Catholic Commentary
The Army Ascends to a Desecrated Sanctuary
36But Judas and his kindred said, “Behold, our enemies are defeated. Let’s go up to cleanse the holy place and to rededicate it.”37All the army was gathered together, and they went up to mount Zion.38They saw the sanctuary laid desolate, the altar profaned, the gates burned up, shrubs growing in the courts as in a forest or as on one of the mountains, and the priests’ chambers pulled down;39and they tore their clothes, made great lamentation, put ashes upon their heads,40fell on their faces to the ground, blew with the solemn trumpets, and cried toward heaven.
1 Maccabees 4:36–40 describes Judas Maccabeus and his army ascending Mount Zion after defeating their enemies to cleanse and rededicate the desecrated sanctuary. Upon witnessing the Temple's desolation—the profaned altar, burned gates, overgrown courts, and ruined priests' chambers—the soldiers perform a structured liturgy of corporate mourning including tearing garments, lamentation, ashes, prostration, trumpet blasts, and prayers to heaven.
Before restoration comes lamentation — Judas halts his victorious army at the ruined Temple not to rebuild, but to grieve with their whole bodies what has been desecrated.
Commentary
1 Maccabees 4:36 — The Transition from Warfare to Worship The shift in verse 36 is striking and deliberate. Judas does not pause to celebrate military victory; he immediately reorients his army toward the sanctuary. The phrase "our enemies are defeated" is spoken not as triumphalism but as a threshold statement — the obstacle has been removed, and now the true goal is revealed. The verb "cleanse" (Greek: katharisai) and "rededicate" (Greek: enkainisai, to renew or inaugurate) are liturgical, not military, terms. This signals that the entire campaign was never merely political; its telos was always the restoration of right worship. Judas speaks with both authority and piety — he leads not as a king claiming a capital, but as a servant of God reclaiming a sanctuary.
1 Maccabees 4:37 — The Corporate Ascent The whole army gathers and goes up together. The language of ascent (anebēsan) is intentionally evocative of the pilgrim tradition — the aliyah of the Psalms of Ascent (Pss 120–134), wherein Israel "goes up" to Jerusalem in worship. These battle-hardened soldiers, still bearing the marks of combat, become pilgrims. Mount Zion is named explicitly, grounding this moment in Israel's deepest theological geography: the mountain chosen by God, the site of David's city, the place of the divine dwelling.
1 Maccabees 4:38 — A Catalog of Desolation The author lingers in verse 38 with painful specificity — this is not vague ruin but a precise inventory of desecration. Each element corresponds to something sacred: the altar (the heart of sacrifice and covenant worship) is "profaned"; the gates (the thresholds of holiness) are "burned"; the courts (where Israel encountered God) are "overgrown with shrubs as in a forest or as on one of the mountains." That last image is theologically loaded: the courts of God's house have reverted to the wild, unconsecrated state of a pagan hilltop. The priests' chambers — the dwelling places of those consecrated to God's service — lie in ruins. The sanctuary has been not merely damaged but de-sanctified, returned to chaos. The author echoes the desolation language of Lamentations and Ezekiel's vision of divine glory departing from the Temple (Ezek 10–11).
Verses 39–40 — The Liturgy of Lamentation What happens next is not reconstruction — it is mourning. The sequence is precise and liturgically structured: (1) tearing of garments (dierēxan ta himatia autōn), the ancient Israelite gesture of grief at catastrophe or blasphemy (cf. Gen 37:29; 2 Kgs 19:1); (2) great lamentation; (3) ashes on the head, the posture of penitence and identification with dust and death; (4) prostration on the ground (epesan epi prosōpon autōn), complete self-abasement before God; (5) blowing of the solemn trumpets, which according to Numbers 10:9–10 was prescribed for times of distress and solemn assemblies; and (6) crying toward heaven. This sixfold movement constitutes a complete act of corporate liturgical prayer — not improvised emotion but a disciplined, tradition-formed response to catastrophe. Crucially, they cry toward heaven, not toward political powers or military commanders. The desecration of the sanctuary is, at its deepest level, a wound that only God can heal.
Catholic Commentary
From a Catholic perspective, this passage illuminates several interlocking theological truths.
The Temple as Type of the Church and the Eucharist. The Church Fathers, particularly Origen and St. John Chrysostom, read the Jerusalem Temple as a figure (typos) of the Church, and more specifically of the Eucharistic altar around which the Church gathers. Origen writes that the true Temple is the interior life of the soul, while the ecclesial community constitutes the "living temple" (cf. 1 Cor 3:16–17). When Catholics read of the altar's profanation, they are invited to reflect on what constitutes the desecration of the sacred in their own time — both literally (sacrilege against the Blessed Sacrament) and spiritually (the corruption of conscience, which the Catechism calls "the most secret core and sanctuary" of the human person, CCC §1776).
Lamentation as a Theological Act. Catholic tradition, rooted in the Psalms, the prophets, and the example of Christ himself (who wept over Jerusalem in Lk 19:41), holds lamentation to be a legitimate and even necessary form of prayer. The Catechism affirms that "lamentation is one of the forms of prayer in the Old Testament," opening the soul to God's mercy (CCC §2585–2589). The warriors' refusal to begin rebuilding before they have wept is a profound spiritual pedagogy: restoration without lamentation risks being merely structural, not spiritual.
Desecration and the Call to Holiness. The Second Vatican Council, in Sacrosanctum Concilium §2, teaches that the liturgy is "the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed." When worship is desecrated or diminished, the whole people of God is wounded at its center. Judas's grief is the grief of a people who understand that the altar is not incidental to their identity — it is constitutive of it. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 81) that religio — the virtue of giving God what is properly due — is a matter of justice. The desolation of the Temple is, therefore, a violation of justice toward God himself.
For Today
Contemporary Catholics live in an era marked by the desecration of sacred things — whether in the form of church vandalism, eucharistic sacrilege, or the subtler but equally real erosion of reverence in liturgical life. This passage invites a specific and demanding response: before we strategize, renovate, or reorganize, we must first mourn. The warriors of Judas did not immediately convene a building committee; they tore their garments and fell on their faces.
For Catholics today, this might mean: sitting in honest grief before God about the state of one's parish, one's family faith life, or one's own interior "sanctuary" that has grown overgrown through neglect or sin. The ashes on the head are not despair — they are the honest acknowledgment of ruin that precedes genuine renewal. Ash Wednesday carries exactly this charge. Judas's army also cried together, reminding us that lamentation is not only private but communal and corporate. Catholic prayer, especially the Liturgy of the Hours with its penitential psalms, is a school for this kind of disciplined, communal grief that refuses false consolation and trusts only in heaven's response.
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