Homily for 3d Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Lent

Mar. 3, 2024
John 2: 13-25
The Fountains, Tuckahoe, N.Y.
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

“He was speaking about the temple of his body” (John 2: 21).

Christ Driving the Traders out of the Temple
(El Greco)

With Jesus Christ, the living presence of God has moved from a sacred building in Jerusalem to Jesus himself.  He is God’s temple in our midst.

The 2d Vatican Council teaches us that Christ is present to us in 4 ways (LG 7).  He’s verbally present in the words of Scripture.  He’s mystically present in his people gathered for worship, as we are here; he lives within his Church.  He’s sacramentally present in his minister, the priest, who acts, we say, in persona Christi, “in the person of Christ”; it’s Christ who baptizes, Christ who forgives sins, Christ who witnesses the commitment of spouses, Christ who says, “This is my Body; this is my Blood.”  And yes, he’s bodily, physically present in the Holy Eucharist.

The Eucharist is the high point of our faith.  Vatican II tells us it’s “the source and summit of the whole Christian life” (LG 11).  We’re baptized and confirmed in order that we might gain access to the Eucharist.  Priests are ordained in order to celebrate the Eucharist.  We confess our sins and are restored to God’s grace that we might be worthy to come to the Eucharist.  “The Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth, that is, Christ himself, our Passover and living bread.  Thru his very flesh …, he offers life to human beings” (PO 5).  That, again, is from the Vatican Council.

In the Eucharist we receive the living Body and Blood of Christ.  The only thing you may remember from your biology class is that we are what we eat.  Thru the Eucharist we become the Body and Blood of Christ.  We become the temple of God.  If every person is already sacred because God has created us in his own image and likeness, as the book of Genesis teaches (1:26-27), how much more sacred is every Christian who eats the Body of Christ and becomes a temple of Christ.  With what respect, what reverence, then, must we treat one another, brothers and sisters! – speak to one another, speak about one another, defer to one another, serve one another.

Jesus was angry because the Jerusalem temple, his Father’s house, had become a marketplace (John 2:16).  What would he feel and what would he say about how we treat one another:  family members, fellow parishioners, neighbors, co-workers?

In a few minutes we’ll pray in the prayer over the offerings, “Grant that we who beseech pardon for our own sins, may take care to forgive our neighbor.”  Our neighbor is an image of God, at least; and many of our neighbors, certainly everyone here, are also our fellow members of the Body of Christ, temples in whom Jesus dwells.