Friday of the Thirty-ThirdWeek in Ordinary Time
The merchants in the temple
Then Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.'” And every day he was teaching in the temple area. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death, but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words. Lk 19,45-48
A lemon tree, which since two years produces little fruits and those few taste poorly, is located on our terrace. On the spring, I decided to do a good pruning: If on the old sprout new branches and the trunk of beautiful lemons will be born, the tree will have a new life, or I will cut it and I will make it firewood. In the today gospel Jesus has decided to do the same thing with the temple of Jerusalem: “Then Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, ‘It is written. My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves‘ “.Then, every day he goes to teach into the temple to realize if, in those old walls which have previously represented a codification of the law of Israel, a new word of God, which is he himself, may be injected. Jesus, however, in addition to have found that the temple, the symbol of
the faith of Israel, had become a seller’s market, becomes also aware of another reality: while the notables of the temple and the law are trying to destroy him, the people are hanging from his lips. It is a sign that this place has already had its time and now a new multitude of temples is developing, not made of stones anymore, but in the hearts of those men who listen with faith his word. It is the prophetic sign of what will be the transition from the Old to the New Testament, of the religion based on the Jewish law up to the universal church, centered on the person of Jesus Christ. Even in our daily life we must do the same thing: to destroy all what pollutes and profanes us, to listen the word of God and to produce new fruits. We cannot live of the fruits of the past, even when we are older.