It is not surprising that the main activity of the Church, according to Paul's words, is the glorification of God through Jesus Christ. But what it really means? And what is in general the glorification, which was known to the people of God several centuries before the arrival of Christ? Is it the witness of faithfulness to God? Is it story to the world about His greatness? Of course and this also. But the story about God and the witness of the faithfulness to Him are only a consequence. And where is thus the base? God from the beginning wanted to see His people as a people-community. And of course the divine service had to be the spiritual center of the life of the community. But indeed, the divine service had never been an only human affair, God always participated in it, and not only in the sense that by His presence He blessed and sanctified the assembly of the faithful.

The divine service was even always inseparable of the sanctification of the world, in which the people of God lived. This sacred space, where takes place God's meeting with the community of the faithful, changes completely really the world, by making it different, not such as it was before. Of course it did not come to talk about the sanctification and the transformation of all the creation before the arrival of the Christ, but the presence itself in the world of the sacred space, as an alternative of the existing of the non transformed order of things, changed fundamentally the spiritual situation in it.

And with the coming of Christ it changed even more, changed fundamentally: because with His coming, into the world also entered the Kingdom, so now the prospect of the full transformation of the creation becomes completely real. But now also one of the main tools of God's action in the world remains the divine service, only that now it is for the Church inconceivable without the participation of the Risen One. His presence becomes a major theophany, completeness surpassing all which was before. And God is now glorified in Him through His Church. Because it is particularly like that the world is attached to the Kingdom, finding in it its salvation.

"Forgive, and you will be forgiven" is a principle known long before Christ came. But in our fallen world it is usually taken to mean mutual indulgence: close your eyes to my sins, and I will close mine to yours, and we will not spoil each other's mood with mutual reproaches and claims. Of course, such an arrangement usually works only as long as the interests of one of the parties are not seriously affected, but quite often it still helps preserve decency and the appearance of normal relations. In everyday life, this is often what is called "forgiving your neighbor his sins."

But Jesus undoubtedly means something else: for He was never tolerant of any sin, although He always forgave the repentant sinner. He plainly proceeds from the fact that we are all sinners, and each of us needs, on the threshold of the Kingdom, to be forgiven those sins of which we repent and for which we grieve. But then we have no moral right to demand an accounting from others: either we begin to reckon up sins, and then there can be no question of the Kingdom, or we allow ourselves to be judged and cleansed from sin by the One who alone can do this; then the road into the Kingdom is open to us. The choice is ours.

Those who came to trade in the temple had no intention of defiling it. They were quite devout people who had put up for sale what pilgrims needed for the rites. The transformation of God's house into a den of robbers happened unnoticed, contrary to the conscious will of those gathered there, as everyday practical concerns accumulated like dust and covered over the very thing for which the temple exists.

When we come to God with our everyday needs, we are not committing a sin, for He Himself invited us to ask for them. But when we come to the temple only with practical needs, forgetting the selflessness of our relationship with God, we risk becoming those same "practical people" who made the temple a place of commercial deals.