GOSPEL REFLECTION, FRIDAY, 33RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, 22 NOVEMBER 2025, PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Luke 19:45-48.  Jesus and his disciples have now concluded their long journey from Galilee to Jerusalem.  Until now, the Pharisees and Scribes have been his principal opponents, finally deciding that Jesus must die.  They now disappear from the scene, at least by name, and now the opponents are now the Temple priests, the Sanhedrin, and the religious leaders.   The danger for Jesus is coming to a climax.  Like the Pharisees, they too conclude that Jesus must die (v. 47). 

Very soon after Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem he entered the Temple daily to preach, likely in the Court of Women to which the most people had access except the ritually impure and the Gentiles.  Almost immediately, today’s gospel tells us, he cleansed the Temple by throwing out the moneychangers and merchants who  carried on business there.  The moneychangers exchanged ordinary money for Temple currency (to their profit), which was used to purchase sacrificial animals, pay the Temple Tax, and make donations at the large trumpet shaped vessels situated in the Court of Women.  Caiaphas, a chief priest had also now allowed merchants to sell sacrificial animals in the Temple Court of the Gentiles  rather than in the daily markets outside the Temple area.  As Jesus ejected the moneychangers and merchants, he proclaimed “my house shall be a house of prayer!” quoting the Prophet Isaiah (56.70),  and the prophet Jeremiah (7.11), “but you have made it a den of robbers!”   Here we meet Jesus the Prophet of all Prophets.  The Temple authorities were now adamant Jesus must be stopped, among other reasons that now Temple sacrifices had to be halted.

Jesus’ purification of the Temple re-establishes it as a house of prayer, removing from it all that detracted form that purpose.  Churches must beware of Jesus’ teaching that they are first of all houses of prayer, sanctified by that purpose.  We too, since our ‘hearts’ (inner beings) are a Temple for the Lord where prayer must take a first and highest priority.