Mary in the Temple (XI)

The glory of that second Temple will surpass that of the first After the exile, to comfort those who were rebuilding the Temple, the Word of God was addressed to the prophet Haggai: "The Lord says, 'Take courage, all you people of the land! (...) A little while now and I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations, (...) The glory of this new Temple will surpass that of the old, ...and in this place I shall give peace, declares the Lord of hosts' (Hg 2: 4-9)". The glory promised to the second Temple, fated to disappear in 70 A.D., was thus promised to be superior to the sublime Temple of Solomon dreamed of by David, which enshrined the Ark of the Covenant with the Tables of the Law, manna and the rod of Aaron. But how could they still believe in this prophecy when all the precious gifts of God had been destroyed or lost during the exile in Babylon? Since no one could imagine that the Temple already contained, in Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, not made by man, it was only through hope in the future coming of the Messiah of Peace that the Virgin and her people could expect, in this prayerful time of the first Advent, the fulfillment of this astonishing prophecy.