Angry Jesus

Just got back from my parish's celebration of the Feast of Saint Joseph and had the opportunity to speak very briefly to the pastor about yesterday's Gospel.

Jesus' anger was justified. He was not afraid to turn that anger into action and do some housecleaning, literally. That's the message of the Gospel - it's not enough to know that the moneylenders and dove salesmen were in violation of the Ten Commandments, as we all heard in the first reading of yesterday's Mass, you have to take action against them. I would like to think is why the Catholic blogosphere does what it does.

I would also offer this thought - the moneylenders are not just those who bring their monetary exchanges into the temple, they are also those who bring their agendas into the Church, the ones who rail against what they perceive are unfair rules of the Church. There is no compromise - the temple is either a House of God or not. Jesus did not say to them, "Well, I'll give you Thursday mornings to conduct your business," nor did He say, "Look, just move over to the side or at least try to keep it down, willya?" He made a scourge and threw over their tables and drove them out the door. This wasn't a fit of pique - it was His Divine Intervention to keep holy what He had made thus. Let us pray that He will give us the Wisdom to know when the mess has accumulated and take the action to rid ourselves, our Church, of it.