In today’s readings, we are struck by the person of Saint John the Baptist and his role in announcing and warning people of the coming of the Lord, the great and terrible day.
We hear from the prophet Malachi in the first reading. The prophet Malachi closes the age of the prophets of the Old Testament. He comes after the prophet Haggai and the prophet Zechariah, who ministered between the years 520 to 518 before Christ. Saint Malachi closes the long list of prophets.He is the last, and he bridges the Old Testament to the New by handing the baton on to Saint John the Baptist.
For Saint John the Baptist will be the prophet who follows Malachi, but as
we know, he will do so within the New Covenant, within the days that this blessed earth was sanctified by the feet of our precious Saviour.
The prophet Malachi was sent by God to His people to call them back, especially the priests, the sons of Levi, to faithful observance of the covenant. He condemns in particular defective sacrifices, in other words, giving God our leftovers instead of our best. He rebukes the corrupt priesthood.
Ring any bells? And he reasserts God’s holiness in a world that tried to void itself of any connection to the authority of God and to His holiness. This is why Malachi speaks so forcefully about refining and purification.
In today’s reading, let us go into it a little bit. God is speaking through Malachi and He starts off by saying: “Thus says the Lord GOD: Lo, I am sending My messenger to prepare the way before Me; and suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek” (Mal 3:1).
Let us stop there for a moment. Do we not find it interesting that the Lord God is saying that the Lord Himself will be coming to the temple? A Jew of that day might have asked, “Is He not already in the temple?” We know that in the vision of Ezekiel, a former prophet prior to Malachi, God had left the temple because of its corruption. Yet God promised Ezekiel that He would return from the same direction through which He had left, through the eastern gate. He would come from the east and enter through the eastern gate.
Of course, the Lord on Palm Sunday, and in fact every day of Holy Week leading up to Holy Thursday, goes back and forth from Jerusalem to Bethany and from Bethany to Jerusalem. Bethany lies to the east of Jerusalem. He comes riding victoriously, the Son of David, on the foal of a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah: “Behold, your king comes to you… riding on a donkey” (Zec 9:9). He comes from the east, and He comes to purify the temple. He comes to sanctify.
Further down in the reading from Malachi today, we hear what this Lord who returns to the temple will do: “He will sit refining and purifying silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver, that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD” (Mal 3:3).
In God’s infinite mind and infinite ways, His words are so profound that only in our own day are we able to appreciate more fully what He was prophesying. This refining and purifying would not be accomplished through wars, battles, bloodshed, swords, spears, or armies, but through the grace of the Holy Spirit, Who chisels away at our souls and purifies us.
Yes, the Lord returns to the temple, and He cleanses it and purifies it. But more than the temple, He wants to purify the sons of Levi. He wants to purify us priests. He wants to purify all of you who are the faithful of God, who share in Jesus’ priesthood. Did you not know, says Saint Peter, that you are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pt 2:9)? To you, the layperson listening right now, you too are a priest. What is the basic definition of a priest? One who offers sacrifice.
Every time you bite your tongue so as not to gossip, when you restrain yourself in moments of anger, when you close your eyes so as not to sin through lust, you are offering sacrifice out of love and reverence for God. In that moment, you are acting as a priest in the eyes of God, perhaps more beautifully than any ministerial priest who has lost his way and causes scandal. Pray for us, the priests chosen by God to serve you, to be His faithful ministers.
At the end of the reading from Malachi today, we hear the Lord promise: “Lo, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the day of the LORD comes, the great and terrible day, to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers” (Mal 3:23–24).
Saint John the Baptist would have known this prophecy. He now embodies and personifies the prophet Elijah, proclaiming that the day of the Lord is suddenly in their midst. In today’s Gospel, we hear how people were astounded at all that surrounded John’s birth, and they asked: “What then will this child be?” (Lk 1:66), for surely the hand of the Lord was with him.
He will be the voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths” (cf. Is 40:3; Lk 3:4). Flatten the mountains. Fill in the valleys. Make the way straight, because He wants to come to you. He wants to knock at the door of your heart. Do not impede Him. Do not lock Him out.
Through the intercession of Saint John the Baptist and Our Blessed Mother, the Queen of Heaven, whom he reverenced, served, and loved, may Almighty God bless you. Open your heart to hear the cries of the prophets: the Lord has come to set you free.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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