“And when he was come into Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, saying: ‘Who is this?’ And the people said: ‘This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth of Galilee.’ And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves: and he saith to them: ‘It is written, ‘My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.’’ And there came to him the blind and the lame in the temple; and he healed them. And the chief priests and scribes, seeing the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying: ‘Hosanna to the son of David;’ they were moved with indignation, and said to him: ‘Hearest thou what these say?’ And Jesus said to them: “Yea, have you never read: ‘Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise?’’”
The whole of Jerusalem wonders at the magnificent entry of the King, and asks the multitude who it is that draws such wondrous praise: “I will extol thee, O God my king: and I will bless thy name for ever; yea, for ever and ever” (Psalm 144:1), and the people reply as best they can, that a great prophet had entered Jerusalem: “Touch ye not my anointed: and do no evil to my prophets” (Psalm 104:15). While this is not wrong, it is not the fullness of the truth of Jesus, a rung on the ladder of truth from thinking Him simply a man to the truth that He is God: “And he saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven” (Genesis 28:12). To know Him as a man eventually opens the insight that He is Love Incarnate, not doing anything that is contrary to perfect love: “As the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9), and is thus the prophet foretold by Moses: “The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me: him thou shalt hear” (Deuteronomy 18:15). The first thing He does is go to His Father’s house, setting a beautiful example to always seek the nearest church when you go to a city, that you never may be far from the Mass: “Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” (John 6:54), but rather always near to your Beloved, for lovers, when far from each other, desire only to be reunited with the object of their love. Jesus then goes to the heart of the sickness in Jerusalem, which is the abuse of the temple, for when the Church is shining and radiant, people flock to her, but when her priests are unsound and her people lax and crooked, it hampers the faith of others and the mission of love on earth: “Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all the day, and all the night, they shall never hold their peace. You that are mindful of the Lord, hold not your peace. And give him no silence till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (Isaias 62:6-7). However, when priests are filled with love and sharpened with wisdom, when virgins and religious are singing in their hearts with nothing of the world crossing their hearts, when the laity works in harmony and love with their families and each other, this is the myrrh of love that purifies the heart of the world: “A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts” (Canticle 1:12). What the Lord then found in the temple stirred Him to a righteous anger, for though sacrifices were necessary, inflated rates of sale made it profitable for those in the temple, who thought that by serving God and wronging others, they were living according to His ways: “Trust not in lying words, saying: ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord… Behold you put your trust in lying words, which shall not profit you: to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer to Baalim, and to go after strange gods, which you know not. And you have come and stood before me in this house, in which my name is called upon, and have said: We are delivered, because we have done all these abominations” (Jeremias 7:4-10). The temple leaders were called to lead the people in devotion and in deepening their love, making the temple a joyful place of encountering God: “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord. Our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem” (Psalm 121:1-2), rather than a place for spending much money for sacrifices: “For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it: with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted” (Psalm 50:18). Jesus, justifiably outraged, drives out all that is taking place, the fire in His eyes showing His perfect justice as He overturned tables, for what was taking place kept the people far from God’s tender love, a travesty in His eyes: “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). While the temple denotes in one sense the Church, in another sense it represents your heart; which is called to be a garden in which your Beloved is pleased to walk: “My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the bed of aromatical spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies” (Canticle 6:1), with love driving out all that is contrary, and this is sometimes with a cord: “He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24). It also shows the zeal with which you should purify your temple, that if something about you is hindering your love of God and neighbor, to throw tables before letting it ruin the image of Christ in you: “And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body go into hell” (Matthew 5:30). There should be no coin in your house, no treasure that is not the true treasure, which is love: “Again the kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls. Who when he had found one pearl of great price, went his way, and sold all that he had, and bought it” (Matthew 13:46). While those in the temple charged money for doves that would die, Jesus gives you, freely, the Holy Spirit of His love freely and eagerly, as if it hurt to keep it to Himself. Now, with after driving out the hindrances, an example to drive with the rod of correction all that is temporal, Jesus can show truly what God is like, welcoming with love, compassion, and affection all that were sick: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up” (Isaias 61:1). Bring to Him, Theophila, all that is blind, all that is weak, let Him lay hands on the places in your heart that do not sing, let him give you “the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the planting of the Lord to glorify him” (Isaias 61:3). The chief priests are then indignant at his miracles and the praises of the people, not rejoicing in the King, but like clay in the light of the sun only grows hard and brittle, their hearts tighten against His goodness. In Jesus’ response, there is a look into the heart, for babies cannot help but react in the ways that they do, they cry out as an inevitability, and so is the heart in love; to be asked to stop considering the beloved and rejoicing with all of one’s being in the same beloved is a ridiculous request. It is a suppression of oneself to try to repress love: “Extinguish not the spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and so the people only do what is natural and burst out in songs of praise.