The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the connection with the Divine that we experience in consecrated and “thin” places.
Consecrated Spaces
The reading from the First Book of Maccabees describes the cleansing and dedication of the Temple during the rebellion against the Seleucid rulers.
* [4:52] Twenty-fifth day of the ninth month…in the year one hundred and forty-eight: December 14, 164 B.C. * [4:59] Days of the dedication: institution of the feast of Hanukkah, also called the feast of Dedication (Jn 10:22). Josephus calls it the feast of Lights (Ant. 12:325).1
The responsorial from the First Book of Chronicles is David’s Praise to God.
you are exalted as head over all2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus cleanses the Temple.
* [19:45–46] Immediately upon entering the holy city, Jesus in a display of his authority enters the temple (see Mal 3:1–3) and lays claim to it after cleansing it that it might become a proper place for his teaching ministry in Jerusalem (Lk 19:47; 20:1; 21:37; 22:53). See Mt 21:12–17; Mk 11:15–19; Jn 2:13–17 and the notes there.3
Barbara Dilly comments that sometimes we are winners, sometimes losers. Sometimes we are rich, sometimes poor. Sometimes we are strong, and sometimes we are weak. Christians are about something more than these distinctions.
Today I pray that we will be like the people who first heard Jesus speak these words, that we too will be drawn to them and not to the words of those in power. I pray we will listen to and follow the voice of Jesus, not the corrupt ways of this world. I pray we will seek to be known by Jesus rather than be recognized as someone with power.4
Don Schwager quotes “The home of sanctity,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"God does not want his temple to be a trader's lodge but the home of sanctity. He does not preserve the practice of the priestly ministry by the dishonest duty of religion but by voluntary obedience. Consider what the Lord's actions impose on you as an example of living... He taught in general that worldly transactions must be absent from the temple, but he drove out the money changers in particular. Who are the money changers, if not those who seek profit from the Lord's money and cannot distinguish between good and evil? Holy Scripture is the Lord's money." (excerpt from EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 9.17-18)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 19:45-48 comments that on a more fundamental level, these money changers and the priests who conspired with them were hindering people from free and unobstructed access to God’s holy place. Jesus had come to earth and was preparing to suffer and die for the very purpose of destroying every obstacle that prevented people from entering God’s presence. Yet here were his Father’s own representatives establishing even more obstacles!
So don’t let anything stand in the way between you and God. He has become the new Temple, and the only sacrifice he is looking for is a contrite and humble heart. Nothing else is required! “Lord, thank you for always welcoming me into your presence.”6
Friar Jude Winkler fleshes out the observance of Chanukah that commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem. Some selling was necessary in the Temple to obtain animals for sacrifice and shekels in exchange for pagan coinage. Friar Jude cautions us about attitudes of profit overtaking the attitude of service in necessary selling at the place of worship.
Father Richard Rohr, OFM, in his online course on spirituality and addiction, understands surrender this way. Until you move to the sense of being able to trust there is a God who is guiding you, who loves you more than you love yourself—that’s when you’ve made the transfer. That’s when you know you’re a part of a bigger flow, a bigger system—if you want to use that word—and you are not doing it, it is being done unto you. [2] Author and activist Holly Whitaker offers her thoughts on the power of surrender. Author and activist Holly Whitaker offers her thoughts on the power of surrender.
Life no longer feels precarious, or about to crumble—even when it is, in fact, crumbling. By surrendering to whatever is unfolding and by accepting what is, by giving up on the outcome and allowing life to flow the way it’s meant to, by stepping out of your own way and letting the natural order take the lead, you not only get a break from the exhaustion of having to control everything, but you also get to experience life, instead of what you think life owes you. (Hint: What life wants to give us is infinitely better than what we think it owes us.)7
We reflect on our attitude as we seek closeness to God and surrender to God’s Will in the environment of our holy places.
References
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