A Message from Fr. Jay
Dear Friends,
The Locus operandi (the place of the event) of each week’s gospel has been shifting from one to another. In the first of week of Lent it was a desert, the second week of lent it was a mountain and this week it is the Jerusalem Temple.
Our Maintenance Manager, Jason Goss, sent me a picture he took of our Church with a serene sun-setting (that picture is on our cover page). The Temple / Church is the place of God that we give prime importance to bring the peace of God to all who enter.
The Jerusalem Temple drew God’s chosen people and gentiles from all over the world, particularly during the paschal season- the season which Jesus probably attended every year with his family. We have two reported accounts in Luke’s gospel (chapter 2): Jesus taken to the temple as a baby for the presentation and another time at the age of 12 visiting this temple. He must have observed every time(year) he visited the temple how that place increasingly become a place of trade or a den of thieves.
In the gospel, what Jesus did in the temple was a miracle. He drove them out of the temple area with a whip of cords and yet he was not killed for his actions. He established in the minds of the people that he is the true temple. The Jerusalem temple was destroyed two times in history and yet they could not bring back its original glory. But Jesus, as he promised, after his passion and death, came back in glory!
As the followers of Jesus, we also are called to be the temples of Christ. The first reading advises how we can keep our temple clean.
During this Lenten season, we symbolically try to build or clean our temple for 46 days like the Jerusalem temple took 46 years to be built. Let our efforts be effective.
God Bless,
Fr. Jay Raju
- Reading 1: Exodus 20: 1-20
- Reading 11: 1 Corinthians1:22-25
- Gospel: John 2: 13-25
