The Cleansing

Weekly Missionary Reflection
3rd week of Lent, 03 March 2024
Exo. 20:1-17 (short Exo.. 20:1-3,7-8,12-17); Ps. 19:8,9,10,11; 1Cor. 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

“Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
(John 2:16)

Today’s Gospel reading is telling about Jesus cleansing the Temple. The Temple that should be sacred for worshipping God had been turned into a marketplace. Finding this situation, Jesus disagreed. The Temple should be treated as a holy worship place, not a marketplace. Jesus drove them out of the Temple and said that His Father’s house could not be used as a marketplace.

Jesus’ action raised a question from the Jews of His authority that supported Him from taking such action. Jesus stated that a miracle would happen at His resurrection. His body would be sacrificed to open the path of God’s presence in human life. Besides reconciling God and humans, through His death and resurrection, Jesus also fills humans with the Holy Spirit and makes humans the living Temple.

In our daily lives, especially in church lives, it is not uncommon for us to see and we even become perpetrators of polluting God’s temple. The Church which should be a place for meeting Jesus in the sincere ministry, is polluted by our lust for wealth, power, and tyranny. Through today’s Gospel, Jesus wants to strictly rebuke us. We are reminded to repent and return to the right path. Jesus invites us to do a sincere ministry without worldly interest.

In the context of Lent, today’s Gospel reminds us of the importance of cleansing our hearts and maintaining our worship place, physically and spiritually. Lent is the moment to reflect on Jesus’ life, suffering, and resurrection. Lent is the right time for introspection, scrutinizing, and cleansing our sins.

As Jesus did in the Temple, we are also reminded to keep our purity. Maintaining purity includes cleansing our hearts from sins and improper deeds against Jesus’ teaching, and also keeping our relationship with God holy and unpolluted by greed and worldly ambition. 

Lent is the right time to prepare our hearts and souls, receiving the salvation of Jesus through His death on the cross. Through reflection, repentance, and rejection of sin, we can prepare ourselves to celebrate His resurrection with clean hearts and true joy. 

Let us cleanse ourselves from sins to deserve to enter the heavenly feast with Christ. 

Our mission today: doing full confession during the Lent.

(Ignasius Lede – Commission for Mission of The Bishop’s Conference of Indonesia)

DAILY DEDICATED PRAYER

Lord, our Father, I present my today prayer, thought, word, work, joy, and sorrow in unity with Your Son, Jesus Christ, who always presents Himself in the Eucharist for the salvation of the world. May the Holy Spirit animating Jesus, also be my guidance and strength today so that I am ready to be the witness of Your love.

Together with Mary, Mother of Jesus, and the Church, in particular, I present my prayer for our Pope and apostle prayer of the Indonesian Church of this month:

Universal Church Intent: For the new martyrs 
We pray that those who risk their lives for the Gospel in various parts of the world inflame the Church with their courage and missionary enthusiasm.

Indonesian Church Intent: Family with disabled kids
We pray that parents and families with disabled kids can interpret the presence of their children as a gift and a means to realize God’s love in a special way.

Amen.