Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas
Temples, sacred places, inspire prayer. Temples set apart—consecrate—people for worship. Worship not only lifts our hearts to give glory and praise to our God, but by worship, God Himself comes down honoring us for our prayer. Temples then are not just places to offer, but temples are places to receive.
Prayer is reciprocal, a total exchange of one person for another in which both are blessed. We bless God, and in blessing Him, He blesses us. We add nothing to God in our worship, but in worshiping, we bind ourselves to Him for He wants to bind Himself to us.
Temples are places of binding. In temples, people gather creating a community, a family, which focuses and centers not only on God’s designs for his people, but also the individual needs of each person. In temples, we give expression to the deepest longings in our heart. Every heart longs for fulfillment. God alone fills the void, the longing in our hearts. God, knowing our need for communion, gives us other persons to fulfill these desires. The fulfillment of all our desires comes from God through others. We see in the creation of Eve.
Eden was a temple, the whole cosmos, and within Eden was a garden, a place to worship and receive worship. In this garden, Adam was alone so God put a deep sleep upon him—a death-like sleep—and from his side created a woman, Eve, a companion in which both could share and complete each other, in a way that no other could.
Fulfilled, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, they were told to be fruitful and multiply. God also commanded them to till and keep the garden. Avodah, the Hebrew Word, literally means work and worship (Gen 2:15). Adam and Eve were to work the garden but also guard the garden so they could worship God Who dwells in the garden. In other words, the garden was not paradise. Evil existed otherwise why did they have to work and guard the garden?
Without sin, the garden was imperfect. A tree existed of good and evil. A tree that should not be touched as it was not to be worshiped but feared. Fear does not mean dread, but to be used rightly. Its knowledge has powers that need to be respected rather than indulged senselessly. Without respecting the tree’s powers, actually the tree tested our power either to choose wisely and rightly or foolishly and imprudently, we damage ourselves.
This was the danger within the garden. Everything was ordered properly, and our choices need to protect that order through right work and worship. To do this, God commands not to eat of tree of knowledge protecting our bonds between ourselves, symbolized by Adam and Eve (ourselves) and God’s friendship with us.
Yet, man and woman did not respect the tree. The knowledge seduces them and separates them from God and themselves. Eating of the tree’s fruit deceived them believing it would make them more, where in, it made them less. They lost their way and were no longer lived in harmony. They turned inward, becoming selfish.
Instead of worshiping the Divine praising the dignity of his glory, they became diminished, so weakened, they could not give of themselves to each other. They no longer worked praising God and worshipping Him but separated themselves which enslaved them. Panicked, experiencing their covetousness, they hid. They broke the relational bonds and they along with us their offspring cannot work and worship freely. We toil and labor. Empty of divine dignity, our consciences feel the reproach.
Immediately God enters, asking “Where are you?” He comes to restore what is lost: the order and harmony of right relationships. Instead of condemning, they condemned themselves, God promises a child born of the woman to restore the relationship from the selfishness that destroys friendships.
Restoration comes at a price, sacrifice. Sacrifice, giving up for the other, destroys selfishness. It repairs the heart from seeking its own will. Instead, through sacrifice we give ourselves to the other. Sacrifice surrenders and seeks to fulfill the longing of the betterment of other. Sacrifice submits to the needs of the other at the cost of one’s own needs. Sacrifice puts the other first, and in so doing, protects the heart from the false worship: self-aggrandizement. This was the seduction of the tree’s knowledge: selfishness versus self-lessness.
Temples are places of sacrifice. In the Jerusalem temple people came to offer themselves to God through an offering. The offering represented oneself to make atonement for sin, or to thanks God for answered prayer. Mary and Joseph come to the temple offering their gift, two turtle doves, in thanksgiving for the gift of their Son. This exchange signified more than just fulfillment of the Mosaic Law. It fulfilled the divine prophecy given to Eve. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Ge 3:15).
God’s plan heals the divorce promising a child to be born of a woman into a family that would restore the relationships broken by Adam and Eve’s desire for self-aggrandizement. Mary’s Son was no ordinary child but was God’s sacrifice of Himself to restore the harmony in his garden. His gift of self shows true love.
For love to fulfill, it must sacrifice the heart for the good of the other. God the Father willingly sacrifices his Son for our restoration. He wants to restore our relationships. First with Himself then with each other. Jesus restores us to the Father through sacrificial love. Jesus restores us to each other by becoming one with us. Mutual love sacrifices for the other creating bonds so deep and real, we call it family. Family love exemplifies Christ’s sacrificial love in which husband and wife mutually submit to each other and their children to fulfill each other.
St. John Paul II explored this familial love in his seminal work, Man and Woman, He Created Them stating, “Husband and wife are, in fact, subject to one another, mutually subordinated to one another” (John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 473). Man and woman mutually sacrificing is the new temple. God no longer dwells just in temples, churches, but dwells in the mutual exchange of man and woman. Becoming one, mutually giving and receiving, man and woman become the new temple where God dwells and we dwell with God. We call this family.
Marital love, by its nature, procreates. Children are the image and likeness of their parents just as God, the Father, created Adam and Eve in his image and likeness. This mutual love also works and guards the familial relationships so all may worship rightly honoring one another, never using the other for self-aggrandizement.
Our communion with the Son, Who images us, becoming one like us though free from sins, fulfills our deepest longings. We want to be loved and to love another. This familial bond, husband and wife united to their children just as God the Father is unites Himself to us through his Son in which we become adopted sons and daughters of the Father, protects our hearts from falling again into the selfishness that caused the divorce between God and us and between ourselves.
This healing of our relationships rightly orders our worship. Giving glory and praise to our God for the gift of his Son protects our hearts from the false loves that destroys true love. Cultivating true love, willingness to sacrifice our desires for the desire of the other, especially God’s desire, allows other to flourish and become more than what they ever thought they could be. This more restores familial love as the temple in which God dwells. In his indwelling, we multiply and subdue the earth becoming more and more like God Our Father, imaging and reflecting his love to each other.