Meditation:
On the second day of the creation week, God created the firmament, a barrier to separate heaven and earth. God gave the Israelites a temple through which they could enter the presence of God, in a sense passing through the firmament. However, the Israelites abused the temple and used it for profit. Today, we remember how Jesus entered the temple on Holy Week and cleansed it of the moneychangers, to show the Israelites how they should truly worship God.
Reading: Matt 21:12-17
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.”
The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did and heard the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?”
He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
Prayer:
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
