'Zeal for your house will consume me.' Sunday Reflections, Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

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Archbasilica of St John Latera 
 Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome.
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 
Gospel John 2:13-22  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” continue
Pushkin Museum, Moscow [Web Gallery of Art]
We are not isolated and we are not Christians on an individual basis, each one on his or her own, no, our Christian identity is to belong! We are Christians because we belong to the Church.
Pope Francis spoke these words at his General Audience on Wednesday 25 June this year. He went on to say:
The Christian belongs to a people called the Church and this Church is what makes him or her Christian, on the day of Baptism, and then in the course of catechesis, and so on. But no one, no one becomes Christian on his or her own. continue
A few weeks earlier in his homily at Mass in St Martha's on 15 May the Bishop of Rome spoke in similar words:
Full post here.

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