The Importance of Prayer

The readings are about prayer, I think. Not the text that goes into prayer, but what it really means: relationship:

2558 "Great is the mystery of the faith!" The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles' Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three). This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer. -- from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

In the Gospel reading, Jesus drives out traders and money changers from the Temple because it should be a house of prayer, not a den of thieves. He does this with zeal and intensity. Why was this so important? I think it is because you can't serve two masters. That temple is either truly set apart for right relationship with God or not. But that particular temple in Jerusalem is gone: our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit now, through baptism when He was poured out upon us. We therefore face the same choice: is my body a house of prayer or a den of thieves? What do I surround my heart with? What fills my soul? If we are follow Christ, we must also drive out - with zeal! - whatever does not lead to God. Our souls must be full of prayer, in intimate relationship with God. Fill it with prayer, and you drive out sin. Five minutes, ten, fifteen minutes just being with God in prayer, quiet, contemplative, rejuvenating! And as we mature, we go from milk to meat!