side of death. Money changers of the temple are trying to get back into the safe confines of the Church where they can do their dirty work thinking it is exceptable to God to act that way.
Robert Burford
5 months ago
I is funny what we do with our time, talents and treasures. We can use them for good or evil. The example of the computer was excellent and made me think. I use the computer to keep the books for a church organization that I volunteer for. I also use it to improve my tasks at work. I use it to communicate with friends far and near and to help expand my knowledge of God's word. It is not what we have but how we use our time talents and treasures. But I seriously question whether my house is in perfect order and whether the Lord is everything in my life. This causes me to think what more could I be doing or not doing to better use my time , talents and treasure. House cleaning is good. As we prepare our outside house the journey to prepare the inside one is more important. Cool!
mike robertson
5 months ago
For me cleansing the Temple can be boldly confronting Catholic democrats about their unwavering support and votes for a morally corrupt executive branch in Washington DC. Jesus said to let the children come to Him. The immoral administration in Washington is headed by one who favors killing children inside their mom's womb and allowing them to be legally killed after they leave the womb, having survived the attempt to kill them in the womb. Catholic democrats support an administration which thinks they are wiser than God when it comes to what constitutes Holy Matrimony. God has His definition, and He calls what Catholic democrats call "marriage" an abomination. If 2 men or 2 women can marry each other, we must allow, among consenting adults: polygamy, group marriages, spouse-swapping and incest. Lastly, Catholic democrats support an immoral administration which advocates waging war against God's Church under the guise of health care. Presumably, Catholic democrats justify their votes for such moral corruption under the excuse of a "compassionate, social justice" economy. In fact, the immoral administration in Washington has given us a brutal economy with unsustainable debt, rising unemployment and poverty, and decreasing wealth and incomes. As a lower income employee about to be laid off, I find this compassion to be quite savage in its actual effects. Let's cleanse the Temple of support for evil and of justifying incompetent policies which are hurting, not helping people.
Joseph
5 months ago
good article provide more
abey
5 months ago
Keeping the outside clean & the inside dirty is to the saying what use is the body without the soul, for evil lies in the depths which is not to the truth on the outside but to the inside out.

Comments submitted must be civil, remain on-topic and not violate any laws including copyright. We reserve the right to delete any comments which are abusive, inappropriate or not constructive to the discussion.

Though we invite robust discussion, we reserve the right to not publish any comment which denigrates the human person, undermines marriage and the family, or advocates for positions which openly oppose the teaching of the Catholic Church.

This is a supervised forum and the Editors of Catholic Online retain the right to direct it.

We also reserve the right to block any commenter for repeated violations. Your email address is required to post, but it will not be published on the site.

We ask that you NOT post your comment more than once. Catholic Online is growing and our ability to review all comments sometimes results in a delay in their publication.

Name *

Email *

Comment *

Send me important information from Catholic Online and it's partners. See Sample

Post Comment