Mother Church invites us to celebrate Sunday, March 07, 2020, as the third Sunday of Lent – Year B. In the Entrance Antiphon we pray: “My eyes are ever fixed on the Lord, for he releases my feet from the snare. O look at me and be merciful, for I am wretched and alone. Amen.”
In the first reading, God gives the people of Israel his Ten Commandments as a requirement for his alliance with them. Through the said commandments, we see a just, moral, and all-powerful God who is close to his chosen people and who is keen on keeping them on the right path.
In the second reading, Saint Paul tells his Corinthian converts that even if there are people who think of the cross of Christ as a stumbling block and others as sheer folly, it is through this cross that divine power flows into the world.
In the Gospel, Saint John presents Christ cleansing the Temple of Jerusalem by chasing away those who have turned it into what he calls a den for thieves. He tells the Jews, who are asking for justification for his act, that he will destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. This is a claim that will cost him his life and whose significance only becomes evident, even to his disciples, at his resurrection from the dead. It is only then that it becomes clear that he was talking about his body, not the physical temple in Jerusalem.
The responsorial psalm acclaims God as our rock and redeemer, who is kind and gentle to those who keep his laws and commandments. During this Holy Mass, let us pray for the grace to obey God’s commandments, which prepare us to give up our old ways to embrace the new life, which comes to us through Christ Jesus, our Saviour.
First Reading: Exodus 20: 1-17.
Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Comment
The book of Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament, gives a historical account of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt to their lengthy stay at the foot of Mount Sinai. It covers some of the most important aspects of Israel’s history – its slavery in Egypt, the birth of Moses, the signs God works to release them from bondage, the institution of the Passover, the making of the Covenant and the establishment of religious worship. The laws assembled in Exodus constitute the main body of law in the Pentateuch or the Torah, that is, the first five books of the Old Testament, and they cover the religious, moral and social life of Israel.
The main message of the Old Testament is that God led his people out of captivity into freedom. He chose them as his own, rescuing them from slavery and entering into a covenant with them. This covenant is God’s free gift to his people. In a treaty of friendship, he tells them who he is, what he has done for them and the kind of loyalty he requires from them.
The Ten Commandments, God’s Ten Words, are the requirements he lays down for them. They are face-to-face with God, who is not an arbitrary nor an insensitive God but rather one who is just, moral, all-powerful and close to his people.
In the passage of our reading this day, God offers his Commandments to the people he has delivered from bondage. The said commandments are an expression of the Covenant and its acceptance is a sign that man has attained maturity in discernment, that is, to use his freedom to choose or to reject. Belief in one God is the backbone of the entire Bible message.
How relevant are the Ten Commandments to us these days? There was a time when every Christian knew the Ten Commandments by heart. In those days, children recited them in school or in doctrine classes and priests used to preach them in the churches. Today, however, few Christians know or even care that much about the Ten Commandments. Why is that so?
We live in an age that hates laws and commandments. We think they are there just to restrict our freedom. We think that the commandments are a mere hindrance to our making decisions for ourselves. But is that really the case? No, not at all.
God himself is the initiator of these commandments. It is he who led his people out of oppression in Egypt. He gave them the commandments as a guide to enable them to respect life and the dignity of others. The commandments are merely telling us to respect what belongs to others so as to have a harmonious existence in society. Those who respond to the will of God regard the Ten Commandments as God’s gift and rules of conduct. These commandments show us the way that leads to God and, as such, we have to know them and make them the rule of our life. Through his commandments, God expresses his concern and love for us. In fulfilling them, we express our love for him. We follow in Christ’s footsteps who says “Behold, I come to do the will of the Father” (Jn 8:29).
Let us implore the Holy Spirit to rekindle our love of the Ten Commandments, the Covenant God signed, not only with the Jewish people of old, but with us as well. We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Second Reading: 1 Cor 1: 22-25.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
Comment
The city of Corinth was one of the most important commercial cities in the Roman Empire. Even in Saint Paul’s days, it already had a long history behind it. Since it was a key trading center, it had a cosmopolitan population, including people from Asia Minor, Phoenicians, Arabs and others. It also had a sizeable Jewish population since there was a synagogue in the city (Acts 18:4).
It was also a city with many different religions and with temples dedicated to all sorts of gods, and, like the city of Douala, it was notorious for its low level of morality. Saint Paul preached the Christian message in this city, and God’s help enabled him to found a flourishing Christian community. From Acts of the Apostles (18:1-18), we know that Paul founded the Church in Corinth with the help of Silas and Timothy.
Saint Paul spent more than a year and a half in Corinth in the period 50-52 AD. He made many converts but he also ran into much opposition from prominent Jews who brought charges against him to Gallio, the Roman proconsul. Gallio, however, dismissed the charges against Paul as a mere complicated Jewish religious squabble that was of no interest to him (Acts 18:12-17).
In the passage of this day’s Mass, Paul preaches about the cross of Christ, which the Jews see as a stumbling block and the Greeks as sheer folly. To us, Christians, however, the cross of Christ leads the way to true wisdom. Those who see the cross as folly are on the road to perdition but those who discover in the cross the power of God are on the road to salvation since the cross has conquered the devil and sin. The Church has always seen the cross in this light: “This is the wood of the cross, on which hung the Saviour of the world” is what we sing during Good Friday liturgy.
After stressing the importance of the message of the cross, Saint Paul contrasts God’s wisdom with the wisdom of the world, which only survives on external signs, that is, spectacular and explosive events that many in our church and society demand and yearn for, to be convinced of God’s presence. The external world bases its faith only on things the senses can perceive. That is why the scribes and Pharisees are asking Jesus in today’s Gospel for signs to justify his act of expelling them from the temple.
For people with this attitude, the cross is a scandal, that is, a stumbling block, and their attitude makes it impossible for them to gain access to divine things since they impose limits on how they believe God should, and should not, reveal himself to us.
If the Jews think the cross is a stumbling block and the Greeks think it is sheer folly, how should we, as Christians living in the city of Douala today, see the cross on which hangs our Lord? As Christians, we have been specially chosen to attain the wisdom of God, which consists of faith that is nourished and inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is from the cross of Christ that divine power flows into the world. We therefore pray for the grace to permanently keep our gaze fixed on the cross wherever we are for the Cross is the source of our salvation. Amen.
Gospel acclamation: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life. Alleluia.”
Gospel: John 2: 13-25
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, 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!" 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.
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
Comment
In today’s Gospel, Jesus shows one of the rare moments of physical violence in his life. He makes a whip, drives out traders with their wares from the temple and knocks over tables of money. Where there was peace, he brings total disruption; where there was business as usual, he brings unusual hostility. He screams as he chases them out: “Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market” (Jn 12:16).
To understand the origin of this market in the Temple of Jerusalem, we have to go back into the history of Jewish worship. When the Jews came to Palestine, King Solomon, in obedience to divine instruction, built the Temple of Jerusalem where people went to render public worship to God (1 Kg 6: 8). The people were commanded not to enter the Temple empty-handed but to bring some victim to be sacrificed (Ex 23:15).
To make this easier for people who had to travel long distances, a big market developed in the Temple courtyard with animals being bought and sold for sacrificial purposes. Originally, this made sense but with time attention shifted from temple worship to the buying and selling of animals and the Temple began to look more like a market than a house of worship.
That is why, moved by zeal for his Father’s house (Jn 2:17), Jesus cannot tolerate this deplorable abuse and in holy anger expels them. He wants to show them the respect and reverence due to the temple as a holy place of worship. His words and actions also clearly tell us that he is the Messiah foretold by the prophets. That is why when some Jews approach him for a sign of his power, he gives them an answer which his disciples only understand later after his resurrection. He says that he will destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.
The Jewish authorities later use his words as an attack on the temple which merits the death penalty (Mt 26: 61). They will also use these same words to mock him as he is suffering on the cross. They wonder why someone who claimed to be able to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days cannot save himself from the cross (Mt 27:40, Mk 15:29). But when he speaks about destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days, they fail to understand that he is talking about his own body that will be broken but he will rise again in three days.
What does Jesus’ action tell us? Christ tells us by his action that we must show respect for our Church where the Eucharistic sacrifice is celebrated every day and where Jesus, God and man, is really and truly present in the tabernacle. To show respect for our places of worship, we should dress properly when coming to church; make proper liturgical gestures and postures that include genuflections and reverence of the tabernacle.
Saint Augustine advises us in the following words: “Unflaggingly, let us love the Lord our God and let us love his Church. Let us love him as the Lord and the Church as his handmaid. No one can offend the one and still be pleasing to the other. What does it avail you if you do not directly offend the Father but do offend the mother?” O Body of Christ, holy Church, let all your bones say, “Lord, who is there like You?” We make our supplication through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.
Comments