🙏 SUNDAY INSIGHTS - THE 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT 🙏

First Reading - Exodus 20:1-17

Second Reading - 1 Corinthians 1:22-25 

Gospel - John 2:13-25

The story is told of a priest who was coming back to his parish house one evening in the dark only to be accosted by a robber who pulled a gun at him and demanded, “Your money or your life!” As the priest reached his hand into his coat pocket the robber saw his Roman collar and said, “So you are a priest? Then you can go.” The priest was rather surprised at this unexpected show of piety and so tried to reciprocate by offering the robber his packet of cigarettes, to which the robber replied, “No, Father, I don’t smoke during Lent.” 

Today’s readings remind us that Lent is the ideal time to clean out the Temple of our own hearts and to offer to God proper Divine worship by obeying the Ten Commandments.

Today’s first reading teaches us that the Ten Commandments are the basis of our religious and spiritual life. Instead of restricting our freedom, the Commandments really help us to love and respect our God and our neighbors. The Responsorial Psalm (Ps 19) depicts the Mosaic Law’s life-enhancing attributes: it refreshes the soul and rejoices the heart; it is pure and true, more precious than gold. 

The second reading reminds us that we must appreciate the Divine “foolishness” of the crucified Christ and obey His commandment of love as our expression of Divine worship. 

Today’s Gospel gives us the dramatic account of Jesus’ cleansing the Temple of its merchants and moneychangers, followed by a prediction of his death and Resurrection. The synoptic Gospels place the “cleansing of the Temple” immediately after Jesus’ triumphant arrival in Jerusalem on the back of a colt on Palm Sunday, while John places it at the beginning of his Gospel. Jesus cleansed the Temple which King Herod began to renovate in 20 BC. The abuses which kindled the prophetic indignation of Jesus were the conversion of God’s Temple into a “noisy marketplace” by the animal merchants and into a “hideout of thieves” by the moneychangers with their grossly unjust business practices – sacrilege in God’s Holy Place. Jesus’ reaction to this commercialized Faith was fierce. Since no weapons were allowed inside the Temple, Jesus constructed his own, a whip of cords, and used it to drive out the merchants and moneychangers from the Court of the Gentiles.

Dear friends, we need to avoid a calculating mentality in Divine worship: Our relationship with God must be that of a child to his parent, one of mutual love, respect and a desire for the family’s good, with no thought of personal loss or gain. We are not supposed to think of God as a vending machine into which we put our sacrifices and good deeds to get back His blessings. 

Let us remember that we are the temples of the Holy Spirit: St. Paul reminds us that we are God’s temples, body and soul, because the Spirit of God dwells in us. Hence, we have no right to desecrate God’s temple by impurity, injustice, pride, hatred, or jealousy. Let us be cleansed by asking God’s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

Let us love our parish Church as our “Heavenly Father’s house” and make it a holier place by our care for it, by our active participation in the liturgy, by offering our time and talents in the various ministries, and by our financial support for its maintenance and development.