Daily Gospel Reflection
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November 9, 2019
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Can you imagine what it must have been like to witness Jesus’ behavior in the temple that day?
I typically think of Jesus as a kind and gentle soul whose wisdom and unshakable faith render him largely undisturbed by life’s daily challenges. Surely this isn’t the same Jesus who is capable of wielding a whip of cords and overturning tables in a fit of anger? Moreover, didn’t God the Father send his only son so that we might come to know God better? How could Jesus drive people away, and at the same time, expect them to feel an invitation to grow in his love?
One could surmise that Jesus’ actions were simply the natural manifestation of a rising internal frustration. Just as any of us would grow tired of trying to impart an important lesson with little to no results, perhaps Jesus was losing his patience with the apparent lack of observance for the truth he was sent to preach.
If we look more closely at the gospel, however, we can glimpse the true beauty and depth of God’s love within Jesus’ seemingly acerbic reaction to the people in the temple area that day.
Jesus loves us so much that he wants to drive us away from our own flawed behavior so that we can enter into a more personal, intimate relationship with God. His zeal for us is consuming and fearsome—it overturns tables and drives away obstacles with a whip of cords.
This Gospel reminds us that when we trust the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the walls of doubt and fear we have built with our own feeble hands begin to fall. Nothing—not even our own human imperfections nor our limited ability to comprehend the ways of Jesus—can keep us from him and his love.
Prayer
Father, just as your Son cleaned the temple from all that hindered worship of you, so he wishes to cleanse us, each a temple of the Holy Spirit, from all that keeps us from offering you full-hearted praise and thanksgiving. Grant us the grace and trust to allow Jesus to undertake this cleansing within us. Amen.
Saint of the Day
When we think of the seat of Catholicism, images of St. Peter’s in Rome come to mind. In reality, the seat of Catholicism is actually the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome because this is the official church that the pope presides in as bishop of Rome. It is this capacity—the bishop of Rome—that makes the pope head of all bishops. Thus it is this church, where the pope presides, that stands as the mother of all churches around the world.
This church was the first one built after Constantine ceased the persecution of Christians in 313. For years, the Laterni family held the land where the church now stands, which gives the basilica its name. The basilica was dedicated in 324 and that is where popes lived and presided until the 1300s. Four ecumenical councils of the magnitude of Vatican II were held there.
The basilica was originally dedicated under the name of Most Holy Savior, but in the sixth century took on the names of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. Now it is known as the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which rolls all of this history together.
Beneath the altar of the Lateran basilica stands a small wooden altar upon which, according to tradition, St. Peter celebrated Mass. The Lady Chapel of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart contains something similar: the ornate altar in that chapel holds a piece of wood that comes from a portable altar used by St. Peter.
The term, "basilica," was first applied to buildings in ancient Rome that served as an public court for hearings. Early Christians had to gather in secret in caves and private homes for worship, but when the faith expanded into the empire, the faithful were allowed to build larger assembly spaces. They did not want to associate their faith with pagan temples of the time, so they turned to the basilica as an architectural model for a public gathering space. The traditional basilica has a long nave and a central, raised area that stands at the head of the space. Christian churches often add a transept to make the space in the shape of the cross, such as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on campus.
Today, the term "basilica" is applied to a Catholic church of distinction, or one that is a place of pilgrimage. A basilica is not synonymous with the term "cathedral," which is the church where the diocesan bishop presides in each diocese. There are more than 1,500 basilicas around the world.
The Basilica of the Sacred Heart on campus was dedicated in 1888 as the Church of the Sacred Heart—Pope John Paul II raised the church to the status of basilica in 1992. It is the mother church for the priests and brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the United States—it is where these men make their final vows and are ordained priests.
Celebrating the feast of this sacred church is a way to honor the communion experienced by the whole Roman Catholic Church. It also reminds us of an essential truth: our temples of stone stand as symbols for the Christian community. A church is a place where God lives, and God also dwells in the community that assembles there. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 3) that each of us is a living stone in the temple of God.
Lord Jesus, cornerstone of the Church, bless us on this feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica!
Image Credit: The featured image of the Lateran Basilica is in use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Last accessed October 10, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.
