Homily (Reflection) for the Memorial
of Saint Andrew Dung Lac, P, & Comps, Mm. (24th November, 2017)
on the Gospel and the Memorial
(Friday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary
Time (I))
1Macc 4:36-37.52-59;
1Chr 29:10-12. (R.v.13);
Lk 19:45-48.
Through the missionary efforts of various religious
families beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing until 1866, the
Vietnamese people heard the message of the gospel, and many accepted it despite
persecution and even death. On June 19, 1988, Pope John Paul II canonized 117
persons martyred in the eighteenth century. Among these were ninety-six
Vietnamese, eleven missionaries born in Spain and belonging to the Order of
Preachers, and ten French missionaries belonging to the Paris Foreign Mission
Society. Among these saints are eight Spanish and French bishops, fifty priests
(thirteen European and thirty-seven Vietnamese), and fifty-nine lay people.
These martyrs gave their lives not only for the Church but for their country as
well.[1]
Topic: Your temple is marked.
Jesus entered the temple in today’s gospel and drove out
those selling things in the temple. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house
shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.”
The Jews were extorting so much money from the pilgrims. As a
result of the material gain, they turned the temple into a den of robbers contrary
to the divine decree.
In John’s account of Jesus’ cleaning of the temple, when the
Jews demanded for a sign, Jesus said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19).
They were shocked because the temple had been under construction for forty-six
years. However, He was speaking about His body, cf. Jn 2:20-21.
Jesus’ cleansing of a temple made by human hands in today’s
gospel ought to bring our minds to the real temple made by God Himself. Saint
Paul queried, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
within you, which you have from God? You are not your own” (1Cor 6:19). Again, “...we are the
temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will live in them and move among
them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’” (2Cor 6:16). He sternly warned, “If any
one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and
that temple you are” (1Cor 3:17).
Bible Reading: 1Cor 6:12-20; 2Cor 6:14–7:1.
Thought for today: You are God’s temple.
Let us pray: God give us the grace always to be
aware that our body is sacred and the grace to keep it holy as we ought – Amen
(2Thess 3:16).
Saint Andrew Dung Lac &
Companions – Pray for us.
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