Pope encourages us to "build our home" with God

By Thaddeus Jones

Addressing visitors and pilgrims in Saint Peter's Square for the midday Angelus prayer, Pope Francis reflected on the Sunday Gospel for the day that recounts the episode when Jesus drove out the merchants from the temple, admonishing all by saying "Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace."

Market and home mindsets

The Pope then examined how our approach to the Lord differs depending on whether we have a market or home-type mindset. The market approach to temple worship recalls when it was enough to buy a lamb and consume it on the altar coals to be right with God, he explained, a process of purchasing, paying and consuming.

The idea of the temple being understood as a home instead implies the opposite, where one goes there to meet the Lord, and draw close to Him as well as to our brothers and sisters as a community that shares joys and sorrows. He added, the market approach on the other hand requires doing calculations, negotiating prices, and seeking one's own interests, but the home approach is about mutual and free giving in love and fraternity without pricing and measuring it out.

The temple as our home

The zealous action of Jesus recounted in today's Gospel shows how the Lord does not accept the "market-temple" that takes the place of the "house-temple," the Pope explained, adding that the market approach creates a distant and "mercenary" relationship with God while the home understanding an intimate, trusting rapport with the Lord as in a loving family. He underscored that the Lord came to bring communion with Him and among our brothers and sisters.

Build our homes with God

Our Lenten journey calls on us to build a greater sense of home within ourselves and all around us, the Pope went on to say, first towards God through prayer, "like children who knock confidently at the Father's door without getting tired." Next, through building fraternity with our brothers and sisters, he added, saying "There is a great need for it."

Prayer and reaching out

The Pope observed how in our daily lives we often encounter isolation or what seems to be a hostile atmosphere in many places. He suggested we examine the nature of our relationships with others and whether we take the first step to bring down walls of silence and or bridge the emptiness that stands between us. He also recommended we look at our prayer life, whether we treat it just as a duty to pay while we look at the clock, or a time of trusting abandonment in the Lord.