Enchanting

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
32nd Sunday In Ordinary Time
09 November 2008


Come, let us worship Christ, whose bride is the Church.

First reading Ezekiel 47:1 - 12
He brought me back to the entrance of the Temple, where a stream came out from under the Temple threshold and flowed eastwards, since the Temple faced east. The water flowed from under the right side of the Temple, south of the altar. He took me out by the north gate and led me right round outside as far as the outer east gate where the water flowed out on the right-hand side. He said, ‘This water flows east down to the Arabah and to the sea; and flowing into the sea it makes its waters wholesome.

Wherever the river flows, all living creatures teeming in it will live. Fish will be very plentiful, for wherever the water goes it brings health, and life teems wherever the river flows. Along the river, on either bank, will grow every kind of fruit tree with leaves that never wither and fruit that never fails; they will bear new fruit every month, because this water comes from the sanctuary. And their fruit will be good to eat and the leaves medicinal.

Psalm or canticle: Psalm 45

Second reading 1 Corinthians 3:9 - 17
We are fellow workers with God; you are God’s farm, God’s building.
By the grace God gave me, I succeeded as an architect and laid the foundations, on which someone else is doing the building. Everyone doing the building must work carefully. For the foundation, nobody can lay any other than the one which has already been laid, that is Jesus Christ. Didn’t you realise that you were God’s temple and that the Spirit of God was living among you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred; and you are that temple.

Gospel John 2:13 - 22
Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’ Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: Zeal for your house will devour me. The Jews intervened and said, ‘What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?’ Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.


Reflections
By Grace Madrinan

I love going to different Catholic churches. Whenever I go to new places, I always make it a point to visit a Catholic church within the vicinity. Not only am I amazed of its rich structures, but also on how warm it made me feel while inside the church. It felt like I'm being hugged by 10,000 angels!

Whenever I am inside the church, I feel secured, forgiven, revived. As a child, not understanding why, I regard the church as 'enchanting'. But growing up, I learned that the Eucharist held inside the church, is the very 'river that flows from the temple". If you visualize our First Reading, it sums up into these simple words, "Everything will live where the river goes" (Ezekiel 47:9). Indeed, we who are part of the Eucharist, who drinks from the river (which is the word of God), is made fresh.

Aside from the church being our safe refuge, a place of worship and to encounter God, it is also a place of community. Despite our difference in nationalities, professions, lifestyles or political loyalties -- when we celebrate the Eucharist, we join as one body of Christ and dwelling place of the Spirit (1 Cor 3:16).

Today, we are celebrating the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. This Basilica is considered the Mother Church of the Catholic world. Let us continue to awe not only for the grandeur of our churches but most importantly for the Spirit that dwells in us.