Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Christ knows what is inside each one of us, which is a perfect summary of today’s gospel. You and I may not know what is inside of us, but he does. He knows because he made your temple. The temple in Jerusalem was full of business, selling animals of all kinds, pigeons, lambs, birds, snakes. Within us is a deep love for money which is something we will always have and will make you realize that faith is a daily battle.
St. Paul says, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. He is referring to concrete things like sexuality, vanity, disordered self-love. We are beggars for affection so much so that you forget about your children all day; you don’t correct them because you don’t want to lose their affections. Even with your spouse you think that she has to love you the way you want. And it’s the same with your boss, your colleagues, classmates, parents. We are always begging for what we want, from the moment we get out of bed. Do you think of loving them? Many times, we don’t. I will only love the one who loves me.
Christians pray that they will be able to give what they have received. Do you receive contempt from God, no? You always receive love and so why can’t we give it? God sees all of this. He knows that what goes into a man is not what makes him evil; it is what comes out of a man, what comes out of his temple, his idolatrous temple when it should be a place of the Lord. There are many little statues that we put in the temple: your own, your son, your work, your money. God is a jealous God, and he will destroy these idols, little by little.
If you want to be a Christian and you are part of a Christian community then our Lord is acting and you can experience that he is destroying your idols. You are getting fatter, hair is falling out, teeth are cracked and turning yellow. Everything is fading. The vanity of your kids also fades. One is on drugs, the other one is lazy or violent, one has to be thrown out of the house, another is divorced. Even with money that you look for constantly, Christ will help you. God forbid you lose your job or your tenant or the market crashes. Then with the idol of your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend and something happens that causes these idols to fall.
Zeal for your house consumes me says Jesus. He has zeal for your temple and always will bring you down a notch or two because he is merciful. Why should he come into your life and mine? You think that it is nonsense to have these attachments, no. He is showing you mercy because he wants you to be happy. He is testing you and is cleaning up your temple. How does he drive out animals in the gospel? With a whip of cords; he has a holy wrath, not to give you a hard time but to give your demons a hard time so that they leave you. He loves the sinner but not the sin. He does this by his passion on the cross.
St. Paul says in the second reading that Jews demands sign and Greeks wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. He doesn’t say Christ resurrected, but Christ crucified, a scandal, a stumbling block. This is especially true today. People are scandalized by the cross, but suffering. We think that a big house saves us, a good job, a wife that says the children are wonderful, let’s go have a cocktail or two and a little marijuana and everything appears fine.
To be a Christian means to see the meaning of your suffering, that it saves you. A Christian lays his life down for the other; he walks hand in hand with a brother or parent who is sick. God shows you that you can enter that cross. What a pity when the grandchildren are too scandalized to see their sick grandparents; they miss a huge gift, something exquisite. Through that suffering God wants to save you. He throws you a lift raft and good to grab onto it. Often, we despise what God sends us. I did in reference to my mom’s dementia for many years.
The cross is foolishness, a scandal but this is what brings you peace. Don’t throw out what God sends you. Your whole life you have done your holy will and you are not happy. You divorced or didn’t have another child or stole from work or slept with who knows who, you look at garbage on the internet. Doing your will often destroys you. If you do the will of God, you will see that you can love and by loving you will save your wife or husband, your boss, your brother.
Christ loved us first and if there is one Christian in a marriage then it is enough to save the marriage, even if you fight a lot. If there is one Christian, you can reconcile and forgive. It there is no Christian, then it is a horror. Both want to be loved, how foolish. I will love him if he loves me! We cannot love unless we have been loved by Christ. He comes to free us from those demons; he comes to clean the temple.
You will see this at Easter, which is the most important vigil/night of faith, when he shows his deep love for you. He makes love with you. He will give his life again on the altar and in the Word he announces to you. Let him tear down the things that offend him. Let him make an image of himself in you so you can be a real Christian before you die. To have that image of the crucified Lord in you. It is better if you do it before you die. When you have this image of Christ in you then you can love and forgive and understand the other. You can fulfill all the commandments out of love, not out of duty or effort.