Journey with the Bible – 11/9/2011

My journey with the Bible – 11/9/2011

Daily Readings

The first, psalm, second and gospel reading all pertains to our body as a temple of the Holy Spirit.

First Reading  - 1 Ez 47:1-2,8-9, 12 -  The water (Living Water) symbolizes Jesus which we received during our baptism. Water is used for cleansing and quenching thirst, in the same manner that Jesus cleanses us and quenches our thirst and satisfies us. The river bed symbolizes us baptized in with water and spirit, when its dry, it’s dead, but since we are baptized, the living water flows in us and through us. The sea water symbolizes the opposite of fresh water, it is not fit for drinking, and is contaminated with salt and other materials, and this can signify sin and other people as well. What this whole reading is telling us is that since the Living Water (Jesus) flows through us and in us (River), we are called by Jesus to spread the Living Water to the sea water/ocean (sin/people) and turn the sea salt into fresh water. How do we turn sea water into fresh water? By purification, sea water goes into rivers, passing through rocks and all natures elements and gets filtered and becomes fresh water. Jesus purifies us, by going to confession, going to mass, receiving the Eucharist, putting our faith into practice and much more. By putting our faith into practice (fresh water going out to the ocean), we are turning the sea water into fresh water by renouncing sin and spreading the Good News to other people.

Second Reading - 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17 – in connection with the Gospel, be careful of what you rely on as foundation of your faith such as false religion, worldly desires, living in the world.

Gospel - Jn 2:13-22 –I was reflecting on how does the marketplace apply to my life? What could the temple be? Why was Jesus driving them away with such vindication? And this is what the Holy Spirit revealed to me. A marketplace is a very noisy environment, it’s chaotic, sometimes there is no order, people are yelling, trading, it can get nasty sometimes. Ok, so what does the marketplace signifies?  It is what the bible calls “living in the world”. So what does “living in the world” means? It means conforming to this generation such as TV shows, bad movies, fornication,  going along because everyone else is doing it anyway, graphic music materials, graphic movies, nude scenes, cursing, dressing inappropriately, too much work and no rest, obsessing with material items, internet…and the list goes on and on. I have to admit was guilty of some of the items I just listed. The bottom line is when you are living in the world, it drains you, it takes out the prayer time in you, it takes out your family time, and it takes out talking to each other…it takes out the quietness in our lives where God wants to meet us. So what did Jesus do to the marketers to drive them away? He drove them away with vindication! In the same manner we must have the same vindication to renounce all this worldly stuff.

Let’s pay attention to the item Jesus used to drive them away. He used a whip, made out of chords put together. Because he knows that if He only used one chord it will break apart. And what does a whip do? It stings, it lacerates. So what does this mean? To be strong in our walk with God, we need to do multiple things; we can’t just go to church every Sunday and say we’re ok. So in order to drive away all this junk in our lives, we have to bundle all our weapons into one chord and make a whip to make it more effective. So how do I do that? Since LSS my family has totally denounced watching TV (except for EWTN), I for one don’t find anything interesting anymore to watch on TV, it’s all garbage, we let the kids watch cartoons, but mostly cartoons relating to bible stories, maybe some Yo Gabba Gabba or Thomas. Basically, we don’t want to contaminate our heads anymore with all this useless worldly TV shows. Because, we know, this can also be used by the devil to infiltrate our thoughts and lives. Look at all the primetime TV shows nowadays, its normal for you to see, bras, underwear, people making out, getting naked, guns, violence, rape, death, they are all depressing and gloomy. In turn we become desensitized with all of this stuff, and it becomes normal part of our lives. And this is just one of the many noises we are exposed to within our daily lives. If we want to hear the voice of God in our lives we have to denounce all these things. We have to bundle and make a whip of more time in prayers, spending more time with family and kids instead of watching TV, read the Bible…read it over and over, listen to catholic talks and teachings, go to BLD worship, go to mass regularly, go to confession regularly, participate in outreach programs, help other people, listen to people with problems and console them…I could list thousands upon thousands of things we can do to make an effective whip and denounce all these bad junk we put in our life. So let’s stop putting all these non-sense in our lives, the very temple of the Holy Spirit, so the living water can flow through us and in us. We don’t want the Holy Spirit leaving us, right? See example in 1 Samuel 16…look for Saul when he disobeyed God. Did I also mention that the whip stings? It stings because it is hard to renounce, its difficult to remove, but if you make an effective whip with the Holy Spirit, its possible. Jesus loves you.