Our Attitude to the House of God

 

The functionaries should function prayerfully.

Reflection on Today’s Readings, Friday of 33rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, and the Memorial of St. Andrew Dung-lac and his companions, Nov. 24th, 2023
Texts: 1 Maccabees 4: 36-37.52-59; Psalm 1 Chronicles 29: 10-12; Luke 19:45-4

Today’s readings question our attitude to the house of God. How do we see the house of God? Is it a home of fashion and display of beauty and body shapes? What is Church to you? Perhaps, it is just a social club. It could just be a place to perform some functions. It could be a market place for traders? Some of us could see it as a place to meet both old and new friends; it is a place to make connections. Jesus Christ tells us, today, that the house of God is not of the aforementioned. He says, “My house shall be a house of prayer”. 

When we come to the Church we should bear it in mind that we have come to pray. Put differently, we have come to listen to God and speak with Him. Our business is with God, not man, therefore we should drop the desire to impress man. Our goal should be to impress God, to be pleasing to Him. Hence, our dressing attitude should be that of modesty, not that of fashion show. The functionaries should function prayerfully; the traders should offer their businesses and anxiety to God in prayer. Traders are not to turn the house of God to a market place.  

Who are we in the Church?

The Church is not a place we come and steal, for Jesus accused the people thus: “you have made it a den of robbers." They turned it to den of robbers by abusing their right to take what does not belong to them. This leads to the question: who are we in the Church? Should we be surprised that some of us are robbers and liars? We are to be the children of God, not children of the devil. I believe some of us are children of God. Robbers and liars are children of devil.

We are to have right attitude towards the house of God; we are to make it a place conducive for prayer. Jesus Christ cleared the temple to make it fit for prayer. In today’s first reading, Judas and his brothers cleansed the sanctuary and dedicated it. They removed the reproach of the Gentiles. The reproach is the abuse and desecration of the Temple. We should not be like the Gentiles, abusing and desecrating the house of God.  

Church surrounding needs silence. We should maintain silence in and around the Church. Church is not a place to make noise. We should  also have reverential attitude towards the house of God, for He is present there. The reverence is to Him. 

The memorial of St. Andrew Dung-lac and his companions

Today is also the memorial of St. Andrew Dung-lac and his companions. They were martyrs of Vietnam.  “By nationality, there were 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spanish and 10 French. By status, there were 8 bishops, 50 priests, and 59 laymen and women. By mode of death, 75 were beheaded, 22 strangled, 6 burned alive, 5 torn to pieces while still alive, and 9 died of torture in prison” (Universalis). They bore witness to the truth of the gospel of Christ with their lives. They challenge every member of the Church to bear witness to the truth of the gospel.  

Prayer  

O God, source and origin of all fatherhood, who kept the Martyrs Saint Andrew Dũng-Lạc and his companions faithful to the Cross of your Son, even to the shedding of their blood, grant, through their intercession, that, spreading your love among our brothers and sisters, we may be your children both in name and in truth. Amen 

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke