CLEANSING THE TEMPLE

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), German theologian, philosopher and mystic wrote:

“As long as we look for some kind of pay for what we do, as long as we want to get something from God in some kind of exchange, we are like the merchants. If you want to be rid of the commercial spirit, then by all means do all you can in the way of good works, but do so solely for the praise of God. Live as if you did not exist. Expect and ask nothing in return. Then the merchant inside you will be driven out of the temple God has made. Then God alone dwells there. See! This is how the temple is cleared: when a person thinks only of God and honors him alone. Only such a person is free and genuine.”

“And Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds, and He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” Jesus