THEOSISBeda Venerabilis
It is noted that those who traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem remained there for three days before presenting to the house of the Lord the silver, gold, and vessels they had brought. This three-day period in Jerusalem symbolizes the essential virtues of faith, hope, and love that every believer should embody. First, these virtues should be demonstrated by the teachers, and subsequently, those who are instructed in these virtues should be presented to the forebears who came before them in Christ for affirmation. When the holy Church observes that those we enlighten have been tested in both their faith and actions, it is akin to how the priests assess the vessels offered in the temple, determining that these vessels are of pure material and exact weight.
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The elect engage in daily reflection upon the lives of the faithful, extending beyond our Church to reach its culmination in the heavenly Jerusalem for those permitted entry. In this earthly life, it is comparable to how the holy teachers pause for three days in Jerusalem and, on the fourth, offer the priests the silver and gold they have brought, demonstrating steadfastness in faith, elevated in hope, and fervent in love. They present their listeners as radiant, like refined silver, through a confession of true faith, and as gleaming, like choice gold, manifesting the clarity of unblemished understanding, filled, like vessels dedicated to the Lord, with the gifts of the Spirit. When the heavenly homeland rewards these teachers for their faith, hope, and love, and subsequently for those they have taught, it resembles the joy felt after the three days' wait in Jerusalem, followed by the honors received for the gifts they presented and the treasured vessels deemed acceptable to God.