Friday, November 19 : Saint Augustine

We pray in God’s temple when we pray in the peace of the Church, in the unity of Christ’s body, because the Body of Christ is made up of the great mass of believers scattered throughout the world. (…) It is in this temple, and not in the material Temple at Jerusalem, that we must pray “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23) if we are to be answered. The latter was “a shadow of things to come” (Col 2:17), which is why it fell to ruin (…) The temple that fell could not be the house of prayer of which it was said that: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Mk 11:17; Is 56:7; Jer 7:11). Was it indeed the case that those who wanted to make of it “a den of thieves” were the cause of its fall? In the same way, neither do those leading a disordered life in the Church and seeking, so far as they might, to make the house of God a den of thieves, neither do those overthrow this temple. The time will come when they will be cast out beneath the blows of their sins. This gathering of the faithful, the temple of God and Body of Christ, has but one voice and sings as one person (…) If we want, this voice is ours; if we want, when we hear them singing we, too, will sing in our hearts.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team