Easter: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! Alleluia! And congratulations to those are receiving the Easter Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist. I’d like to make a comparison between our receiving these sacraments and our entering into the Temple of the Lord. In the Temple of ancient Jerusalem there was an outer court, an inner court and then the Holy of Holies where the tablets of the Covenant were kept, along with some of the manna from heaven by which the Israelites were sustained in their wanderings in the desert. Let me explain this comparison.
God loves all of humanity and blesses all people, whether they believe in Him or not. After all, “He makes the rain fall upon the just and the unjust, and the sun to shine on the bad as well as on the good.”
Some people, though, are called into a life of faith so that they truly believe in God - even if the whole network of all of their other relationships does not believe. And from these believers, with a brother’s love, He calls some into a relationship with Him, an ever deepening relationship of love and friendship.
By our baptism we are admitted to the first degree of this intimacy with the Lord. By our baptism we enter into the outer court of the temple not made by hands, the heavenly temple, and we become by our baptism a citizen of heaven. Because of our baptism and citizenship in heaven we are considered by the Lord to be worthy of wearing a crown, invisible to our eyes but nonetheless an indelible crown designating us as, like Christ, a priest, prophet and king.
By our confirmation we are admitted through the gates into the inner court of the Temple of the Lord, into a closer relationship with the Lord. Here we are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit and marked for all of eternity as one who is publicly marked as a bearer of the Good News of Salvation - which is won by union with Christ. In this inner court of the heavenly Temple we are among those who have born witness to Christ in word, in action and in sometimes even in blood. Here we are numbered among those whom the Lord expects to bring others to an ever greater union with God, in service to the rest of humanity. In this degree of intimacy with the Lord, the Lord Himself works through us, especially in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
By our receiving the Holy Eucharist we are admitted to the Holy of Holies. Here we are given the True Bread that came down from Heaven. Here we are given the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant. Here we are called into such a profound union with the Lord that we truly become a temple of the Lord. By receiving the Bread of Life and the Cup that alone satisfies the deepest of human thirsts, we become transformed into a living encounter with the Living God. Here we are nourished with the very Body and Blood of our Savior so that we can return to the world and, by the Lord’s grace, transform the world we live in by our lives of virtue, by our acts of forgiveness, by our witness to Christ, by our life of faith and hope and love, and by our laying down our lives for others. Indeed, by our Eucharistic Communion, we become a presence of Christ in the world of today.
May the Lord bless the newly baptized, and the newly confirmed, and those who receive our Lord for the first time in Holy Communion. And may the Lord bless all of us to live up to our baptismal promises, to live up to our calling as confirmed with the seal of the Holy Spirit. And by the very Body and Blood of Christ coursing through our veins, may we never grow weary of doing what is right, brothers and sisters. Happy Easter!
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