Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the 25th Week of Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina

September 23, 2021

Hg 1:1-8, Ps 149, Lk 9:7-9

 

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click here: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/9.23.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily:

* We are now in the midst of three weeks of focus in the first reading on the post-exilic writings in which the Church has us focus, if there are no proper feasts, on three days of Ezra, two days of Haggai, three days of Zechariah, two days of Nehemiah, two days of Baruch, three days of Jonah, one day of Malachi and two days of Joel.  These post-exilic writings focus essentially on two things: first, the rebuilding of the temple and, second, the way of holiness so that there is never again an exile from God. Today as we begin the first of two days listening to Haggai, we focus explicitly on the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem, which is meant to help us, of course, ponder Jesus’ resurrection (the True Temple), the temple that is the Church, and the temple that is meant to be each of us together with Jesus.

* The Lord sent Haggai to wake up the people of God whom he had freed from exile. It was during the time of King Darius, the son of Cyrus, who had allowed the Jews to return and helped them to start rebuilding the Temple. The Jews built something quick and temporary on the Temple Mount, but then started to prioritize their own affairs. They were saying, “The time has not yet come to rebuild the House of the Lord.” They were delaying the things of God for their own affairs, and building their own luxurious interiorly decorated houses instead of the Temple. Haggai, speaking for the Lord said, “Is it time for you to dwell in your own paneled houses, while this house [of God] lies in ruins?” He then went on to say that they would never find fulfillment in sowing, eating, drinking, clothing, or money making. The forceful appeal of the Lord was “Consider your ways!” He told them to go get timber and begin to build the house of the Lord “that I may take pleasure in it and receive my glory.” That might seem like an egocentric statement, but it’s not. The Lord takes pleasure in loving us — we prayed in the Psalm, “The Lord takes delight in his people” — and his glory is, as St. Ireneus would say at the end of the second century, “man fully alive” through the vision of God. God wanted a house so that we would fittingly worship him because it is through that worship that he builds us into a holy temple. It starts, however, with zeal for him. We remember King David before the building of the first Temple. He was eaten alive by the fact that he was living in a palace while the ark of the Covenant, the sign of God’s presence, was in a tent. He wanted to build a fitting temple, but God, through the prophet Nathan, replied that He instead would build a temple for David. That temple was obviously David’s own descendent according to the flesh and God’s own Son, Jesus. We’re all called, however, to have the same zeal to build a house of the Lord because that’s the way the Lord in fact makes us his temple. In the Gospel, Herod was curious to meet Jesus, but Jesus hadn’t come into the world to be an interesting accessory to our life. He had come to save us. He had come to dwell with us. And he will never be able to build a temple for him to dwell within us by curiosity. There needs to be a true relationship, a union, with the Lord, a hunger for mutual indwelling, something that Herod never had.

* Today the Church celebrates someone who truly became Jesus’ temple and instrument to build others on him who is the Cornerstone.