AND THEY SEIZED HIM: LESSONS FROM THE ARREST OF JESUS

HOMILY FOR THE PALM SUNDAY OF THE PASSION OF THE LORD

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

In the Bible, there are various representations of the number 6. In biblical numerology, the number 6 is the number of man, the number of imperfection in man’s work. The number is concerned and related only to man. Little wonder then the 6^th commandment is related to mankind. It talks about the worst sin against man; that is, murder. On the one hand, being a number concerned with man, and on the other hand, having thoroughly read through the arrest of Jesus in which we have discovered six peculiar features, we deem it fit to relate these characters to the Christian; the church goer who is also a man. Thus, the 6 (number for man) characters coincide with the possible characters we see in Christian men and women today. What are these characters we find in the story of the arrest of Jesus?

The story of the passion of Christ which we read in the Gospel of today (Mark 14:1-15:47) exposes the different characters we find on earth as we pass through gains and pains. However and particularly, the storyline of the arrest per se in verses 43-52 is very striking and educative to every Christian. Reading through Mark 14:43-52, we discover six characters as a result of six divisions. 1) vv. 43-45 2) v.46 3) v.47 4) vv.48-49 5) v.50 6) vv.51-52.

1. Judas, one of the twelve, appeared.

Judas was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus; a follower who was in-charge of the common purse. Yet, he is found leading the move against Jesus. This is a person who Jesus brought close and even trusted him with money. But he allowed himself to be possessed by the devil to perpetrate the act of betrayal. He is regarded as a thief and a robber by John (cf. John 10:1). His love for money most probably led him into stealing little by little till it reached the evil conception to betray his master for money. He is an icon of hypocrisy, of deception, and of betrayal. He came and kissed Jesus. He used a symbol of love as a method of destruction. The type of kiss Judas offered was one of intense feelings. Thus, this is an expression of a high hypocritical deception with an impression of respect and love.

How often have we forsaken Christ? How do we stand against Christ? How do we allow the evil intents in us to mature into evil plans and execution? Some church goers today profess Christ and yet are the linchpins of the evils in the society. Judas may have foolishly deceived himself into believing that Jesus would be freed by the power of God, and thus carried out his foolish acts. How often do we deceive ourselves, and think we are deceiving God and our fellow Christians? Church goers who belong to this group are those who would want to be known and seen at every slightest celebration in the church to give an impression of hard work and love for Jesus, yet deep down within them is an ulterior motive of selfish enrichment, greed and covetousness. They see the church as their businesses, and would want everything done in the church to be geared towards financial gains. This sort of people can be called hypocrites, betrayers and deceivers. They make the person of Judas alive and active in the church today. They are everywhere.

2. The men seized Jesus and arrested him.

The men who came to arrest went straight on and got hold of Jesus. Finally, they caught him. We can thus imagine how desperate, abusive, violent and rude these men were. Jesus had instructed that all men should come to him and have peace, but these men came to him to destroy the prince of peace. They held Jesus, and most probably thought they had won, but they never knew that their violent grasp of Jesus was temporarily. Victory belongs always to God, and not man.

How often do we go to Jesus for violence and not for peace? How often do we convert the church into a political party of war, rancour and acrimony? How often do we go violent with the ministers of God? When we make ourselves prone to violence in the church, we repeat the mistakes of these rude men. Church goers who belong to this group are those who not only come to church for violence but are always ready to fight the church and pull her down. These are the persons that would connive to push the minister of the word out of their parish because they have been threatened by his positive lifestyle and preaching. This sort of people can be called violent, abusive and rude. They are the prolongation of the soldiers who arrested Jesus, and they are everywhere.

3. One of those standing near drew his sword and struck

You cannot be a witness if you are not courageous. There was a disciple who was courageous enough to fight instantly for the master. He fought to defend Jesus. His courage was commendable but the method is condemnable. Physical force had never been the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus was to lead even his attackers into believing in him and developing formidable faith. He never wanted them to be killed. This disciple portrayed readiness to witness to Christ, courage to defend Christ and his faith. He is thus an icon of martyrdom and courage.

How often do we shy away from proper witnessing? How often do we get afraid of being killed when we are witnessing to Christ? We need courage. Every Christian has to be spiritually courageous and ready at all times to proclaim Christ in faith and trust. Our spiritual courage must train us to love the sinner, working and praying for his conversion. No reasonable Christian prays that sinners be killed, but that sinners repent. Church goers who belong to this group are those who think that what the Church needs is physical courage and force to ward off enemies, disregarding spiritual force and courage. They should know that if the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain do the watchmen keep vigil. They need in-depth spirituality to be balanced. Only by so doing can they become a better version of the disciple that struck the man with a sword. This sort of people is the physically courageous; the security agencies (Men of Order and Discipline, Scout, St. Stephen, etc) in the church, and they are everywhere.

4. Am I leading a rebellion, asked Jesus?

This question shows the innocence of Jesus. Jesus was serene and calm through the whole affair. He believed that what was going on was the fulfilment of the Scripture. It is the will of God. Jesus knew he would gain the true peace by allowing the will of God to come through.

How often do we impose our own will on God? How often do we allow our human inclination to over-ride the goodness God has put in us? Jesus stands as our perfect imitator. His serenity was second to none. Many Christians easily give up in the face of pressures and challenges. We become opposites of Christ when we run away from the church at every slightest tension, challenge or misfortune. Church goers who belong here believe that the suffering they encounter is the divine will. They are calm and are faithful, even amidst difficulties. They simply pray for divine assistance, knowing fully well that Christianity involves the cross. They are faithful and are everywhere.

5.  Then everyone deserted Him

We see here the disciples who left their master when the going got tough. Most probably, they have remained all this while to witness the epoch making prison break of the messiah. They must have thought that the messiah was physically indestructible. But when they saw that the dice has been cast, they gave up and deserted him. They had weak faith. Their minds were materialistic and worldly. They failed to see the messiah from a spiritual spectrum. They left him to suffer alone.

How often do we run away when the going gets tough? How often do we leave Jesus when he needs us most? How often do we show our shallow faith by our actions? We need to know that when the going gets tough the tough gets going. Remaining in Jesus makes us stronger. Church goers who belong here are those leave the church when she is undergoing some pains. They run away during the crises moment only to resurface during the glorious time. They change direction when the church is on the construction stage; sometimes, they dodge worship moments for fear of being asked to make donations. They are not ready to identify with the church during the suffering time. These are people of shallow faith, and they are everywhere.

6. A young man fled naked

This young man was stricken by fear. He was following from afar, but when he was been seized, he left his linen cloth and fled. He was afraid of being caught or even embarrassed in the public. For him, it was better to run away naked than to stay clothed and yet caught. He sought to save himself by running instead of standing with the messiah.

How often do we run for fear? How often do we seek not to be embarrassed for the sake of Christ? This is a show of weak faith; however occasioned by fear. Many of us see evil and fail to point them out for fear of being embarrassed. We run away from embarrassment because we feel we over-exaggerate our image. We come to church for honour and not for witnessing. Church goers who belong here are those who would stop coming to church or working for the church because they were corrected over an issue or teaching which may cause public scandal. They even see preaching and announcements as embarrassment by the preacher. They manifest weak and porous faith for such behaviour. They do not know that the greater embarrassment lies in running away naked as the young boy. They have allowed their self image to consume them up to the extent of putting fear into them. They have followed; yes, but upon a perceived confrontation, leave their tools, their talents, their linens, and are on the run. They are afraid and indecisive and are everywhere.

May the Lord assist us so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past. May we correct their errors for better Christianity in our era. Amen. Happy Palm Sunday. God bless you.

I WILL MAKE A NEW COVENANT

HOMILY FOR THE 5^TH SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR B

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

One of the characteristics of an organized venture is timeliness. In such an organized endeavour, time needed for the execution of any plan is calculated so well as not to cause confusion in the system. To show oneself as organized, time is important. There is always the feeling of boredom and uneasiness created when people do not keep to time. It is said that time waits for no one, but those who time waits for are those who are conscious of time. They are those who keep to time. One who keeps to time lives in expectancy of the scheduled moment. No one enjoys those who do not keep to time. Every earthly plan is done in time, and so executed in time. And when being executed, it is so planned that one program follows another. If after the plan, the printings and the distribution of the program of events, the master of ceremonies happens to begin from the middle or worse still, from the last, great confusion and disorder is created. This is it with the human conception and perception. We can therefore use this to understand the divine plan which follows a definite divine plan in the economy of salvation. Today, there is an announcement of a new covenant, and this new covenant has an hour when it will be inaugurated.

The First Reading (Jeremiah 31:31-34) contains this announcement of a new covenant. And this is the only time the term ‘new covenant’ is used in the Old Testament. Indeed, the passage is one of the profoundest in the entire Bible. The reality of the covenant idea that Israel has been chosen by God, that Yahweh is its God, and that it has peculiar obligations not shared by other peoples to observe the standards of worship and conduct which God has given it, is basic to the prophets. We must therefore contrast the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant which was written on stone tablets (Exod 31:18) is different from the New Covenant which Jeremiah foresees in the future. Let us now examine the characteristics of the New Covenant.

1. The New Covenant will not be written on stone tablets. This covenant will be written in their hearts. The law will no longer be on tablets but in their hearts. The heart becomes a writing material. This has serious implications for us today. The seed of faith has been ingrained in our hearts that the heart becomes the bedrock of faith. If the heart is evil, then all other external manifestations are fake. If the heart does not harbour good thoughts, it cannot be a reproductive site for goodness. The heart has replaced the stone; yes, but the heart needs constant revival. As the farmland of faith, the heart has to be watered and manured always for it to produce healthy crops. It may seem as though in our age that humans have lost the sense of sincerity. Sincerity exists when the hearts produces exactly what it has; this is when there is congruency between what one thinks and what one says. Our era is growing more inclined to external manifestation other than internal foundation. To make our heart good, we must constantly listen to God who now speaks to u directly and not through a medium or person.

2. In the New Covenant, there will be no need of prophets. God himself will teach men directly, as He will be their God and they shall be His people. Hence, instead of external instruction, this covenant will contain an interior principle of personal regeneration that the need for prophets and priests will no longer be felt. God will teach individuals as He taught the prophets and priests. Everyone now has direct access to God. We must thus be aware that we have all it takes to pray to God directly and be heard by Him.

3. The New Covenant is one that constantly forgives. God promises in the New Covenant that he will forgive sins and will remember their sins no more. Every sin has its consequence, and that is punishment. God himself will “forgive and forget.” But what does this mean? When people say that they have forgiven and have forgotten, what does it mean? To forgive and forget is to forgive and not punish. When God forgives us and yet forgives giving us the punishment we deserve for our sins, He has actually forgotten. This is where the theme of indulgence comes in –the forgiveness given to the sinner not only as regards the sin but also as regards the punishments due for such sin. Forgetting does not mean wiping out from memory the wrongs one has done, for anyone who forgets that way suffers from dementia (which is a psychological mishap). As human beings, when we forgive and forget, it means that we forgive and do not retaliate. Inability to retaliate and revenge the wrong done to us is the subject matter in forgetting the offence of people. This is why Jesus enjoins us to forgive without counting.

In all, what is the exact nature of this covenant and what relations does it have with the former one? Even though we have brought out the peculiarities of the New Covenant as written in Jeremiah, the New and the Old Covenants can be seen as fundamentally the same. God is the initiator of both covenants. Both are God-centred, and the emphasis remains in obedience to the dictate of God. Hence, the newness may not be found in the essentials of the covenant but in its realization and means. It will not be broken as the old was repeatedly, for all will be faithful. The reason for this is that the very inner nature of humanity is created anew; that is the heart.

The moment prophesied by Jeremiah saw the light of the day in Christ. And today, Jesus said: the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. This is the time of the new covenant. The hour has finally come. Unlike physical time, the hour Jesus talks about is a theological one. This statement came as a result of how the Greeks were in search of Jesus, most probably to experience what others may have experienced. In their inquisitive nature, they wanted to see and know this figure that has shaken the walls of their society. The Greeks went to the apostles to direct them to Christ, and when they met Jesus, the very first sentence that came forth was that the hour has finally come. Most probably, things had been building up to a crisis and that crisis had finally come. But the understanding of this crisis was different from others.

For the Jews, the son of man was undefeatable by any physical force (cf. Dan. 7:1-8), but for Jesus, the son of man will be crucified and ‘virtually defeated’ but it will not end in crucifixion. Jesus would defeat the cross. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews clarifies this in the Second Reading (Heb. 5:7-9) by saying that it was the obedience of Christ that led him to victory and wrought our salvation. The cross will then be regarded as a sign of victory no longer a sign of shame. The hour of Jesus is the hour of defeat, an hour of a total crush of the devil, and a total victory of Christ. Christ is the New Covenant personified.

This hour of Jesus comes with paradoxical teachings. And these teachings are important for us today. The first teaching is that only by death can life come. If you want to save your life, you must lose it. The Church we see today is resting on the blood of martyrs. Christianity involves sacrifice and service. This is the demand of the New Covenant. The second teaching is that our lives are retained only when we spend it. This is a call to selflessness. When we think less of our individual gains, the world becomes more habitable. The third teaching is that only by service can greatness come. We must stoop to conquer. Service engenders love, and love is needed in every society we find ourselves. These paradoxes of Jesus gave birth to a new view of life. People looked on glory as acquisition of wealth and power, but Jesus looked on glory as a cross. He taught men that only by passing through self effacement can we truly be glorious.

Lastly, the hour of Jesus was an anxious one. Jesus strongly felt how terrible it would be, but he was quickly calmed by the Father’s voice. The voice of the Father was not meant for Jesus but all of us to trust that Jesus is our master who is the conqueror because he would not fail to draw all men to himself when he would be lifted up. Since we have identified in His suffering, He will identify us for his glory. He will not fail to lift us up for the suffering we have undergone for his sake. The Lord is quick to repay. He does not let his people go without reward. And thus, this eschatological hope and trust becomes our encouragement in the midst of sufferings and the efforts we make to lead good lives. Happy New week. God bless you.

ARE YOU STILL IN THE DARK?

HOMILY FOR THE 4^TH SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR B

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

In a typical African village setting, there lived a little boy and his mother. This little boy was the only child of the mother whom she always sent out to run errands for her. On one faithful day, the mother knowing well that darkness was almost near sent his son on an errand to a friend, but without forgetting to hand him over a lamp (locally made lamp called mpanaka). Darkness covered the skies as this boy was returning from the errand. Suddenly, he heard some quire noise in the bush and sensed danger. He thought some spirits were blowing whistles(where as it was the tree called whistling pine), and this made him more fearful. He remembered the advice of the mother that he must light up the mpanaka immediately it gets dark as this would enhance visibility and reduce some fears. But against this, he had thought to himself, if I light up this lamp, I will anger these spirits the more; he then threw the lamp away and took to his heels, running and shouting for help. The mum heard his voice from a distance, and ran with her own lamp to meet the son in trouble. The little boy was comforted by the presence of the mother who had her lamp lit. The very first question that came out from the mouth of the mother was: my dear son, why be in the dark when I gave you a lamp? To be in the dark is to be outside Christ. To be in the light is to be with Christ. We all have been given the light. We are to embrace it and live in it.

The Gospel (John 3:14-21) pericope is generally a call on all to embrace Christ wholeheartedly. It can actually be divided into three major parts which brings out three major salvific significance of the son of man. The first part (vv.14-15) brings to the awareness of the Christian that Christ’s upliftment imposes on us the obligation to look unto him as a necessary channel for our salvation. The lifting of the son of man is a call on the believer to trust that our faith in Jesus is not in vain. Jesus is raised on high that we may gain salvation. The case of the Christ surely would be theologically different, although somewhat similar at first look from the case of the serpent which Moses lifted up in the desert for the Israelites. The bronze serpent was built as an antidote against the poisonous fiery serpents which bit the people as a result of their sins. Like the Israelites, we too sinned and are in need of healing. But the healing we desire is not merely a physical healing and refrains from death as the Israelites. We needed also a spiritual healing that can not only heal the wounds in our souls but can render the serpent (the devil) powerless and without poison.

Surely, the serpent continues to struggle, and does bite us; however, an encounter with Christ serves as a neutralizer to the poisonous venom of the serpent. The serpent has venom but no longer poisonous to the believer. It was not the serpent that gave life. It was the God who commanded Moses to raise the serpent. And thus, it was God who healed them. The encounter with the bronze serpent was momentary and timely, but our encounter with Christ is eternal and timeless. The people just looked on the serpent when they are bit. We look on Jesus in and out of season. The people most probably forgot and did away with the bronze serpent when its use elapsed, but we do not forget or do away with Christ. Christ is useful yesterday, today and forever. The serpent was man-made. Christ is God himself. These theological significance opens our minds that ‘something greater then Solomon is here.’ Unlike the Israelites who lost the need of the serpent, we can never grow needless of God. Eternal life which is the very life of God himself is the goal. And so, here on earth and hereafter in heaven, we are with God.

The Second part (v.16) which is one of the early-to-memorize Bible verses takes our mind to the love of God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him has eternal life. This is a reminder to us that at the very back of everything is God. The initiative in salvation lies in God. And we must realize that it is the world that God loves, not a nation, not a family, and not even a singular person. Sometimes, we parade ourselves as the most beloved of God. We intimidate people with the name of God. We impose on people some fear to see us as more loved by God than others. God loves the world. It is true that sin draws the sinner away from God, but it is even truer that sin does not draw the sinner away from the love of God. Love can be practiced from a distance. What sin does is to create some chasm and extend the distance between us and God. However, from that distance, God keeps us loving. We are called to come closer and delete this chasm created by sin in our relationship with God. God loves each one of us as He loves every one of us.

The third part (vv.17-21) lays bare the paradox of love and judgment. As verse 16 tends to flame our minds on the limitless love of God, we are immediately being confronted in these exceeding verses the judgment of God. This links us to the First Reading (2 Chronicles 36:14-16.19-23) that exposed how the priests and the people were so sinful and annoyed God deeply. Yet, God showed compassion, and continually sent his messengers to convert them until the anger of God rose against them till there was no remedy. They were sent on exile and had to suffer greatly in the hands of their enemies. If we embrace God, we are in the light. If we embrace sin, we are in the dark. While in the dark, we suffer poor or no vision, and are prone to attacks, as the Israelites were prone to attacks, and actually got attacked.

This is the message of this verse: If we believe in Christ, we are not condemned; but if we do not believe in Christ, we stand to be condemned. We are not condemned for living in the dark; rather we are condemned for remaining in the dark even when we have seen the light. Our vision of the light must draw us to the light. It is pitiable that as many people who live in the dark rejoice when they see the wonderful light (cf. Isaiah 9:2-3), some others remain gloomy and comfortable with the dark. In this case, the light which is meant to be their salvation becomes their damnation, the light which is meant to lit now sets ablaze, the light which is meant to direct becomes a mere fancy. Embrace the light when you see it, and come out of the dark.

Are you still in the dark? Have you not seen the light yet? If your vision of the light has been impaired by sin, go and put on the spectacle of faith and follow the light. Your followership of the light will bring you healing from the impaired vision caused by sin, and would set you on the pathway of salvation. What is it that is still keeping you in the dark? What is that habit that has failed to leave you? What is that material thing that has imprisoned your soul? Who is that person that has lured you away from God? The time has come for you to make this discovery. The knowledge of darkness and an eagerness to come out of it is a sure step towards the appreciation of the light, but an ignorance of darkness is a killer. Let us shine our torch lights. The shining of these torches expels the darkness that has enshrouded our lives. We must not act like the little boy in our lead story who threw away the lamp on perceiving difficulties. Making the lamp lit assures calmness. If he had lit the lamp, most probably, he would have discovered that the whistling was coming from a mere tree and not the spirits. Being in the light is consoling, encouraging and calming. Never let yourself to live in darkness (sin) when we have now got the light (Christ).

The race of the mother who ran to save her son in danger can be likened to the race of God who runs to meet and save us. Even when the boy had thrown away the lamp he was given, the mother still ran with her own lamp to save him. This is what God does. The Second Reading (Eph. 2:4-10) made an emphasis on this. Even when we suffer out of our recklessness and sin, God does not abandon us. He gives us another life in Christ and makes us to be with Him eternally. It is by grace that we are saved. May this grace be ever abundant for us now and always. Amen. Happy new week. God bless you.

MY HOUSE MUST BE CLEAN

HOMILY FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR B

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

A dirty house affects negatively its inhabitants. No clean person likes to live in a dirty house. The consequences of dirtiness are many. There is repulsion. The house would be repulsive to many, to such an extent that no person who knows the state of the house would want to visit. The house necessarily would smell, and such an odour would repel people from coming near. If the inmates are reasonable enough, shame would inhibit them to invite and welcome visitors. A dirty house invites dirty things. It is harmful to the inmates. A dirty house makes its inmates prone to diseases, and as such makes the diseases to spread easily, thereby causing ill health and sickness. Surely, the sick needs the doctor and the hospital; and so, a dirty house affects the financial economy of the inmates negatively and renders them poorer. We need a neat and clean house to live in. This is it with physical houses connected with human beings. Beyond the domicile houses, there are also houses of prayer. Our churches require cleanliness and beauty. And beyond the places of worship, we too are spiritual houses. These spiritual houses require cleanliness and neatness. This is the insistence of Jesus today.

The Gospel Reading (John 2:13-25) has a lot to teach us as regards the cleanliness of the house of God; that is, the cleansing of the temple. One peculiar thing we discover about the text is that whereas the synoptic gospels set the story of the cleansing of the temple at the end of their stories (Matt. 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46), John sets it right at the beginning. Barclay gives various interpretations to this discovery. The first is that this may suggest that Jesus cleansed the temple twice; at the beginning and at the end of his ministry. This is very unlikely that he would ever have had the chance to do it again. His reappearance in the temple would have been a sign for such precautions to be taken that a repetition of it would not have been possible. It is also probable that John taught in line with the prophecy of Malachi 3:1-4 that the Lord would suddenly come to his temple and would initiate purification on the sons of Levi. John was interested in telling men that Jesus, the messiah did cleanse the temple, and not the time he did it. What mattered to John was to show that Jesus; action proved him to be the promised one of God.

The story of the cleansing of the temple demonstrates the anger of Jesus. The picture of Jesus with the whip is an awe-inspiring one. So, what is it that actually pushed Jesus to this anger in the Temple courts? We must notice that the Passover was near. The Passover was a feast that attracted every Jew to Jerusalem. It was necessary that every adult Jew must pay tax, and so there sat money changers in the temple courts for possible services. The money changers were corrupt in their trade. They changed half the value of the original sum. It is true that some gain is needed in trading as with the case of the money changers, what annoyed Jesus is that it was a rampart social injustice; worse still, it was done in the name of religion. Besides the money changers, there were also sellers of oxen, sheep and doves. These are meant for any pilgrim who desires to buy them for temple sacrifices. The law was that such animals for sacrifice must be perfect an unblemished. And so, an inspection was conducted, and there was a fee charged for that. It was most likely that any animal bought outside the temple would be rejected to impose it on buyers to buy from the sellers in the temple. Due to this inspection fee the sellers must pay for, theirs were costly much more than the animals bought outside the temple. Here again is a bare-faced extortion at the expense of the poor pilgrims who were practically forced into buying from costly sellers. This is social injustice. And Jesus was moved to anger.

Jesus acted this way because these corrupt practices ended up desecrating the temple of God. This is also to show us that the animal sacrifices were less important and irrelevant than the sense of worship and obedience which must be preserved in the temple. Those sacrifices with such background ended up being vain. We recall the word of God in the prophet Isaiah 1:11-17: I do not delight in the blood of bulls...bring no more vain offerings. Indeed, the respect and obedience to God is better than sacrifice. And we must note that the part of the temple that these activities were going on was in the court of the gentiles. The temple had series of courts. The first is the court of the Gentiles, then the court of women, the court of the Israelites, and the court of priests. So, if there was any gentile who felt touched to come and pray, he was meant to be in the first court. So, under such circumstance, how can a gentile have an enabling atmosphere for prayer? The temple authorities practically disregarded the court of the gentiles, and thus those activities rendered the court a place where no man could worship. Thus, they made it impossible for the gentiles to pray. They seemed to jettison the message of Paul in the Second Reading (1 Cor.1:22-25) that Jews as well as Greeks are called to God. Hence, their action was an indirect message to gentiles that they are not fit to pray or worship. This is an exhibition of relegation with the aim of ostracising gentiles. In our places of worship, we must distance ourselves from those ways and manners that give the impression of a repetition of such an error.

The reply of Jesus to the Jews who asked him a question is noteworthy. To the question of what sign he has to give them, Jesus spoke figuratively, speaking of the temple of his body. This answer of Jesus establishes too our own bodies as temples which must undergo some cleansing. The Ten Commandments are the ingredients for the examination of self for cleansing. The first reading (Exod. 20:1-17) is an outline of these commandments. Living our lives as not to break the rules makes the temple of our bodies clean and sacred, but a reckless lifestyle of breaking the rules with impunity does the opposite to our bodies. To remain clean and sacred, practice the commandments. Another temple that must be kept sacred is the place of worship. Comportments and attentiveness is needed in worship. When you are in church just to meet friends or play politics, you end up ruining yourself. This is desecration. You are making unholy the church that ought to be the icon of holiness and morality. Contribute in purifying the church and the body for they are temples of the Lord. One last thing, we must remember that Jesus is angered when we desecrate these temples. In our homes, businesses, roads, schools, we must remember that we carry the temple of God with us, and that is our body. May this temple be constantly made holy. Amen. Happy new week. God bless you.