Dwelling Place
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March 1, 2021A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John
Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
“Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
“What sign can you show us for doing this?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews said,
“This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?”
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture
and the word Jesus had spoken.
While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
many began to believe in his name
when they saw the signs he was doing.
But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all,
and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.
He himself understood it well.I love that we as Catholics are a liturgical people. Our lives follow the flow of our worship because the Lord knows what we need and when we need it. He created the human heart; He knows how to fill it. Lent focuses on our growing closer to Jesus, the One we need the most. In the Cleansing of the Temple in this upcoming Sunday’s Gospel, however, Jesus takes the whip into His Own Hands.
This is a side of Jesus that no one really talks about, a Jesus consumed by holy anger at the treatment of His Father’s House, His dwelling place. Jesus is not an attacker; He is a fierce Defender. And what is this temple He longs to cleanse, defend, and protect? It’s us. We are all members of Christ’s body and therefore Jesus dwells in the temple of our hearts. We are His place of rest, but often our hearts are so full of the wrong things that we grasp at instead of embracing Him.
Lent is the quintessential “spring cleaning” our souls desperately need. We humans are pack rats. Name it, we’ve got it: grudges, shame, pride, bad habits, doubt, emotions left unchecked. Our hearts resemble more a packed garage than a temple. Let’s be real: we claim things that we know should never be ours and we grasp at them. We treat the temples of our hearts poorly instead of the gifts that they are.
The things we grasp at distract us from an authentic relationship with Jesus and from the epic lives we were born to live. And the thing that makes no sense is that we cling to these distractions like we are scared to have them taken away from us. We do this because we either do not know any other way or would rather be full of junk and busy than empty and still. We see empty as quiet, barren, lacking— and that scares us.
Jesus sees empty as full of promise and possibility. Anything can be born in a space like this. And how can any space that has Him be lacking?
Our God is the God of freedom. He longs to free us from our junk and fill us with His very self. Why? Because He loves us. Jesus is active in His pursuit of us. We must never forget that. That was the whole point of Him becoming one of us, to show that there was NOTHING He would not do to bring us back into relationship with Him.
Jesus came so that we “might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He wants us to live lives that are full, full in our love, full in our joy, full in our worship, full in our answering pursuit of Him. He just wants to be the One doing the filling.
In this Gospel Jesus is fighting for you. Are you fighting for Him?
Ask yourself this week: What is cluttering the temple area of my heart? Are these things bringing me closer to Jesus or separating me from Him?Is there anything taking up the space where our Lord so longs to dwell? Why am I hanging on to these things? What is my hope for this Lent?
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About the Author: Megan Ourso is a cradle Catholic who fell in love with her faith while attending SLU thanks to the Catholic Student Association at St. Albert the Great. She attends St. Margaret Queen of Scotland where she serves as a lector, PSR writer, and youth group core team member. She is the oldest of three daughters and the mom of her friend group. She is an avid reader and a becoming-more-consistent writer, which makes her English major heart happy. She works as an appraiser in a small government office where she has to resist answering the phone with “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.” In her free time, Megan enjoys kickboxing, reading, watching Disney movies, traveling, and snuggling/annoying her pet cat, Beanie.
Coffee Order: N/A
Favorite Saint (at the moment): Mother Mary. She has so much to teach me about being a woman.
Top Three Songs You’re Listening To: “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News, “Willow” by Taylor Swift, and “Out of Body” by NeedtoBreathe.
Favorite Song from the Gather Hymnal (aka your favorite traditional church song): “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name”
The Well is a weekly reflection series from Red Stick Catholics that was created to allow young adults from the Diocese of Baton Rouge to reveal how God is speaking to them through prayer and Scripture. Each reflection contains the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel, a reflection written by a young adult from the Diocese of Baton Rouge and prompts for how to pray with the Gospel and reflection during the week. If you are interested in writing a reflection, please email Nicole at [email protected] .
