HOMILY FOR FRIDAY 33RD WEEK: ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A
HOMILY FOR FRIDAY 33RD WEEK: ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A
SAINT OF THE DAY: Memorial of Saint Andrew Dung-Lac, Priest and Martyr, and Companions, Martyrs.
THEME: You have turned God’s house into a robbers’ den.
READINGS OF THE DAY
1 Maccabees 4:36-37,52-59
1 Chronicles 29:10-12
Luke 19:45-48
LITURGICAL COLOUR: RED
INTRODUCTION
Good morning dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate Friday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year A. And at the same time we commemorate the Memorial of St. Andrew Dung-Lac, Priest and Martyr, and Companions, Martyrs.
FROM OUR FIRST READING
In today’s first reading and Gospel passage, there are both references to the Temple of God in Jerusalem, that in the first reading today was marked as the moment when the forces of the faithful Jewish people, led by Judas Maccabeus, during the Maccabean Revolt, managed to win victories against the forced of the Seleucid Greeks who tried to impose Greek customs and ways on the people. The Seleucids under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes had defiled the Temple of God in Jerusalem, also known as the Second Temple, and established pagan idols and false gods on its Altar, and in that passage we heard today, we heard of the moment when the old Altar and all the defilements and corruptions were torn down and destroyed, and new Altar dedicated to God was established anew.
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FROM OUR GOSPEL READING
In the gospel reading this morning, Jesus drives all trade out of the temple, so as to purify it for the worship of God alone. The temple was to be a place of worship and prayer but it had become something else. The buying and selling of the market place had intruded into the temple and had undermined the temple’s primary purpose as a house of prayer. The temple no longer exists but there are still houses of prayer. Our church buildings are houses of prayer.
CONCLUSION
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we all feel that we have a very special house of prayer in our own parish church. It is a place of worship, a space into which people can enter to pray and to worship God. Everything in the church is to serve that purpose, the art work, the lighting, the decor, the furniture. I have always felt coming into this church that it is a place where people have been praying for a very long time, as indeed they have. The bulk of the church goes back to the late 1830s. People’s prayer over the generations leaves its mark on a building and makes it easier for us to pray. Our prayerful presence here, in turn, leaves its mark on the building and makes it easier of others to enter into prayer, including those of the generations to come.
ABOUT THE SAINT OF THE DAY
Today, the Church celebrates the feast of great saints, holy martyrs of the Faith, whose examples and determination should serve as great inspirations for all of us, in how we ourselves should live our lives with faith. St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions in martyrdom, the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam, are the ones who have devotedly committed themselves to God despite the many oppositions against them, from the state which was then very violently against the Christian faith, and from the community. At that time, Vietnam, which was ruled by an Emperor and his bureaucratic court, saw the burgeoning Christian mission in their country as a threat to themselves, and to their officially Confucian state religion. As such, the state persecuted Christians very severely, both the foreign missionaries and the local converts.
Holy Saints of God Pray For Us.
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