Word to the Wise
Friday, June 1, 2012 - Friday in the 8th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Pet 4:7-13 and Mark 11:11-26]Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not soubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.....
These words of Jesus come at the end of a passage where a fig tree becomes the symbol of the temple. Jesus' act of "cleansing the temple" is really more like "shutting down" the temple. Without animals to sacrifice or places to pay the temple tax, the whole temple "system" grinds to a halt. The point of all of this is that Jesus is replacing the temple with himself! The time of the temple to bear fruit is past, just like that of the fig tree. Just as Jesus' cursed the fig tree, so will the temple be destroyed. It is faith in Jesus that will replace the temple sacrifice! Reliance on the temple, which would be destroyed by the Romans, is useless. [cf. Jeremiah 7:4]
Given our Catholic tradition of sacraments, churches, and other physical manifestations of faith, I find myself wondering what would happen if all of this were to disappear and I had no church building or liturgy - not even a rosary! It seems from what I see in today's gospel scripture that I would face the real moment of truth. Is my faith in Jesus strong enough to survive these centuries-old ways of being Catholic/Christian? It's a bit frightening to imagine, but I also think the exercise can help me put everything about the way I "live" my faith into an ultimate perspective. The fig tree and the temple come together in a stark lesson of faith. AMEN