FEAST OF the Holy Church

SCRIPTURE READINGS

~ Baruch 4:36-5:9 ~

Gaze toward the east, Jerusalem, and behold the joy that is coming to you from God. The children whom you saw depart are returning; they are returning, gathered together from the east and the west, at the command of the Holy One, rejoicing in the glory of God. Remove your robe of mourning and affliction, O Jerusalem, and adorn yourself forever with the splendor of the glory of God. Wrap yourself with the cloak of God’s justice, and place on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting. For God will reveal your splendor to every nation under the heavens; and you will forever be called by God: “The Peace of Justice and The Glory of Piety.” Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the heights and look toward the east; behold your children gathered from the west and the east at the command of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. They departed from you on foot, led away by their enemies. But God will bring them back to you, borne aloft in glory as though on a royal throne. For God has decreed that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be leveled and that the valleys be filled to make level ground, so that Israel may walk securely in the glory of God. The woods and every type of fragrant tree have provided shade for Israel at God’s command. For God will lead Israel with joy, by the light of his glory, with the mercy and uprightness that come from him.

~ Hebrews 3:1-6 ~

Therefore, brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also "was faithful in all God's house." Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.

~ Holy Gospel of St. John 2:12-22 ~

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days. The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 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. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 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.