In today’s first reading from Revelation 10, St. John is told to eat a scroll. It is sweet as honey in his mouth, but then turns his stomach sour. Find out why.
In our Gospel reading from Luke 19, Jesus goes into the temple area and drives out those who were selling things, saying to them, “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” This really ticked off the chief priests, scribes and leaders of the people, so much so that they wanted him killed. But why? What was the big deal after all? Well, Jesus was simply cleaning house.
When people would travel great distances to the temple in Jerusalem, they couldn’t bring animals with them which were required for the sacrifice. So people sold them so that the folks could fulfill the requirement. Seems fair enough, right? The problem was that the leaders of the temple got a kickback from the sellers. It was a corrupt system. The leaders were getting rich and they didn’t much like their income stream being threatened by some young upstart rabbi. It’s a great reminder that there will always be corruption around, as long as there are people around. We hear occasionally about priests or church employees embezzling or other nefarious things. Pray for our leaders, and pray that God will clean up his house in every way necessary.
Father, bless the leaders of our Church, that they may follow the call to holiness as we all should. Amen.
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