Peace

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me tell you,
‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’
If you loved me,
you would rejoice that I am going to the Father;
for the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it happens,
so that when it happens you may believe.
I will no longer speak much with you,
for the ruler of the world is coming.
He has no power over me,
but the world must know that I love the Father
and that I do just as the Father has commanded me.”
John 14:27-31a

Prayer Reflection

Dear Father “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you," the very words Jesus spoke tells us it is only through him that we will find peace in our hearts. It is not what this world has to offer but what Jesus can only give. We all struggle in our lives to some extent, but where is it that we find true peace. I know where it is for me and that is placing my trust and love in Jesus, a place where I will always find his presence in the Eucharist. The peace that can only come from him. The truth of these words that Jesus spoke in how we feel many times unfulfilled by what the world offers, only shows how honest these words of Jesus are. Ever notice how peaceful we become when we are united to him. Our troubles seem small and insignificant in those moments. That's when we have been given his peace as he had said. Dearest Father it is right to say then that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life after all.

Temple

And the pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, he drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew.
And to them that sold doves he said: Take these things hence, and make not the house of my Father a house of traffic. And his disciples remembered, that it was written: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up. The Jews, therefore, answered, and said to him: What sign dost thou shew unto us, seeing thou dost these things? Jesus answered, and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said: Six and forty years was this temple in building; and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen again from the dead, his disciples remembered, that he had said this, and they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had said.
John 2:13-22 (Douay-Rheims Bible)

Prayer

Dear Father I know Jesus was talking of the building, but aren't we also part of the temple. Throughout my life dear Father I have recalled how my own body is also a temple. Didn't I let sin enter my temple and disrupt what is holy within me. My thoughts of many things that ran along the line of material rather than spiritual. It wasn't until I knelt and understood that I wanted to clean out my temple so you could dwell within. I needed to want that change more than anything. I needed to drive out what made my temple unfit for a King. It is a choice to cleanse and repair and renew the temple that should never have been abandoned in the first place. Dear Father I thank you for the Holy Spirit who dwells within along with you and your son, my temple is complete. And there is also a very special place for our Mother, where she also guides and watches over me. May I continue to keep my temple fit for a King and keep sin out. Amen