“Then 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.’” (Lk 19:45-46)
Whenever these verses of the Bible are read, my mind harkens back to when I was young, back in the Philippines. There the approaches to the churches were full of vendors selling their wares.
Whenever these verses of the Bible are read, my mind harkens back to when I was young, back in the Philippines. There the approaches to the churches were full of vendors selling their wares.
Before you were able to get into the church, you would have been asked to buy this or that product. I thought that Jesus was talking about all the commotion and the marketplace scene. But there are no such things here in America, so there must be something else. Our Church teaches us in CCC 797, “'What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church.'” “'To this Spirit of Christ, as an invisible principle, is to be ascribed the fact that all the parts of the body are joined one with the other and with their exalted head; for the whole Spirit of Christ is in the head, the whole Spirit is in the body, and the whole Spirit is in each of the members.'” The Holy Spirit makes the Church the temple of the living God."
And so if our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, it should be a temple devoted solely to prayer.
I propose that when Jesus drove all those vendors out of the temple, he was also telling us to get rid of our own marketplace attitude towards God. He was telling us to remove all evil desires, like greed, envy, malice and pride from our bodies, and from of our lives. They are the thieves that steal our peace. Instead we should use our bodies as they were designed to be used: for prayer.
In CCC 2559, we read: “'Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God' But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or 'out of the depths' of a humble and contrite heart?...'Man is a beggar before God.' Not a buyer or seller. We are not in a position to haggle with God.
In CCC 2562: “Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays.... According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.”
If in the depths of our heart, if in the house of the living God, if in the temple of the Holy Spirit, there is humble prayer, it truly becomes God's abode.
And so if our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, it should be a temple devoted solely to prayer.
I propose that when Jesus drove all those vendors out of the temple, he was also telling us to get rid of our own marketplace attitude towards God. He was telling us to remove all evil desires, like greed, envy, malice and pride from our bodies, and from of our lives. They are the thieves that steal our peace. Instead we should use our bodies as they were designed to be used: for prayer.
In CCC 2559, we read: “'Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God' But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or 'out of the depths' of a humble and contrite heart?...'Man is a beggar before God.' Not a buyer or seller. We are not in a position to haggle with God.
In CCC 2562: “Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays.... According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.”
If in the depths of our heart, if in the house of the living God, if in the temple of the Holy Spirit, there is humble prayer, it truly becomes God's abode.