Day 83: Jesus and the Temple

Like the prophets before him Jesus expressed the deepest respect for the Temple in Jerusalem. It was in the Temple that Joseph and Mary presented him forty days after his birth. At the age of twelve he decided to remain in the Temple to remind his parents that he must be about his Father's business. He went there each year during his hidden life at least for Passover. His public ministry itself was patterned by his pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the great Jewish feasts. CCC 583

In today's reading, the Catechism talks about Jesus and the Temple. As the above paragraph says, He had the "deepest respect for the Temple". It was the dwelling place of His Father on earth and, therefore, sacred to every faithful Jew. He taught there during His public ministry, and even the one time the Gospels tell us of a time when He grew angry, it was because of that "deepest respect for the Temple" that He reacted as He did (Matt 21:13). As the Catechism notes in paragraph 584, "After his resurrection, his apostles retained their reverence for the Temple" (cf Acts 2:46). Yet, the religious leaders of the time brought about the events of the Passion, and as a result the later destruction of the Temple as Christ had foretold (Matt 24:1-2). That horrible event recounted more fully in The Jewish War, "would manifest the dawning of a new age in the history of salvation" (CCC 586). I like how the Catechism Companion, Vol I speaks of the Eucharist in relation to this "new age in the history of salvation":

The night before Jesus died, he gave us the new and eternal covenant at the Last Supper, saying" "Take, eat; this is my body... Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:26-28). "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). (p. 170)

Driving of the Merchants From the Temple by Scarsellino