“Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money-changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’” (John 2:15-16)
In this coming Sunday’s Gospel, we have one of the most famous and rare images of Jesus from His earthly ministry: Why does Jesus get angry and how does He get away with it?
He was enraged not by what was happening - buying animals for sacrifice using Temple currency was normal, and His parents had done it when they presented Him to God forty days after His birth. The problem was where it was being done: inside the Temple itself, namely in the Court of the Gentiles, taking up space where non-Jews had the right to worship. When I take a seat at Holy Mass, whether it be in the pews or the sanctuary, am I taking up a space, by my worldliness, that someone still far from Christ would occupy more genuinely than me, if they heard the Gospel as I have?
