Memory of Jesus crucified
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 19,45-48
Then he went into the Temple and began driving out those who were busy trading, saying to them, 'According to scripture, my house shall be a house of prayer but you have turned it into a bandits' den.' He taught in the Temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, in company with the leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they could not find a way to carry this out because the whole people hung on his words.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus entered the holy city and set out towards the Temple. Within those walls was the heart of Jerusalem, the place of God's presence, where the faith and history of Isarel found their fulfilment. But the spirit of the world, with its love for personal gain and wealth had invaded even that space dedicated to God and prayer. Truly that house had been transformed into a place of commerce, of business, of buying and selling. We could say that the temple had become the emblem of the condition of the world: a place which it too was a slave to materialism, of a life understood as a market, as an exchange of goods. For many, even today, what counts in life is to buy and sell, acquire and consume. Nothing else. The dimension of gratuitousness seems to have disappeared, even more be banished, from life, The law of the market has become the new religion, with its temples, its rites, its altars upon which to sacrifice everything. Jesus, angry before that not only scandalous but petty spectacle drives out the sellers crying out: "My house shall be a house of prayer." The only true relationship, the only one which has full citizenship in life, is the gratuitous love for God and for one's brothers and sisters which becomes a space for the real presence of God in every city. Space for God is made in the heart. Jesus expelled the sellers from the temple and also expels that materialistic spirit so robustly present in our hearts. And he proclaims the Gospel to us again. The evangelist writes that from that moment Jesus remained in the Temple and began to proclaim the Gospel every day. That place - and we hope it is like that also for our heart-becomes once again the sanctuary of mercy and love.