Fr Marco Lazzaron
he liturgy of this Sunday presents Jesus who heals the relationship between God and mankind. The episode narrated in the Gospel, makes us understand the Temple as the place where God dwells, where men and women can truly find God and live in his presence, as his sons and daughters.
In the first reading from Exodus, we hear of the Decalogue given by God to Moses. God wants to make us understand that he wants to set us free and to make us his children: “For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments”. The Jews do not speak of these as “commandments” but as “words” that God gave to Moses and they were to follow them to be able to love God.
For us, when we speak of the Ten Commandments we think just of something not to do, a list of big NOs, like ten prohibitions, impositions from the Church impossible to fulfill. Instead, God gave these so that through these “words” we may be completely free to live according to his will “loving one another” as he loved us first.
With the Responsorial Psalm we say: “Lord, you alone have words of eternal life”. We recognize with the Psalmist that “the Law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul; the decrees of the Lord are clear, they give light to the eyes”.
John puts this scene in the Temple at the beginning of his Gospel, as an anticipation of what will happen at the end. The Jews asked of Jesus a sign for casting out the money-changers and those who were selling the animals for the sacrifices. And Jesus answers: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up again”. Jesus, as the disciples later will remember, was not speaking of the temple but of his body and the Apostles will believe even more in Him and the Resurrection. With this action, Jesus has come to purify our “temples” as well, our bodies, because as St Paul says “we are temples of the Holy Spirit”.
I just would like to leave some questions for our weekly reflection that we can ponder over the next few days:
– What is the Decalogue for us? Are we are aware that the “do not” are achievable only by slowly learning how to love God, our neighbours, and ourselves?
– When we come to Church are we sure that it is there that we can find the Lord waiting for us, to enter into a relationship with us in the silence and in our prayer’ life? Do we respect the Church because is for us the house of God?
– Is the participation in the Mass a fruitful encounter with the Word of God so that we can reach eternal life here on earth?