for August 22
The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Memorial

I once had a rabbi say to me, “You Christians spiritualize everything.” What he meant by that was that when Christians read the Bible, we tend to see it from the perspective of our movement into eternal life, first the salvation of our individual souls and then the establishment of the Kingdom of God at the end of time. The Jewish perspective is that of a people striving to live in relationship with God here on earth. Today’s readings offer a place for the two perspectives to meet.

The first reading from the prophet Ezekiel comes from the final section of the book that details the reconstruction of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem. Recall that Ezekiel was prophesying during the Babylonian exile. In this passage he relates his vision of “the glory of the Lord” entering the rebuilt Temple to once again take up residence in the midst of the people of Israel. His throne will be in the very heart of the holiest place in the land. But what makes that place holy?  t is not the building. Though it is to be constructed to God’s specifications, the Temple is in fact an expression of the people’s renewed fidelity to their God after having repented of their idolatry. What makes the Temple holy is the presence of God in it. Before their exile, the Jews had come to take God’s presence there for granted. Perhaps they assumed that the presence of the Temple with its rituals and feasts, its priests and sacrifices, assured them of God’s continued favor. The glory of the Lord of Hosts had settled into a predictable worship routine. It took the loss of the Temple, along with their land and sovereignty, to recall them to a dynamic relationship with God, a relationship that required that they keep up their own end of the covenant.

The psalm shouts out the people’s renewed appreciation of God’s place in the life of their nation after their return from Babylonian captivity. It appears the psalm was written in the early stages of rebuilding, and the psalmist recognizes the benefits of truly living according to the Mosaic law. In the words of another translation:

Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

In the Gospel Jesus supports the practice of the faith centered on the Temple. This passage comes from his teaching within the Temple in the days leading up to his arrest. Jesus makes the same distinction between the outer form and the inner spirit as Ezekiel did, but he focuses on the religious leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees. It is they who have lost sight of their dynamic relationship with God and gotten caught up in their leading role in the rituals and feasts and their privileged position in Jewish society. They pay lip service to the responsibilities of the covenant, but they do not observe them: “They preach but do not practice.” They want to be called ‘rabbi,’ which means ‘teacher,’ but their self-aggrandizement obscures the meaning of what they are teaching. The point of the teaching, the rituals and the practices, is to draw closer to God. When the leaders exalt themselves, their presence can instead obstruct God’s presence.

Ezekiel and Jesus both speak of the importance of the forms of faith but that the forms must be animated by the spirit of God. Here is where the Christian and Jewish perspectives meet. For God is in each individual as well as in the community, on earth as well as in heaven. Pope John Paul II called the Jews “our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham,” and that faith was historically enacted in the building of a human community rooted in a relationship with God. As Christian disciples we too are called to be building the kingdom on earth until Jesus returns. The Jewish focus on finding God in community might help us recognize that fully living out Jesus’s teaching requires working for social justice. On the Christian side, we can offer our Jewish brothers and sisters a rich understanding of the spiritual journey of the soul, for a well-formed soul enhances the whole community. The glory of the Lord shines on us all.
—Christine Szczepanowski

The readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.