Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr | USCCB
In our gospel today we see
the righteous anger of Jesus towards those buying and selling things in the
temple area. These were people that were ignoring the fact that they were on
sacred ground and should be focusing on the praise and worship of God. They
were more interested in making a profit at the expense of the temple while
ignoring the fact that they should be focusing on God and His presence there.
What are our intentions as we
enter church each time we come for Mass or prayer? Is it for true worship of
God, or are we more concerned about other things in our lives? It’s good to
bring our cares and concerns to place at the foot of the altar for the Lord to
help us through whatever difficulties we may be facing. But we need to remember
that we are at church also for the worship and praise of God. Are these distractions
from outside taking our attention away from God? Are we making them to be more
important than our praise of God? We need to remember that once we enter church
we are on sacred ground and are in the presence of our creator.
As we enter church, we need
to be ready to place our minds and attention on worshiping God. We need to take
time to quiet our minds from all distractions from outside that may take our
attention away from Him who loves us. We need be still in the presence of God
and prepare for our encounter with him through the reading of scripture and in
Holy Communion. Silent prayer and reflection on the scripture that is to be
read at mass is a good way to get us into the right frame of mind in worshiping
God.
Each time we enter church,
let us reflect on Psalm 46, verse 11, Be
still and know that I am God!
From Arlene B. Muller
ReplyDeleteIf my recollection is correct, the activities of the "moneychangers in the Temple" initiated with trying to ensure that nothing "unclean" would enter GOD'S house but eventually turned into the very opposite of the original intent by allowing greed & the "profit motive" to take over & even get so bad that not only did they turn GOD'S house in the marketplace but they also cheated & took unfair advantage of people who were poor.
The initial purpose was to ensure that no secular money that honored a secular pagan ruler would enter the Temple, so ordinary coins would be exchanged for Temple coins. But that turned into a means for greed, the profit motive & cheating. So the sinful "world system" that entered the Temple wound up being much worse than allowing secular coins.
Also, the animals offered as sacrifice to GOD were supposed to be perfect & without blemish, according to Jewish law so they started exchanging imperfect animals for perfect & unblemished animals for a fee. This also turned into finding ways to be greedy, to make a profit, to lie, to cheat. & especially to defraud innocent & vulnerable poor people!
Turning a Holy place into a marketplace, greed & dishonesty, & harming the vulnerable poor: all reasons to make Our LORD justifiably angry!
So in the Church we have to be very careful to keep our lives, motives & behavior pure. In the world we will probably always need to deal with money, expenses, raising funds to support good programs, maintain the church in good repair, etc. but we must always keep the MAIN thing, namely, loving, praising, worshipping & serving GOD and rendering loving service to people, especially the poor & most vulnerable--the MAIN THING!
As Church and as individual members of the Mystical Body of CHRIST we need to ensure that we bring our faith & the Church into the world, but as we live in the world we need to find the way, with the help of GOD'S grace, GOD'S Word, the teaching of the Church, the Mass & the sacraments, to be "IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF THE WORLD" & to try to prevent what is not godly in the world from getting into the Church as a whole & into us as individual members.