Friday, Thirty Third Week in Ordinary Time

Religious buildings can be very significant for people. Parishioners have a great love for our parish church. A lot of work is being done at the moment to conserve and restore the fabric. The most important religious building for the Jews in the time of Jesus, and before his time, was the Temple in Jerusalem. It had been profaned by the pagan rulers of Judea about 150 years before the coming of Christ. Today’s first reading is the story of the Temple’s joyful rededication after the people of Israel regained control of it from the pagans. In the gospel reading, Jesus recognizes the value of the Temple, declaring it to be a house of prayer. Perhaps that is a good description of our own parish church, a ‘house of prayer’. However, Jesus could see that the focus of the Temple was no longer prayer but various commercial activities, and, so, he drove out from the Temple all who were selling. There is a little warning there to us also. We must be careful that prayer remains the focus of our own church building and not some commercial activity, no matter how well intentioned. This building is about the work of prayer, the prayer of the liturgy, the Eucharist and other sacraments, the prayer of the church, the praying of the rosary, the private prayers of people who come into the church, often expressed through the lighting of candles. When we are entering this church, we are entering a house of prayer and the focal point of that house is the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist calling us to prayer. In this place, we open ourselves to the Lord in prayer so as to be better able to bring the Lord to those we meet when we leave this house of prayer.

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