GOSPEL: LK 19:45-48
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JESUS entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And every day he was teaching in the temple area. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death, but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.
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Pope Francis comments on Jesus’ cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem, which he does “with whip in hand.” Jesus drives out “pagan ways, in this case the behavior of the traders who were buying and selling.” He declares, “It is written: My house shall be called a house of prayer” and “not anything else.” “The temple is a holy place. And we should enter into its holiness to worship; not for anything else.”
In addition, continues the Pope, “St. Paul tells us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit: I am a temple, the spirit of God is in me.” So, we can speak of a “kind of worship which is the heart seeking the spirit of the Lord within itself. And the heart knows that God is within it, the Holy Spirit is within it. The heart listens and follows that Spirit.” Thus, Francis asserts that we “must constantly cleanse ourselves because we are sinners: Cleanse ourselves by prayer, by penance, by the sacrament of reconciliation, by the Eucharist.”
On both temples, we need an attitude of devotion “that worships and listens, that prays and asks forgiveness, that praises the Lord.”
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SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord 2020,” ST. PAULS Philippines, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
