Friday of 8th Week
“Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple; and when he had surveyed it all, as it was late by now, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.”
Jesus has given us the gift of truth that sets us free, it is a spirit of Pentecost whose breath regenerates everything on its passage. It is at Bethany that Jesus finds his friends again. Here where everything we ask for in prayer is obtained form God, the One who saves us. In God’s Glory, in the rays of his shining Love, we love one another. He never stops loving his people and he wants to see in us the shining forth of his love. To have a limpid heart, purified by permanent adoration for the contemplation of God and the service of those who are given to us to love.it is a love for God and a love that shines forth in justice and fraternal charity. Jesus announces in a prophetic way what he is bringing about. His love, which is going to change the world, is at work. Before leaving the Temple,’ Jesus surveyed it all.’ He is tender and merciful, but he is true and upright. We are the vine, God’s plantation that must bear the fruit of love at all times.
’So they reached the Temple and he went into the Temple and began driving out the men selling and buying there; he upset the tables of the money changers and the seats of the dove sellers. Nor would he allow anyone to carry anything into the Temple.’
Jesus’ actions are prophetic ones destined to make us understand that religion is first and foremost about a link of Love with God. The Spirit of Jesus makes us lambs of God amidst wolves wanting to keep their power. If he acts like this it is because he is a friend of his people. The Messiah, in the Person of Jesus, comes to teach us a new form of relationship with God the Father. His prayer ’My food is to do the Will the One who sent me and to do his work.’ God offers us salvation through reconciliation with Our Heavenly Father. But our souls still need to be able to welcome this grace from the Lord. Jesus accomplishes the cleansing of the
Temple, God’s House, and each one of us is concerned. The bandits’ den is the inner or outer business we do. ’ You have made of the House of my Father a bandits’ den.’ We need to deliberately bring out of ourselves all our misery, and that of others, and place them into the Father’s Infinite Love.Being transformed in this Love we are transform the world with Jesus : ’Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, if someone says to this mountain ’Get up and throw yourself into the sea’ and if he has no hesitation in his heart, but believes what he says will come about, then it will be granted to him.’
“And he taught them and said, ’Does not scripture say: My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples? But you have turned it into a bandits’ den! This came to the ears of the chief priests and the scribes and they tried to find a way of doing away with him; they were afraid of him because the crowd was carried away with by his teaching.”
Jesus tells us that it is possible by raising our heart and turning it towards the Father who is the Temple now to be adored : the hour is coming and now is , when true adorers will adore the Father in spirit and in truth : such are the adorers that the Father is seeking. It is in union with God through faith that we must now pray, no longer in a Temple made of stone, but in the temple of our heart where the eternal splendour of the Father resides. God is Love, he invites us to share in our hearts this same love so that we shine it forth all the time. ’ This is why I tell you, everything that you ask in prayer, if you believe that you have already received it, it will be granted to you. And when you are standing in prayer, if you have something against someone, forgive him, so that your Father who is Heaven will also forgive your offences.’ Our life has no other aim than to contemplate God and adore Him. The one who is nourished by the Word of God bears abundant fruits.