THE WORD BECAME FLESH

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time 

Sir 42:15-25

Ps 149

Mark 11:11-26

Don’t Loose your purpose

This morning’s gospel reading (Mk 11:11-26) is one of the most dramatic scenes in the gospels. The actions of Jesus in the Temple, the most sacred space for Jews, reveal his deep displeasure at how the Temple is being run and at what is going on there. The temple was intended to be a ‘house of prayer for all the peoples’ and, instead, it had become a ‘robber’s den’. The buying and selling that went on in the precincts of the Temple, which made a lot of people wealthy, had become more important that the original purpose of the Temple, which was to provide a space to worship God. The true focus of the Temple should have been God; instead, it had become something much less than God. The Temple was like the barren fig tree that had ceased to bear fruit. 

It is not surprising that immediately after his actions in the Temple Jesus speaks to his disciples about prayer. Jesus was reminding his disciples that, even if the Temple, the primary place of prayer, was beyond redemption, prayer must remain central to their lives, especially the prayer of petition, ‘everything you ask and pray for...’. Jesus goes on to tell his disciples, and all of us, that our prayer, which expresses our relationship with God, has implications for our relationship with others. 

Jesus says that whenever we pray we must forgive whatever we have against anybody. As we open ourselves to God in prayer, we must, at the same time, open ourselves to others in love and mercy. Only then will our prayer be acceptable to God.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, increase my faith and make me fruitful and effective in serving you and bringing you honor and glory in all that I do. Amen.

+Remain blessed