Patrick Comerford
During Lent and Easter this year, I am taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:
1, a photograph of a church or place of worship that has been significant in my spiritual life;
2, the day’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society, Partners in the Gospel).
Today is the Third Sunday in Lent (7 March 2021). This week I am offering photographs from seven churches that have connections with my education. My photographs this morning (7 March 2021) are from Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry, where I spent a happy summer in 1966 at Coláiste Mhichíl on an Irish-language summer course, preparing for the Intermediate (Junior Certificate) exams at school. I learned very little Irish, but it was an important time for my maturing and growth as a teenager.
John 2: 13-22 (NRSVA):
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. 15 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. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 18 The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19 Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20 The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:
The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (7 March 2021), the Third Sunday in Lent, prays:
Loving God, you heal the broken-hearted
and comfort the bereaved.
May all who bear the scars of the Earthquake and tsunami
experience your comfort and healing.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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