20210214 LIVING STONES
14 February, 2021, Sunday, Anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd
1Kings 8:22-23
22 Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven; 23 and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to thy servants who walk before thee with all their heart;
27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built! 28 Yet have regard to the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, hearkening to the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prays before thee this day; 29 that thy eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which thou hast said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that thou mayest hearken to the prayer which thy servant offers toward this place. 30 And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant and of thy people Israel, when they pray toward this place; yea, hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place; and when thou hearest, forgive.
Psalms 84:3-5, 10-11
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at thy altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in thy house,
ever singing thy praise! [Selah]
5 Blessed are the men whose strength is in thee,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.r
10 For a day in thy courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
he bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does the Lord withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
1Cor 3:9-11, 16-17
9 For we are God’s fellow workers;* you are God’s field, God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.
Mt 16:13-19
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter,s and on this rockt I will build my church, and the powers of death* shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
LIVING STONES
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [1KGS 8:22-23. 27-30; PS 84:3-5. 10-11. R v.2; 1 COR 3:9-11. 16-17; MT 16:13-19]
Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, the mother Church of our archdiocese. The first reading from the first book of Kings recounts the Ark of the Covenant being brought to the New Temple initiated by King David and completed by King Solomon. “In the presence of the whole assembly of Israel, Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord and, stretching out his hands towards heaven”, Solomon said the Prayer of Dedication. This same prayer is also ours today, when we celebrate the anniversary of the Dedication of this Cathedral. It is good for us to pay attention to the Dedication Prayer of Solomon so that we have the right perspective in celebrating the Dedication of the Cathedral.
Solomon began by acknowledging the generosity and mercy of God to the people of Israel. Indeed, “not in heaven above nor on earth beneath is there such a God as you, true to your covenant and your kindness towards your servants when they walk wholeheartedly in your way.” The need to praise God and thank Him arises from our consciousness of God’s love and mercy in our life. It is therefore natural for us to feel grateful to Him and our desire to proclaim together with the community, the graciousness of God. As human beings we too need to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to those who have helped us, especially in our moments of distress. What more when we have received God’s help, just as King David and Solomon who knew that the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah could only be possible with God’s grace.
The question is as Solomon asked, “Yet will God really live with men on the earth? Why, the heavens and their own heavens cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built!” Truly, we know that the whole creation belongs to God. “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” (Isa 66:1f) In the Eucharistic celebration, at the end of the Preface, we say, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are filled with your glory.” Clearly, no place can contain the fullness of God. We must therefore be careful that we do not demarcate the Sacred so completely from the secular. The moment we allow this dichotomy to happen, as what secularization wants us to do, to “bracket” God from the daily and public life of our people and restrict God to the Temple and Church, this is where God will eventually be forgotten and no longer present in the lives of our people. This is the strategy of secularization to destroy the influence of religion in society and also gradually to make religion irrelevant in the lives of our people.
This explains the reservation of God when King David wanted to build a Temple for the Lord. “Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?'” (2 Sm 7:5-7) Instead, God said to King David, “the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Sm 7:11-13) King Solomon took this prophecy literally and presumed that he was the one who would complete the House for the Lord. (1 Kg 8:17-19) But on the theological level, God was preparing a House that would last forever, which would be established in His Son, the Messiah, Our Lord Jesus Christ whose dynasty would last forever. But more importantly, with His incarnation, God now lives not just in the Temple but in us!
Thus, the real Temple is not the building per se but the Christian Community that gathers together to worship God, and as individuals wherever we are. This is what St Paul reiterates in the second reading. “You are God’s building.” So as a community, the Ecclesia, which means Church, we are God’s building. St Peter said the same thing. “As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pt 2:4f) We are therefore the living stones of the Temple of God. We make up the Church. Even if we have no building and we are in the open fields when we have the celebration of the Eucharist, there the Church is even more visibly present.
As individuals, we are God’s temple because God lives in us through the Holy Spirit by virtue of our baptism. St Paul said, “Didn’t you realise that you were God’s temple and that the Spirit of God was living among you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred; and you are that temple.” We are called to be the presence of Jesus wherever we are. We who are baptized in Christ are members of His body and so we are called to be the extension of Jesus wherever we are. People must recognize in us the presence of God in our words and actions. Otherwise, we would have failed as members of Christ’ body, bringing disgrace and ill-repute to the Church because of the scandals we commit. Instead of being living stones, we become obstacles of grace.
Consequently, if we are to be truly the living stones of the Church, we must, as St Paul reminds us, go back to our foundation, which is Christ. St Paul wrote, “By the grace God gave me, I succeeded as an architect and laid the foundations, on which someone else is doing the building. Everyone doing the building must work carefully. For the foundation, nobody can lay other than the one which had already been laid, that is Jesus Christ.” If we are to be living stones, then we must come to the cornerstone. Again, St Peter, citing from the scripture, says, “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for.” (1 Pt 2:6-8 cf Isa 28:16, Ps 118:22; Isa 8:14)
In the gospel, Jesus reminded us that the Church of Christ is built on St Peter, not so much on the person himself but on His living faith in Christ as the Son of the Living God, as revealed by God to His appointed vicar. Jesus said to Peter, “Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.” We, too, must arrive at the same confession of faith from our hearts so that we can make Peter’s confession of faith on our behalf our own. Without this confession of faith in Christ, a personal response to Christ, we will remain as dead stones without life, without love and without faith.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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