The gospel for the Memorial of St Andrew Dunlak priests and companions martyrs is taken from Luke 19:45, 48th verse. 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. And every day he was teaching in the temple area. The chief priests and scribes and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death. But they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words. This very famous line that Jesus speaks in this passage, my house shall be a house of prayer, not a den of thieves, is really the strongest indictment against the temple.

God established a temple so that he could make a connection with his people. It turned into a place of blind obedience, expensive rituals, and not a place where they could find a connection with God. And it underscores what prayer is. Prayer is not listening to the teachings of a religion. Prayer is longing for intimacy with God and believing that intimacy is real and it will speak to us. That’s the key of prayer.

Not so much what we ask God, but in prayer, what he will tell us, what he’ll show us and call us to do. Foreign prayer is one of your greatest gifts and promises. You not only say to us, yes, you can ask me to help things happen in the world, but more importantly, prayer is a time when you teach us, show us, awaken us, bless us with that kind of meditative, quiet prayer where we’re truly listening along with all the things we ask you to help us with. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.