Presentation of the
— Blessed Virgin Mary —
Ordinary Time Week 33: Friday
 

“Then Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.’” (Luke 19:46-47)

Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on these verses from today’s Gospel:

“God does not want his temple to be a trader’s lodge but the home of sanctity. He does not preserve the practice of the priestly ministry by the dishonest duty of religion but by voluntary obedience. Consider what the Lord’s actions impose on you as an example of living. He taught in general that worldly transactions must be absent from the temple, but he drove out the moneychangers in particular. Who are the moneychangers, if not those who seek profit from the Lord’s money and cannot distinguish between good and evil? Holy Scripture is the Lord’s money.” (Exposition on the Gospel of Luke, 9)



Collect
As we venerate the glorious memory
of the most holy Virgin Mary,
grant, we pray, O Lord, through her intercession,
that we, too, may merit to receive
from the fullness of your grace.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen