LENT IS A REMINDER THAT WE NEED TO LIVE IN LOVE AS THE LOVING CHILDREN OF THE GOD OF LOVE On the first Lenten Sunday, we are reminded of our identity as the Children of the God of Love. On the second Lenten Sunday, we are reminded that this God loves us at any cost. The third Lenten Sunday invites us to realize that as the Children of the God of Love, we need to live in love. Edgar Guest has a poem entitled “Sermons We See.” “I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day… And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds, For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.”
Today’s first reading teaches us that the Ten Commandments are the basis of the religious and spiritual life of the Israelites, resulting from their covenant with Yahweh at Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments is the walk-the-talk of the old covenant. But for us, as the disciples of Jesus Christ, love of God and love of neighbor is the foundation of the New Covenant, as ensouled beings made in the image of a loving God. Love is the reason God gave us free will so that we could choose to love God and choose to love each other. Love is the walk-the-talk of the New Covenant. That is why the second reading reminds us that we must preach the divine folly of the crucified Christ and the spirit of the cross, especially during the Lenten season. The message of the cross is that Love is greater than the Law, greater than the temple, greater than worldly wisdom or human strength. Therefore, the season of Lent invites us to love, as it is the doorway through which the human soul passes from selfishness to service. Today’s Gospel scene depicts an angry Jesus. This image of Jesus does not fit well with the traditional image of a meek and smiling Jesus. Why did Jesus, who is the very incarnation of love, mercy and gentleness, act with such violence? We must look at things that make us angry. It is said you can measure the size of a person’s soul by the size of the things that make him angry. Most of our anger is motivated by self-interest and we get angry about petty things. Jesus did not get angry on His own account. His anger resulted from His love of God and of His neighbor. His action in the temple needs to be seen as a protest against the victimization and exploitation of the poor worshippers and commercialization of God’s temple. The God of love cannot tolerate injustice and exploitation of the weak and the innocent. At the time of the Passover feast, pilgrims from all over the world visited the temple. There in the temple, were people who collected the temple taxes and made transactions with different currencies of different nations. Money changers made big profits from these transactions. It was a deliberately planned victimization of the pilgrims. It was a shameless social injustice and exploitation and it was being done in the name of religion. Besides money changers, there were the merchants of oxen, sheep, and doves. They blackmailed these poor pilgrims by selling the animals or the birds for cutthroat prices. Once again it was done in the name of religion. So, the house of prayer was turned into a place of injustice and a market with loud noise and commotion that made it impossible for the people to pray. Jesus loved God. He also loved God’s children and it was impossible for Him to stand by while the poor people were treated like that. He was angry at the exploitation of these poor pilgrims and the desecration of the temple through the commercialization of worship, with a total loss of sense of God’s presence in the House of God. Jesus stood for the dignity of the human being and solemnity of God’s worship, not through the sacrifice of the animals but through respect and service to the fellow human beings, who are the images and temples of God. So, what does today’s liturgy teach us? First, true worship consists not merely of sacrifices or rituals but mainly of love of God and love of neighbor in our thoughts and deeds. Fighting against injustice, exploitation, victimization, dehumanization, and pollution of Nature is also a powerful expression of one’s love of God and of neighbor. Through the act of the cleansing of the temple, as Christians, we are called to exorcise the demons of discrimination, bitterness, hatred and violence in us – both individually as well as in our society/parish/community. During this Lent, may the Lord help us to make our souls, our families, and our parish a house of prayer, love, joy, and unity, transcending the negative forces of hatred, terrorism and violence! Fr P. Anil Pudota, SJ