His Glory Fills the Temple
- Norine
- Feb 6, 2018
- 2 min read
When I first started praying the rosary and meditating on the daily mysteries several years ago, I was always confused and sad at the Wednesday and Sunday meditation of the Ascension. How could I rejoice that Jesus went back to Heaven and left us? How could the Apostles have rejoiced? I have plenty of wounds in my heart of being abandoned or having someone threaten to leave, so the idea of Jesus leaving wasn’t something I found glorious.
It was literally only last week that I prayed that mystery and finally said, “Yes, Lord, it was better for us that you had gone (John 16:7)!” The Lord has healed many of the wounds of my heart and now I’m able to see a little more clearly. And it hit home to me that a human Jesus remaining on earth is not one every person on earth had the ability to encounter.
As we hear Mark’s Gospel proclaimed, we see over and over how the people spotted the incarnate Jesus and clamored to have a piece of Him. They were grabbing His clothes, hoping He would heal them, mobbing Him so much that he and His Apostles couldn’t eat. This story plays out again in today’s Gospel (Mark 6:53-56) when people see Jesus coming out of a boat.
A human Jesus is not very accessible. And the Lord who says, “I will never forsake you (Hebrews 13:5),” left to be closer than He ever was before. This morning, I got to the chapel and marveled, “Jesus, you ascended into Heaven and left us in human form so you could multiply yourself in bread. And now everyone has the potential to touch and encounter you.” Hasn’t He “done all things well (Mark 7:37)”?
In the first reading (1 Kings 8:1-7, 9-13), King Solomon has finished the Temple and has the priests carry the Ark inside. And God reveals His intent to remain in the Temple among them by enveloping them in a thick cloud. It was so exciting! What did King Solomon and the priests think to see the cloud, just as Moses had seen on Horeb?
I got to Mass and considered how Jesus is present in the Tabernacle. Is there an unseen cloud enveloping us? And then I received Jesus in the Eucharist and wondered whether my body, soul and spirit were enveloped in cloud. “The glory of the Lord filled the temple (1 Kings 8:11).” And I am His temple.
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