"The Cleansing of the Temple"

Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, Daily TV Mass

“Casting out Money Changers” by Carl Heinrich Bloch - Wikimedia Commons

. . . 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, both 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!” (Jn 13:16)

This Sunday’s Gospel leads us to reflect upon the image of the Jerusalem Temple, which was for the Jewish people, the holiest place on earth, indeed, where heaven and earth unite. Commentators observe that the Temple speaks to us of a world in which God’s glory reigns supreme, a world in which God’s justice is praised.

In John’s Gospel, we see that it is Christ Himself who replaces the Temple, for it is in Him that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). As commentators observe, it is Jesus who has become the “new locus,” the very center and focal point of God’s presence on earth.

For it is Christ who incarnates and manifests God’s glory, as He dwells with us in “grace and truth” (John 1:17).

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I invite you to view the National Catholic Broadcasting Council’s Daily TV Mass below. The Homily begins at: 7:11.

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