The charge of turning the God’s house into a marketplace is one that Jesus levels not just at the Jews of his time but also at us. Through baptism we have become living temples of the Holy Spirit and thus God’s house. And, alas, we too, all in varying degrees, bring into our hearts much that desecrates the sacred house of God that we are, and thereby turn our hearts into a veritable marketplace of distractions, preoccupations, selfish attachments, anxieties, fears, resentments, jealousies, rivalries, and animosities—to name but a few. And since we bring our hearts and minds to all that we do this also means that we bring all these spiritually foreign elements into this chapel also, so that it too risks becoming a marketplace instead of a house of prayer and worship. And this may account for some of the difficulty and struggle we periodically experience in our public worship and prayer within this sacred space. Notwithstanding the fundamental unfailing efficacy of all formal liturgical worship, the state of our own individual hearts and minds definitely impacts what we experience communally. Therefore, in celebrating the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica let us reexamine our own hearts and, in opening them to Christ allow him to drive from them all the spiritual equivalents of sheep, cattle, doves, and money-changers so that we may more worthily worship and glorify the Lord.