Daily Mass Readings & Meditations for Saturday, 23 August 2014

Daily Mass Readings & Meditations for Saturday, 23 August 2014
Meditations: Ezekiel 43: The Meaning of the Temple
1-3 The man brought me to the east gate. Oh! The bright Glory of the God of Israel rivered out of the east sounding like the roar of floodwaters, and the earth itself glowed with the bright Glory. It looked just like what I had seen when he came to destroy the city, exactly like what I had seen earlier at the Kebar River. And again I fell, face to the ground.
4-5 The bright Glory of God poured into the Temple through the east gate. The Spirit put me on my feet and led me to the inside courtyard and—oh! the bright Glory of God filled the Temple!
6-9 I heard someone speaking to me from inside the Temple while the man stood beside me. He said, “Son of man, this is the place for my throne, the place I’ll plant my feet. This is the place where I’ll live with the Israelites forever. Neither the people of Israel nor their kings will ever again drag my holy name through the mud with their whoring and the no-god idols their kings set up at all the wayside shrines. When they set up their worship shrines right alongside mine with only a thin wall between them, they dragged my holy name through the mud with their obscene and vile worship. Is it any wonder that I destroyed them in anger? So let them get rid of their whoring ways and the stinking no-god idols introduced by their kings and I’ll move in and live with them forever.
Saint Rose of Lima, Virgin
The glory of the Lord entered the temple. (Ezekiel 43:4)
Israel was in exile, Jerusalem was in ruins, and the glory of the Lord—his divine presence and protection—had left the Temple. For thirty years the people had been vassals of the Babylonians, cut off from God and weighed down by guilt.
Ezekiel had seen all this in an earlier vision, just as he had seen the glory of the Lord leaving the Temple by the east gate (Ezekiel 10:1-19). But Ezekiel also saw something else: “the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east … [and it] entered the temple” (43:2, 4). Just as God’s presence had left the Temple, it would return—and with it came a marvelous promise: “This is where my throne shall be … here I will dwell … forever” (43:7).
The promise in Ezekiel’s vision is not limited to a literal throne in a physical temple on a specific plot of land. Even as Ezekiel’s words gave hope to the Israelites living in a harsh exile, they also pointed to the day when the kingdom of God would come on earth. The promise extends through space and time to reach all of us today. Because of Jesus’ cross and resurrection, God’s resting place is with his people—wherever they are, and whenever they are! His glory dwells in us, both as a body and as individuals (2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19).
In Christ and through his indwelling Spirit, God has returned to his temple. He didn’t abandon his people forever, nor was his heart ever far from them. As the Israelites began to long for him, he answered them with his presence. The same is true for us today. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. He will never abandon you. Even if you have sinned awfully and feel you have lost the grace of his presence, he is waiting to return at the first word of repentance. He longs to come in glory into each of our hearts. And his glory—his very life at the core of our lives—has the power to expel idolatry, adultery, and defilement of every kind. Oh, ask him in!
“God, come into my life today! Forgive me, and banish from me everything that does not exalt you. Fill me, and make me into your resting place.” Amen!
Psalms 85:8-9 I can’t wait to hear what he’ll say.
    God’s about to pronounce his people well,
The holy people he loves so much,
    so they’ll never again live like fools.
See how close his salvation is to those who fear him?
    Our country is home base for Glory!
10-13 Love and Truth meet in the street,
    Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss!
Truth sprouts green from the ground,
    Right Living pours down from the skies!
Oh yes! God gives Goodness and Beauty;
    our land responds with Bounty and Blessing.
Right Living strides out before him,
    and clears a path for his passage.
Matthew 23: Religious Fashion Shows
1-3 Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.
4-7 “Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’
8-10 “Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.
11-12 “Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty. 
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