March 4^th 2018.  Third Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL   John 2:13-25

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL   John 2:13-25

Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
"Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
"What sign can you show us for doing this?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jews said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?"
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.
While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing.
But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all,
and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.
He himself understood it well.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The first reading has the proclamation of the Ten Commandments. Is there a commandment that is more important than the others? In the rabbinic tradition there is the story that a disciple goes to his rabbi and asks: “Why do the last commandments tell us not to desire the property or wife of my neighbour when the earlier commandments already prohibit stealing and adultery? Do the commandments repeat themselves?” The rabbi replies: “The earlier commandments prohibit the transgression itself but the final commandments tell us the origin of our transgression, which is the desire of the heart”. In the Gospel we read the account of Jesus’ purification of the Temple, when he chases the merchants and money-changers away with a cord. The purification of the Temple precedes the real job of purification which Jesus came to accomplish: the purification of our hearts. It is the state of our hearts that is responsible for everything that we do. Jesus once said that it is not that which enters our mouth which defiles us but that which comes forth from the heart. When we assume and welcome our baptism, we are regenerated by Jesus so that we begin to be filled with the desires of the Holy Spirit. We need Jesus to purify our hearts! It is useless to think that we can be transformed if we just apply ourselves with more determination, or if we try to change ourselves on the outside. We need to be changed from within. We need Jesus to enter our hearts with a cord and drive away the sellers whose only interest is material gain. Do we think that we will get anywhere if we allow Godliness and materialism to cohabit our hearts?  Purification involves an interior dying to these things. Only the Lord Jesus can change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.

Is there one commandment which goes beyond all the others?

On this third Sunday of Lent, Year B, we hear the dramatic Gospel recounting the purification of the Temple by Jesus. It is interesting that John has this event at the beginning of his Gospel, whilst the other Gospels place this scene in the last week of Jesus’ life close to the completion of his mission. But John describes this very serious event immediately after the account of the wedding feast at Cana. The first reading has the proclamation of the Ten Commandments. An interesting question to ask ourselves is: “What verse or phrase encapsulates the entire Gospel?” Of course, it is not possible to find a single phrase of this sort, but nevertheless it can be a helpful way to deepen our understanding of the Gospel. A similar question is: “Is there a commandment that helps us enter more deeply into the other nine commandments?”  The last two commandments (which are ordered differently in the classic account from Exodus than the numbering normally used by the Christian churches) demand that we not desire the wife or property of our neighbour. They can be collapsed into a single commandment that requires that we not desire what belongs to others. Could this be the most important commandment? How could such an assertion be justified? There is a celebrated rabbinic commentary that discusses this very issue. A disciple puts a question to his rabbi: “Why does the blessed Isaiah tell us not to desire the house, livestock or slave of our neighbour? He had already instructed us not to steal. Moreover, why did he tell us not to desire the wife of our neighbour when he had already told us not to commit adultery? Perhaps the holy and blessed Isaiah has given us commandments that are superfluous?” The rabbi responds: “By means of the other commandments the blessed Isaiah has shown us the transgressions that we are to avoid, but in this final commandment he tells us the origin of all the other commandments: desire, that which is in the heart”.

Jesus wishes to purify my heart, since it is the origin of everything that I do

In the last line of the Gospel for Sunday, we are told: “But Jesus would not trust himself to  them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.” In other passage from the Gospel we hear that it is not that which enters the mouth that contaminates man, but that which proceeds from the heart. Where does our tragedy have its source? Our robberies, our adulteries, our homicides? All of these things are simply the result of what we have in our hearts. It is by our desires that we are crucified. Jesus’ purification of the Temple is a forerunner to another kind of purification, the purification of our hearts. And if we do not experience this purification, then everything that we do is a waste of time. Until our hearts are rid of that which produces our destruction, we will never be happy.

We must enter into our baptism, be purified by Jesus, so that our hearts are changed and begin to have the desires of the Holy Spirit. These desires will regenerate our lives and reorient our being

Often our lives are miserable not because they are miserable in themselves, but because we want them to be different than they are. How often we are dissatisfied, angry and frustrated only because our lives do not correspond to our own expectations. What is it that crucifies man? His expectations. Not reality, but what he expects from reality. Jesus discovers that the Temple has been exploited for gain and advantage, and the Lord must perform his task of the reconstruction of things, the reconstruction of this Temple which is humanity. Our experience of baptism, if assumed by us, if welcomed by us, becomes the basis of a radical re-foundation of our being. Beginning from our hearts, our baptism engenders in us different desires, as described in Galatians 5. These desires of the Spirit involve a reorientation of our being. We might try to change ourselves from the outside; we might seek to be faithful by applying ourselves with more determination; by not looking at what is not ours, not doing the things prohibited by the Law; but it is the heart that is the origin of all these things! It is the heart that is sick and is the origin of all our suffering, the heart that is the source of these desires that do not come from the Holy Spirit!

We need Jesus to drive these merchants of material things from our heart. We try to allow these material fixations to cohabit our hearts along with our religious sentiments. But such a condition will lead us nowhere. We need Jesus to purify us, which involves a dying on our part. Only Jesus can liberate us so that our hearts are filled with the desires of the Spirit

Jesus needs to give a hiding to some of the merchants, the sellers who focus on material gain, that dwell in our hearts. This Lent let us receive from the Lord Jesus the gift of being purified by him. Jesus knows what is in our hearts and is capable of giving us new desires. Through his word he can bring to fruition a new orientation in our hearts. If this does not happen, then we will end up going nowhere. And the problem is that we are inclined to allow these merchants to cohabit alongside the Temple. The work Jesus wishes to do is chase these merchants away from the Temple. We try to allow worldliness and Godliness to stay together side by side. Our egocentric desires, directed to our own self-realization, sitting side by side with the true God? No, this is not possible! Purification requires a dying on our part, a destruction. Let us allow ourselves to be “destroyed” by the Lord and challenged by his word. Let us permit Jesus to enter our hearts with the cord, correct us and tell us what we need to hear, fertilize the Good News within us. This Sunday the liturgy speaks powerfully to our hearts. Our hearts must be liberated by the only one who knows how to renew them, the only one who can transform them from hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.