Relational Prayer!

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Third Sunday of Lent 

Ex 20:1-17; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25

The third Sunday of Lent invites us to grow in and honor our relationship with God.

How can we relate to God?

The first reading offers a simple explanation that following God’s commandments faithfully means to be in relational communion with God.

Containing prescriptions and prohibitions, the Ten Commandments are the ‘Rock of Christian Morality.’ Therefore, we honor God when we obey Him. Let us recall that the covenantal relationship with God was based on obedience to His precepts. 

The second reading offers a profound explanation of our relationship with the crucified Lord. 

For the Jews, the ‘Crucified Messiah’ was a scandal. For the Greeks, the ‘Suffering Messiah’ was foolishness. 

However, Christ Crucified is the pride of Christians because it was his sacrifice that won us redemption. As such, the Cross reminds us of God’s love and, in turn, demands our fidelity.   

The Gospel explores the faithfulness of Israelites in two ways. 

The opening line of the Gospel reads, ‘Since the Passover of the Jews was near.’ The expression highlights the corruption in Israelite religious life. 

As a result, what was once the ‘Feasts of Jehovah’ were spoken of as what they had then become, ‘Feasts of the Jews.’

Their lack of piety and indifference to honoring the Lord resulted in a profound disrespect that was visible in their behaviour. 

The Lord was not the center of their lives anymore. There was no relationship with God. 

Secondly, Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple highlights the fact that the Jewish religious authorities permitted the Temple to be more of a place of commerce than worship. 

Jesus is shocked to find that the animal sellers and money changers cannot see anything beyond the merchandise or hear anything beyond the jingling of coins. 

Though they were in the Temple of the Living God, they could hardly realize God’s presence because their concentration was on business. 

It is against this backdrop that Jesus reminds them of God as his Father. 

In total contradistinction to their commercial attitude, Jesus establishes the Temple as a place for relational communion with his Father. 

We can relate to what Jesus condemns in the Gospel if we recall that sometimes our prayer is a form of ‘spiritual trading.’ 

Worse still, sometimes it appears that God does not make any sense, if not for what He can give. It is precisely in this sense that we can apply spiritual trading to our relationship with God. 

Prayer is an affectionate relationship with God. 

This is the reason Jesus not only called God ‘Father,’ but also taught us to call God ‘Our Father.’

If not for this relational gesture, prayer would be reduced to a meaningless ritual. 

Like Jesus, we are called to reclaim ‘prayer as a profound relationship and communion with God.’

Let us pray that we may deepen our relationship with God, especially in this season of grace.  

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar