Homily

At the beginning of Lent we heard, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." Let us not pass this time in vain, a time in which we can re-enter ourselves, understand who we are so that we can change and try to be better. "The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." We follow Jesus in his way towards the holy city; Jesus does not flee or save himself. He does not make a deal with evil: he opposes it and chooses the way of love all the way to the end. His choice is a stumbling-block for the Jews, who were scrupulous followers of a justice without mercy, and foolishness for the gentiles, who at most would only love those who loved them. God chooses weakness and defeats evil with good, something that we all have and that is the most human thing of all. Jesus accepts the temple that is his body to be destroyed in order to destroy evil and for life to rise. And yet, isn’t all this useless facing evil? Isn’t something else needed? Often we think this way, bringing the mentality of the world even into the house of the Lord. The commandment of the world is: "Save yourself; think of yourself; oppose violence with violence!" Jesus does not want to be a loser. On the contrary, he does not save himself because all are to rise again! Even the scene of the expulsion of the merchants in the temple is in a way a manifestation of jealousy on the part of Jesus. Thus, what the prophet says can be understood: "Zeal - that is jealousy - for your house devours me," to the point of jealousy? Mark says that Jesus made a whip out of cords and began to whip them and overturned their benches. It is a Jesus particularly hard and resolute; he cannot tolerate that God’s house was contaminated, even if it is a matter of small, and even essential, transactions. Jesus knows well that in a temple where these small transactions are accepted, it can get to the point that even the life of a man can be sold for a mere thirty silver pieces.
But what is the market which scandalizes Jesus? No doubt this gospel page questions our way of running religious buildings and their annexes; we should wonder if they are truly places of prayer and encounter with God. Those who have pastoral responsibilities are questioned about the care they have for themselves and their communities so that they do not become spaces where one looks for self-advantage and promotion, with no care for the "zeal of the house of the Lord." Moreover there is another market that we should examine: it is that which takes place within the heart: a market which scandalizes the Lord Jesus even more because the heart is the true temple which God wants to dwell in. Such a market has to do with the way one conceives and conducts one’s life, when life is reduced to a sort of buying and selling process in which nothing is gratuitous. People lost the sense and practice of gratuitousness, generosity, and grace. Everything is done out of interest. This iron law seems to rule the life of people: all, some more and some less, are busy and worried for ourselves and our advantage. People seem not to care if the poisonous herbs of arrogance, voraciousness, and insatiability, which make everyone’s lives bitter, grow from this attitude. What counts is one’s advantage at any price. Jesus today enters into our life, as he entered the temple, and overturns this primacy; he throws up in the air the little benches of our petty interests and reaffirms God’s absolute primacy. It is the zeal that Jesus has for each one of us, for our heart, for our life, that it might open up to receive God. This is why every Sunday becomes like the scourge which Jesus uses to change hearts and lives. Indeed, each time that that small book is opened, it expels from the heart of those who hear their attachment to self, and overturns the tenacity to pursue every which way our own affairs. The Gospel is the "double-edge sword" that the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of that cuts to the marrow. For Jesus, there is not happiness in being against others or without others, and without the first other, that is, God. If there is no room for Him, there is no room either for brothers and sisters. Let the Gospel change our heart and we will find the path of happiness and resurrection. With our passion and love, we will make this house a place of peace and prayer so that human beings may learn to live in peace.