Rending of the Veil of the Temple
by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D., Litt.D.
  Our Blessed Lord had
called His Body the Temple because the Fullness of Divinity
dwelt in it. The
Earthly Temple
of
Jerusalem was only a
Symbol
of Himself. In
that Temple of
Stone there were Three (3) Great Divisions. Beyond the
Court of Entrance (Vestibule)
was a place that was called "Holy",
and beyond it a place more secret still, which was called "the Holy of Holies". The
Court
was separated from the
Holy Place
by a Veil, and a
Great Veil also divided the
Holy
Place from the
Holy of Holies.
 The very
Moment that Our Blessed Lord Willed His
Death:
At that Moment the
Curtain of the Temple
was Torn in two from Top to Bottom. [Matthew 27:51]
The very fact that it was Torn from Top-to-Bottom was to indicate that it
was not done by the Hand
of Man, but by the Miraculous Hand
of God Himself,
Who had Ordained that, as-long-as the
Old
Law should Endure, the Veil should hang-before the
Holy of Holies. Now
He
Decreed that it
should be Torn Asunder at His
Death. That which of
Old was
Sacred,
now remained Opened and
Manifest before their Eyes,
uncovered like any Common and Ordinary Thing, while before them on Calvary,
as a Soldier Pierced His Heart, was
Revealed
 the New Holy of Holies containing the Ark of the New Testament and the Treasures of God. The
Death of Christ
was the Deconsecration of the
Earthly Temple,
for He would
Raise-up the New Temple in
Three (3) Days. [Nota Bene: Forty
(40) Years after Christ's Death, God Completely
Destroyed the Earthly Temple in Jerusalem which
was never Rebuilt.] Only
One (1)
Man, Once
(1) a Year, could enter into that
Old Holy
of
Holies; now that the Veil
was Rent, which
Separated
Holiness from the People, and
Separated
the Jew from the
Gentile,
both would
have Access-to the
New Temple, Christ the Lord.
 There is an Intrinsic
Connection between the Soldier
piercing the Heart
of Christ
on the Cross, which drew forth  Blood
and Water, and the Rending of the
Veil
of the Temple. Two
(2) Veils
were Rent:
One
(1),
the Purple Veil of the
Temple which did away with the
Old
Law; the Other, the
Veil of His Flesh
which Opened the Holy
of Holies
of
Divine Love Tabernacled among us. In both
instances, what was Holy was made
Manifest; One (1), the Holy of Holies, which had been
only a
Figure; the Other, the
True
Holy of Holies, His Sacred Heart,
which Opened-to the Guilty
Access-to God. The
Veil in the
Ancient
Temple signified that Heaven was
Closed to all, until the High Priest sent by
the Father would
Rend
the Veil and Open its Gates to all.
Saint Paul told how the
High Priest of
Old, only Once a Year,
and then not without an Offering of Blood for his own Faults
and those of the People, was Permitted to enter the Holy of Holies.
The Epistle to the Hebrews explains this
Mystery:
By this the Holy Spirit signifies that so long
as the Earlier Tent still stands, the Way into the Sanctuary remains Unrevealed. All this
is Symbolic, pointing to the Present Time. The Offerings and Sacrifices there
Prescribed
cannot give the Worshipper Inward Perfection. It is only a Matter of Food and
Drink and
various Rites of Cleansing ------ Outward Ordinances in force until the Time of
Reformation.
But now Christ has come, High Priest of
Good
Things already in Being. The Tent of His Priesthood is a Greater and more Perfect
One, not
made by Men's Hands, that is, not Belonging to this Created World; the Blood of His
Sacrifice is His Own Blood, not the Blood of Goats and Calves; and thus He has
Entered the Sanctuary once and for all, and secured an Eternal Deliverance. [Hebrews
9:1-12]
Then, comparing the Veil
of the Flesh and the
Veil-of-the-Temple, the
Epistle
adds:
The Blood of Jesus makes us Free to
Enter Boldly
into the Sanctuary by the New, Living Way which He has Opened for us Through
the Curtain,
the Way of His Flesh. [Hebrews 10:19, 20]
A
Thousand Years before, David, looking forward to the Messiah, wrote:
If Thou hadst asked for Whole-Offering and
Sin-Offering
I would have said, Here I am.
My desire is to do Thy Will, O God,
and Thy Law is in my Heart.
In the Great Assembly I have Proclaimed what is Right,
I do not Hold Back my Words,
as Thou Knowest, O Lord. [Psalm 39: 7-10]
As the Psalmist looked back on the
Sacrifices
of Slain Beasts, the Burnt Offerings to attain
Divine Favor,
and the Sin
Offerings to make Reparation for
Wrong, his
Mind dwelt upon them, only to
Cast them Aside. For he well knew that these Slaughtered
Bulls, Goats, and Sheep could not
really affect Man's Relationship with God. He saw in a Future Day, God
having His Divinity
Enshrined-in a Human Body as
in a Temple, and coming with only One (1) Purpose, namely, to Surrender
His Life in accordance with the Divine Will. David Proclaimed that the Divine
Incarnation would be the Perfection
of the Sacrifices and the
Priesthood
of the Jewish Law. Now the
Figure was
Fulfilled as the Spotless Lamb of God offered Himself to His
Heavenly Father. The Old Promise made to
Israel
in Egypt
still Held-good and could be Claimed, in
a Higher Sense, by all who Invoked the Blood Poured-out on the Cross:
As for you, the Blood will be a Sign on the
Houses in which you are: when I see the Blood I will Pass Over you; the Mortal
Blow shall
not Touch you, when I strike the Land of Egypt. [Exodus 13:1
3]
Levi's House of Priesthood was now
Dismissed. The Order of Melchizadek became the
Law in the
House of Levi.
The "No Admittance"
Sign before the Holy
of Holies of the
Earthly Temple was Removed. When Christ
came into the World to be the Fulfillment of the Order
of
Melchizadek, the House
of Levi denied Him welcome. In fact,
Levi had
Exacted Tithes of Him just a
Few Weeks before His
Death in demanding Temple Taxes. But, as the
Veil of the
Temple was Torn, the Priesthood
of Melchizadek came into its Own,
and with it the True
Holy of Holies, the True Ark of the New Covenant, the
True Bread of
Life ------ the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
Abraham is greeted by the Priest Melchizadek with
Bread and Wine,
an Old Testament Foreshadowing of the Mass . . . . . .
by Pieter Pauwel Rubens - from National Gallery of Art, Washington
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