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Breakfast With the Word Friday 33rd Week Ordinary Time Year B
Clean-up literally is the act of keeping our environment tidy and clean. When we do a clean-up, we become neat and sparkling. It is also the act of restoring order and sanity or making a place neater in appearance.
In the seminary, this is known as an inspection. We conduct this almost every Saturday of the week. During this exercise, the students wash the hostels, remove cobwebs and decorate their beds with white bedsheets. Some will even spray perfume in the hostels to make it smell good and look awesome. Every person will make sure not to keep anything that will make them not to be among the best.
In today’s gospel, Jesus takes this clean-up exercise to the temple to wipe out anything that debars the people from worshipping God.
A Little Understanding
In today’s gospel, as Jesus enters into the temple, He sees the people busy buying and selling. He drives them out and says that the house of God shall be a house of prayer but now they turn it into a den of bandits.
The gist here is that during every great feast, people from different cultures and countries throng the city of Jerusalem. Some of them see this as an opportunity to buy and sell and exchange foreign currencies.
Sometimes the Jewish leaders and the merchants use this opportunity to deceive visitors to purchase sacrificial animals in exchange for high currencies. Sometimes it goes twenty times more expensive than the normal price.
The major problem is that these merchants operate in the area where the gentiles could come and pray known as the outer court of the temple. But they turn it into a market place and a dishonest one indeed, thereby preventing others who truly come to pray. Then, comes Jesus who sees that this is not right and hence, drives them out.
Start the Clean-up
When Jesus sees that something is preventing the people from worshipping God, he has to begin a clean-up to make the house of God remain what it is.
Beloved it is also time to clean up anything that stands between us and God. What is truly drawing us away from God? Who is the person making you keep wounding the heart of Jesus? What is that thing that makes us weak in prayer? This is a time to tidy up and do a thorough clean-up.
This is the time for clean up.
As we decorate the outside, let us also remember that our inside needs be cleaned up. It is time to allow God to take a proper place in our lives. It id time to confess our sins and amend our lives. This the time to clean up our mess, and invite Jesus to take total control of our lives. It is time for clean up.
Secondly, What is still keeping you worrying and bitter about your life? Sometimes when you remember the past, you become depressed and sad.
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Is there any person that wronged you and you find it hard to forgive? Remember this is making you not to be free and receive God’s grace. The best is to do a thorough clean-up and become free again.
This is the time to clean up the spirit of unforgiveness, bitterness, envy, jealousy, family disintegration, hatred, wickedness, desire for immorality, weakness in prayer etc.
We need to clean
We need to clean our lives again. It is time to wipe out whatever that is drawing us away from God, keeping us away from the Holy Communion, making you sad and distressed etc.
It is time to clean up whatever that is bringing problems and disunity in your family. We have to wipe out the debris in our relationships, places of work, families, etc.
It is time to keep our lives away from being polluted again.
Finally, Like Jesus, let us not close our eyes and allow things to go wrong. Always be the one to correct and make things right.
We have wandered so much in the dirt. Many families have wandered in disunity and hatred for twenty years or more. Some are still in enmity. We have been away from God for many years.
It is time to come back and do a thorough clean-up. Whatever that is preventing us from a true relationship with God needs total clean-up. It is time.
May God help us to be always clean. May our house be a house of communion with Him and may He continue to bless you. Amen.
You may read
Fifteen Points to Consider about What God has given to You
Reasons to Pray and Not Lose Heart
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