Domus Dei

A Sermon for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost

by Reverend Louis Vezelis, O.F.M.

Ordinarily, a church is called a "house of prayer". Christ drew attention to this fact when He drove the buyers and sellers from the temple. Casting them out of the temple, He said: "It is written, My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." (Luke 19:46.)

It is forbidden to engage in commerce in the temple because prayer and business are two mutually exclusive acts of human existence.

Prayer turns one's spiritual gaze heavenward: to God, to His Divine Providence. Through prayer we leave ourselves and rest in God. Commerce, on the other hand, concentrates our energies around this world and things. Whereas prayer instills sentiments of humility and modesty, business tends to give rise to pride and even impudence. Evidently, there is no place for pride in the temple of God. The temple, or church, is a place of prayer because it is the house of God. Essentially, it is the house of God.

On many occasions, Christ taught that man must pray at all times and in all places. Prayer was not restricted to a particular place: neither to Jacob's well nor to the temple in Jerusalem. Consequently, the church is something more than just a place of prayer.

Although the first Christians knew well that it is necessary to worship the Father in truth and in spirit, that is to say, that they could pray always and everywhere, neverthelss, when they gained their freedom they began to build churches. They built them not because they felt that their prayers in other places had been somehow less fruitful or less perfect, but because they felt that the church played such an important role in Christian life which could not be replaced by anything else.

Today, the building of churches is determined by pastoral and pragmatic considerations. Their very design indicates a departure from the early understanding of what a church really is. Judging from some of the latest designs one is tempted to feel that the architect was inspired by something in the range of late movie-house and futuristic Masonic temples! In an age of greater faith, churches were built for another reason. For the people of those days, the church meant something more than just a house of prayer, a place to receive the sacraments and a place to hear the word of God preached. Today we view a church from the point of view of MAN'S need—albeit religious. But in other days there was some more OBJECTIVE reason which prompted the building of churches.

We can only understand the church adequately when we realize that it is the HOUSE OF GOD. A house of prayer is not the same thing as a house of God. Even when our soldiers would gather to attend Mass offered on a table in a military mess hall, or in the field, no one would ever consider such places as the house of God—though they became at least for those moments a place of prayer. An edifice becomes a church only when it is destined to be a place for God to live.

When Christ cast the merchants out of the temple and called it His "Father's house", He wanted to show that God dwells in the temple and, therefore, man must act in a different manner when he stands in the presence of the Lord. He must experience this place as something sacred. This is so because wherever man encounters God that place becomes a place where only consecrated hands, things and acts may venture.

The Old Testament indicates this truth in the case of Moses and the burning bush. Upon seeing the burning bush, Moses was led by human curiosity to see this strange phenomenon. But as he approached the place, a voice spoke from out of the bush: "Come no nearer. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground." (Ex 3:5.)

The thought here is that before Moses could approach the holy place, he had to rid himself of all that was not himself. Man can appear in the presence of God only as he is in himself. Everything that stands between man and God, whatever is reserved for the world and not for God, must remain outside this holy place. If the church is the House of the Father, then man must feel and act differently than if he were in another man's house. A sentiment of prayer is the only thing that man can bring with him into the house of God.

But it may be asked: how is it that a building can become the house of God? Does not St. Paul clearly tell the Greeks at the areopagus that the Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man? (Acts 17:24.) In what manner, then, can something made by us become the abode of God? Is this an illusion, or is it a reality?

King David's determination to build a house for God sheds much meaningful light on these questions. Especially God's own answer to David's decision. Having defeated his enemies and enjoying a time of peace, David said to the prophet Nathaniel: "Dost thou see that I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God is lodged within skins?" (2 Kings 7:2.) By this David wanted to say that it is not fitting that man's house should be more ornate than God's; that God should reside in a house befitting His dignity and greatness. But God answered him through the prophet Nathaniel: "Whereas I have not dwelt in a house from the day that I brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt even to this day, but have walked in a tabernacle, and in a tent. In all the places that I have gone through with the children of Israel, did ever I speak a word to anyone of the tribes of Israel whom I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying: Why have you not built for me a house of cedar?" (2 Kings 7:67.)

The Lord's answer is very revealing. He reveals two things. On the one hand, God clearly says that He does not require that man should build Him a house. God is content to abide in tents and temporary shelters. That's why the Lord does not rebuke David for erecting a house of cedar for himself, while the Ark of the Covenant is kept in a skin tent. On the contrary, God is content to do so because Israel has not entered into the promised land yet and therefore, the Ark does not have a permanent resting place. The Ark is in a tent to emphasize the instability and pilgrim status of Israel. The Lord wants to live the same way His people live.

On the other hand, God's response to David undeniably shows that it is God's desire to live among men. He lives in places made by man: tents, shelters, temples. He does not entirely reject David's proposal. He merely indicates that it is too soon to build a house of cedar and that King David will not be the one to build His house. It was King Solomon who built a beautiful temple for the Lord and thereby determined a permanent place for the Ark of the Covenant. At that moment, God left the tent and entered the house of cedar and said to Solomon: "I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, which thou hast made before me. I have sanctified this house, which thou has built, to put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart shall be there always." (3 Kings 9:3.) Doubtlessly, this presence of the Lord in Solomon's temple was not a personal presence, but only a symbolic union between Himself through His given commandments and Moses writing down of these commandments and placing them in the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was a symbol of God's presence; only a SIGN, because in reality, God did not yet abide here spatially. In this sense did St. Paul speak to the Greeks that "The Lord does not live in temples made by man" (Acts 17:24), wanting to say by that that equally, in the Old Testament and in the temples of pagans those things SYMBOLIZE God, but they are NOT GOD. In those days, the temples were the House of God, but only in a symbolic sense.

In the New Testament God realizes His desire to be among men. He did this through His Incarnation and remains historically with us under the appearances of Bread and Wine. Christ's presence in the Blessed Sacrament and the Church's custom of reserving the Blessed Sacrament in churches is nothing other than God's living among men realized to the highest degree. At the moment of consecration the consecrated Bread and Wine are not SIGNS of God, as in the Ark of the Covenant, but they are the divine REALITY. They are not a symbol or indication of God (the Protestant understanding of the Blessed Sacrament), but they ARE GOD, God Himself hidden under the visible elements. That is why churches of the New Testament are the House of God in the direct and true sense of the words. God abides in them, not in the symbolic manner as in the Ark of the Covenant, but truly and really. Christ, the Son of God, true God and true Man resides on our altars. He is here in His personal presence (the Catholic understanding of the Blessed Sacrament). On this earth, in this space and time, there is no more sacred place than a Catholic Church. Christ remains with us until the end of the world and manifests this objective presence by His presence on our altars.

It is fitting to draw the reader's attention to the abomination being committed in Catholic churches in view of this explanation of God's REAL presence in our churches. The reader will carefully note the vast difference in God's presence in the Old Testament and the New Testament: the former was merely a symbolic presence; in the latter, it is a real presence. Protestantism, in abandoning the one, true, apostolic Church reduced itself to the imperfect, so to speak, symbolic presence of God. For a perfected priesthood Protestantism chose the imperfect priesthood of the Old Testament. This same tragedy seems to be plaguing the Church today. One may legitimately speak of the "protestantization" of the Catholic Church in many quarters. What is one to conclude concerning the orthodoxy of a theology which would place the Scriptures on an equal footing with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament?

This is either poor theology or crass ignorance. Yet, such is the situation in a purportedly "Catholic" seminary. Or, what can be the idea behind placing the Bible on what was once the main altar (and, therefore, in the place of honor) while putting the Blessed Sacrament on a side altar? Surely, even the least knowledgeable Catholic ought to raise an eyebrow!

Centuries of Catholic Faith have built temples to house the real presence of God Himself. Once again we find that disbelief is turning its back upon God. In view of the foregoing, it should be clear that the posture and mental attitude in the presence of Christ in the tabernacle should dictate conduct totally different from what many Catholics are being exposed to in their churches.

Curiously, one might ask a present-day Catholic: why do you go to church on Sunday? For someone lacking principles, it may be the next best thing to kissing babies en route to political office. After all, the simple-minded tend to think that a man who goes to church on Sunday can't be all that bad!

Indeed, why go to church at least once a week? It is necessary to go to church in order to concretely affirm our inner desire and determination to ultimately go to heaven! The church is a profound—adapted to our present human condition—representation of heaven itself. Just as the man who turns his back on the crucifix—the symbol of his redemption and salvation—thereby expresses his rejection of redemption itself; so too, the man who refuses to make the necessary effort to move through time and space to symbolically enter heaven, thereby expresses his refusal to strive for the same heaven which will one day manifest itself in all its glory and beauty. What man is actually doing now is playacting . . . in a certain sense. He is acting out a sublime ontological reality: his choice of responding to God's grace to a supernatural eternal existence with God. Just as the development of a Christian life is one of struggle and effort, so too, this reality is tangibly expressed by the actual movement from one's home to that true, eternal home: heaven. The church is HEAVEN made present to us in time and space. For this reason nothing profane may be allowed in this sacred structure. There is nothing to flatter the flesh, but everything to lift the thoughtful spirit to the divine mystery enshrouded in matter and form. In Its stark simplicity and sublime humility, the center of our spiritual focus is the Blessed Sacrament. It is for the Blessed Sacrament that we go to church on Sunday—and any other time, for that matter. THE BLESSED SACRAMENT IS THE CONSTANT CALL TO THE BEYOND; and to neglect it is tantamount to refuse God's call.