Daily Gospel Reflection
Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.
November 21, 2025
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, the 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.
I know that many find comfort in this gospel scene, where Christ, in righteous anger, drives the moneylenders from the temple. Those who have been made to feel unwelcome in church, considered as outsiders to the kingdom of God, may find vindication and solace in Christ’s actions.
My own response is a little different. I was a devout child. I grew up to be a devout adult. In those intervening years, even as a struggling Christian, my grappling took place inside churches. When I read this passage, I do so with an eye toward Christ’s message for us—the insiders.
What serves as comfort to the outsider is, and ought to be, a warning to the rest of us. We are unlikely to set up a retail shop or money exchange service in our churches. We might set up real obstacles to prayer and worship through our greed, unholy anger, and subtle conceit. Worse yet, like those who sold sacrificial pigeons, exchanged pagan money for temple currency, and questioned Christ’s authority, we might do these while telling ourselves we are facilitating worship. This is, I think, the gravest danger.
Consider those whose lives we find scandalous, whose beliefs we deem heretical, whose practices we find disruptive, whose behaviors we find abrasive, whose appearance we find distracting. What do they all have in common?
Precisely what they share with the rest of us: the need for prayer, right worship, and the Word of God, and the fact that they are wholly welcome in the house of God. Only when we remember this equality in the sight of God will we understand the promise of Isaiah 56 to which Jesus here alludes.
Christ’s church is not our own. We are called to be on guard against false teachers selling false goods, not false worshippers seeking God in earnest love—and we should all thank God for that.
Prayer
Lord, you made us temples of the Holy Spirit, and yet so often, we make of our temples a den of thieves. Turn our hearts back to you. Inspire us by the gift of your Holy Spirit that we may be instruments of your justice and lasting peace. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Today, the Church celebrates Mary's presentation in the Temple. Although there are no scriptural or historical accounts of this particular event, it is a feast that has profound theological symbolism and has been important for Christians since the earliest days of Christianity.
An early written account that contains many key stories of Mary's childhood come from a piece of early Christian writing called the Protoevangelium of James, also called The Gospel of James or The Infancy Gospel of James. In the Protoevangelium, the author draws on many Old Testament tropes to connect Mary's birth and childhood with the holy men and women of Israel's sacred heritage. Anne and Joachim, Mary's parents are devout Jews who are childless. Joachim is shunned for his infertility and Anne weeps, lamenting her barrenness, which has caused them deep shame. An angel appears to her and tells her that she will conceive a child. Anne vows in that very moment to dedicate her child, male or female, to the Lord in the Temple. Soon after, Joachim and Anne conceive. They are overjoyed, and, eventually, Anne bears a girl who they name Mary. Soon after Mary's birth, Anne takes Mary to the Temple to present her to the Lord and dedicate her daughter’s life to God.
The feast is important because not only does it connect Mary's parents Joachim and Anne to righteous figures from Scripture, like Abraham and Sarah, it also draws a close parallel between Mary’s life and Jesus', as the Church celebrates the feast of Jesus’ own Presentation in the Temple (Lk 2:22-38), on February 2nd. Because Mary is the first and greatest disciple, a model of faith, her life is depicted as an intimate imitation of Christ's.
Furthermore, the feast draws the close connection between Mary and the Temple. The Temple was believed by the Jewish people to be the place where God's glory, the Shekinah, dwelled on earth. Mary, who will house God-made-flesh in her body, is the new Temple, the new Ark of the Covenant, the location of God's presence on earth for nine months in her body and throughout her whole life as she walked in unwavering faithfulness with God. For, in the words of St. Augustine, "it was for [Mary] a greater thing to have been Christ's disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood. Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master."
Indeed, from the beginning of her life, through the grace of her Immaculate Conception, Mary cooperated fully with God's grace. This cooperation with God came to fruition in her acceptance of Gabriel's message at the Annunciation, leading to God's incarnation in the world. We, like Mary, are called to live as God’s holy temples, to bear Christ into the world as Mary did.
Mary’s presentation in the Temple is represented in a stained glass window in the Basilica of Sacred Heart on Notre Dame's campus. In the window, shown in today's featured image, Anne and Joachim present her to the temple priest.
Mary, whose dedication to God allowed her to become God’s living temple—pray for us!
