by Rev. Deacon Lawrence A. St. Onge

In ages past there was a custom among Jews of promising to dedicate children to God service in the temple, even before the child’s birth. In such a case the child had to be brought to the temple in Jerusalem before its fifth year had passed.

Tradition tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary was vowed to God by her parents, St. Joachim and St. Ann, and taken by them to the temple when she was three years old. This offering and dedication of the Blessed Virgin to the Lord is commemorated by the Church by the feast of the Presentation, which we celebrate today.

St. Augustine, one of the great writers of the Church wrote, "The Blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will, and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother."

Both readings today are about the Temple. In the 1^st reading the Maccabees re-consecrate the Temple after its desecration, which is now commemorated by the Jews as the Festival of Lights – Hanukkah, as we know it, which is an 8 day celebration commencing on December 25^th.

In the gospel we heard how Jesus purified the Temple in his time by casting out all who had defiled it. In the Temple there was the daily business of buying and selling of animals for sacrifice. It was well known that the family of the "High Priest" of the temple always got a "kick-back" from what was bought and sold, and it was this practice, which caused the defilement. Also, Jews would not allow any type of image in the temple, and the Roman coin had the image of the emperor on it. Consequently, there were the money changers of the temple who exploited the worshippers of God by forcing them to pay many more times than what was right – in the house of worship no less. This robbery of the poor not only dishonored God, but was unjust toward their neighbor.

As he cast all these people out of the temple, Jesus quotes from the Prophet Isaiah and says, "It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." Jesus’ action was meant to purify the worship of God’s people and to discipline their errant ways.