California has the fifth largest economy in the world, a prosperity that can be traced back to the gold rush of 1848. Prior to the discovery of golf, California was a barely populated territory annexed by the United States as a result of the Mexican-American War. Thousands would migrate to the area, towns founded, a transcontinental railroad built, and a new society established. The influx of the metal aided the dormant American economy and many professions, beyond that of mining, profited. The admission of California as a state, shortly thereafter, was part of the 1850 Compromise that hastened the Civil War.
All this because of gold.
Gold is the most precious, beautiful, prized, sought after, incorruptible, durable metal there is. When Solomon built the temple to God in Jerusalem in 953 BC, it was considered the most precious edifice in the world. We read that "there was nothing in the temple that was not covered with gold" (1 Kings 6:22). The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus provides this inventory: twenty thousand golden tables, a hundred thousand golden vials, eighty thousand golden dishes and twenty thousand golden censers. Only was this splendor worthy of God.
It is fitting, thus, that Mary should be called "the House of Gold." She is the most precious, highly sought after, standard-setting, durable person there is, after her son. Her soul, like gold, is refined, pure, and incorruptible (see the connection to the Assumption). The way Solomon's temple was filled with gold objects, so is Mary's soul filled with graces. The way the 49ers sacrificed everything to mine for gold, saints have labored for Mary. And the way gold led to the transformation of America, so too has Mary, the House of Gold, transformed the Church and countless souls.
