SHEKINAH GLORY
Reading the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem to God, reminded me of the many houses that I blessed when I was studying in Rome and working in a parish church. Italians have this tradition of house blessing all through the Holy Season of Lent. We moved from home-to-home blessing family homes. It was a privilege that I was able to be part of that tradition for about four years.
Was your house ever blessed? You can have things blessed by your priest, such as icons, tools, vehicle, boats, and objects in the household to use as a part of your regular prayer- sacramentals. objects in the household to use as a part of regular prayer. There are various prayers for various purpose in the Catholic Book of Blessings.
We, Catholics have the tradition of dedicating our Churches for the service of God. The rite for the dedication of a church could be found in the Ceremonial of Bishops. A church is the place where the Christian community gather to hear the word of God, to offer intercession and praise to Him, and above all to celebrate the Holy Mysteries, and it is the place where the Holy Sacrament of the eucharist is kept. Thus, it stands as a special kind of image of the Church itself, which is God’s temple built from living stones.
This Catholic tradition did not start with Catholics as we hear in today’s first reading. Upon the completion of the newly built Temple, the Ark was brought from Mount Zion, the City of David, to the Temple. Prior to this the building of the Temple, the Art was housed in a tent, as it had been when Moses and the Israelites were wandering in the desert. About 300 years after the Israelites took possession of the Promise Land, and David became the king. David thought the ark should be housed in a much better dwelling and wanted to build a temple for it.
However, God had other plans. God told the prophet Nathan to give David a message about the Ark.
“When your days have been completed and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, … and I will establish his kingdom,” God said in his message to David. “He it is who shall build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever.”
Four years after David’s son Solomon’s reign as the king, the actual construction of the Temple began. (480th year since God had freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.)
Towards the completion of the Temple the word of God came to Solomon.
“As to this house you are building — if you walk in my statutes, carry out my ordinances, and observe all my commands, walking in them, I will fulfill toward you my word which I spoke to David your father. I will dwell in the midst of the Israelites and will not forsake my people Israel.”
Today we hear part of the account of the dedication of the Temple and relocation of the Art from its temporal location in Mount Zion, to its permanent place inside the new Temple. The priests carried the Ark and began moving it to its new dwelling. As the ark was being moved, King Solomon and the entire community of Israel gathered before it and made many sacrifices.
Once the priests placed the Ark into the inner sanctuary of the Temple, called the Holy of Holies, or godesh haggoddshim, the glory of God, (Shekinah in Hebrew) in the form of a cloud, fills the Temple.
King Solomon said “The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud; I have truly built you a princely house, a dwelling where you may abide forever.” Do you noticed that the priests couldn’t reenter the Holy of Holies because of the Lord’s presence, manifested in the cloud?
The Ark was made of acacia wood and plated inside and out with pure gold, as instructed by God. (Exodus 25). The stone tablets on which God wrote down the Ten Commandments, his covenant with the Israelites were placed inside the Art. That is why the Ark of God is oftentimes referred to as the Ark of the Covenant.
At the dedication of the Temple, King Solomon and the community of Israel offered “many sacrifices.” How many? According to a Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, King Solomon sacrificed 22,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep. Something to think about when we use our parish envelopes.
How generous are you and I in things of God? How conscious are we when we enter in the presence of the Lord, in His Church? Jesus is with us; present is a special way in the Tabernacle in our church. How reverent are you and I was we step into the church? One thing we are told about king David was that he loved God “With his every deed he offered thanks to God Most High, in words of praise. With his whole being he loved his Maker and daily had his praises sung…” You and I are called to be like David, to love God with all that we are and have.
