HOMILY WEEK 25 01 – Year I
Builders of a New Temple:
Memorial of Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gon and Companions (Korean Martyrs)
(Ezra 1:1-6; Ps 126; Lk 8:16-18)
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Do you see yourself as a builder?
We are about rebuilding the reign of God.
The first reading is all about the return of the exiles to their homeland through the lenient policies of the Persians. Though it was Zerubbabel who rebuilt the Temple, Ezra and Nehemiah were pioneers of the restoration. The real father of Judaism is Ezra with his three dominant conceptions: the chosen race, the Temple, and the Law. If his reforming measures seem severe and his isolationism narrow, it is because his zeal was great and the need to safeguard the infant community urgent. He is the pattern of all the scribes, the great and growing hero of Judaic tradition. Nehemiah restores and repopulates Jerusalem, making it possible and attractive to live there. He is caring, concerned, dedicated and prayerful, leaving a noble memory.
The Chronicler sees this restored community, gathered around the Temple and obedient to the Law, as a realization of the ideal God-governed society for which he has pleaded in the Books of Chronicles. The realization is not perfect, the future holds more. During this period, under Persian control, Israel re-constitutes itself as “the People of the Book” with scripture (the Torah) authoritative for personal and communal life. While the Temple and its clergy gain great power, the people themselves also develop new criteria for belonging and identity. There is harmony between Persian imperial policies and the will of God.
The return and rebuilding took place in stages. Not only were pre-exilic institutions restored, but religious practice conforming to the Torah was established in an attempt not to repeat the mistakes of the pre-exilic community. The returned exiles were a minority in a vast polytheistic and multi-cultural Persian Empire so they sought to protect their ethnic and religious identity by establishing rigorous religious boundaries.
The gospel has Jesus, who is the new Temple, commanding us to stand out, to make a difference, to boldly go ahead to do his work, to share in his mission to build a New Temple, the new People of God, led by Church membership. As great as the temple building project was, it pales in comparison to the task that Jesus has given to us –to participate in the building up of the reign of God here on earth.
For me, that happens best when someone breaks through years of anger and resentment and is able to move towards forgiveness of past hurts, to be set free. Velma is one such person who was able to communicate with her abuser “with love.” She not only forgave him the way he had hurt her so deeply, but also asked him to forgive her for how she had treated him for so many years, and gave him a hug. She even eventually was able to dance with him at a social gathering. That is building a new temple.
Today, the church honors the Korean Martyrs who truly followed in the footsteps of St. Paul and lived the readings of today. In the early 1600’s, Christian communities began to flourish in Korea under the leadership of lay people. On 1836, missionaries from France, members of the Parish Foreign Mission Society, secretly entered the country. The Christian communities began to encounter hostility and, during the persecutions of the mid-19t century, over 10,000 Christians were killed. Andrew Kim Tae-Gôn, the first Korean priest, was one of these. Paul Chong, a seminarian and catechist, was one of the many lay people who suffered. These and 101 other Korean martyrs, clergy and lay, young and old, were canonized in 1984.
Here is an excerpt from a witness by Andrew Kim Tae-gon: “But as the Scriptures say, God numbers the very hairs on our head and in his all-embracing providence he has care over us all. Persecution, therefore, can only be regarded as the command of the Lord or as a prize he gives. Hold fast, then, to the will of God and with all your heart, fight the good fight under the leadership of Jesus; conquer again the diabolical power of this world that Christ has already vanquished. I beg you not to fail in your love for one another, but to support one another and to stand fast until the Lord mercifully delivers us from our trials. There are twenty of us in this place and by God’s grace we are, so far, all well. If any of us is executed, I ask you not to forget our families. I have many things to say, yet how can pen and paper capture what I feel? I end this letter. As we are all near the final ordeal, I urge you to remain steadfast in faith, so that at last we will all reach heaven and there rejoice together. I embrace you all in love.”
So, as we celebrate the Eucharist today, our meal within this new temple, let us pray for the faith to see ourselves as builders of the new Temple, the reign of God here on earth, as did the Korean Martyrs.
