A PASSIONATE LOVER
3rd Sunday of Lent
John 2: 13-25
Lent focuses our attention on the passion of Jesus Christ. Almost exclusively, “passion” in this sense is regarded as the agony and sufferings of Jesus. Almost totally, we forget that “passion” originally means “strong feelings towards something or someone”. Thus, we have a passion for basketball, a passion for food, a passion for music, a passion for peace, a passion for religion, a passion for humanity, a passion for God. We have an impassioned speech, an impassioned homily, an impassioned quest for the truth, an impassioned struggle for justice, an impassioned thirst for wisdom, an impassioned religious belief. And of course, we can be passionate lovers.
Are you a passionate lover?
Love without passion is boring. Passion without love is dangerous. Love with very little passion is weak, but passion with very little love is violent. Love with no passion must be healed. Passion with no love must be tamed.
Jesus is a passionate lover. He loves with His whole being. His whole being is involved with the one He loves. Loving is not just one of the many concerns of Jesus. Loving, rather, is the foundation of everything He is and He has. It is for love and of love that He thinks, speaks and acts. It is for the same reason that He receives and gives. His passion for love is the very soul of His being. The key to understanding the person of Jesus is the experience of passionate love. Jesus is passionate love personified.
Jesus is a passionate lover of God. No wonder, He is consumed with zeal for the house of God. No doubt, He totally and radically obeys God’s will even when His obedience entails undeserved suffering and violent death. It is no surprise that God, whom He loves passionately, raises Him back to life to the shame and horror of His enemies.
Jesus is a passionate lover of us all. He never forgets us even when we forget Him. He cannot deny us even when we deny Him. “He laid down His life for us,” St. Paul says, “not when we were His friends but when we were His enemies” (cf Rom 5:10).
Because Jesus is a passionate lover, He always finds Himself in conflict with cold-hearted people and structures made of hard cement. Because Jesus is a passionate lover, He is never satisfied with mere observance of the law. Because Jesus is a passionate lover, He is ready to die even a cross. Because Jesus is a passionate lover, death could not hold Him from rising back to life for those whom He loves.
Are you a passionate lover of God? Are you a passionate lover of all humankind?
In the Gospel today, Jesus is angry. He is angry at the crass display of irreverence right at the very house of God, His Father. The temple, a place of worship, has become a marketplace instead. The house of God is a house of prayer, but it has become a den of thieves instead. And in the Temple where sacrifices are offered to God, God Himself is sacrificed in favor of the sales in the Temple. Jesus’ command is clear: “Take all these out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace.”
The image of Jesus in today’s Gospel is a world away from the storybook caricature of Jesus, the meek and mild Jesus who seemed to be weak, if not comic. Jesus is angry today. And He does not mind at all being seen angry. He is angry because He loves. Because He loves, there are times when He has to be angry. He is angry because He is passionately in loved with God. His love for God consumes Him.
Jesus is angry because God’s house is desecrated. The mundane concern for profit even at the expense of sacred worship is a sacrilege against Him who is worshipped. While heads are bowed down in adoration to God, some hands strike God right on His face. And if we were in Jesus’ shoes, we cannot be less angry, too.
Are we bothered when we come to Mass not properly dressed and yet go to parties in the latest fashion? Are we slow to see anything wrong when we gossip during the Holy Eucharist and yet quick to teach others to make a double genuflection when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed? Is it sinful for us to pray in church and yet cheat in our places of work? Do we recognize the horror of supporting the Church with wealth illegally or immorally amassed?
May Jesus cleanse God’s holy temple.
Jesus’ anger is not only caused by the irreverence committed against God in His very house. Jesus’ anger is ignited by the injustice done to others right in the very house of the just God. We are the temples of God’s Spirit, and Jesus’ anger is fanned into fire each time we show irreverence to ourselves and commit injustice against one another. If we were in Jesus’ shoes, we cannot be less angry.
When we indulge ourselves in vices that kill the body and condemn the soul, do we feel guilty? When we exploit the weak for our personal gain, do we have remorse? When we are indifferent to the sufferings of others as long as we are not the ones who are suffering, do we feel contrite? When we tolerate a culture of sin and death but claim ourselves to be Christians, do we recognize our need for conversion? When we say that we love God and yet hate our neighbors, do we realize the fundamental lie on which our lives are based?
May Jesus cleanse us, God’s holy temple.
The passion of Jesus is not just His suffering and death. The passion of Jesus is, first, His immense and genuine love for God and for us all. That kind of love made Jesus endure suffering and death. So passionate is His love for God and for us that He endured His passion. It is precisely the passionate love in His heart that led Him to His passion on the cross. And His passion cleanses God’s temple -- the one that is made of stones and the one that is made of human hearts.
After Jesus clears out the temple, the place is reclaimed for the worship of God. After Jesus rises from the grave, Jesus becomes the new sanctuary of God that is just within our reach. After Jesus cleanses us, we are restored so that God’s Spirit may dwell in us. And when God’s Spirit dwells in us, we cannot but be passionate lovers of God and of one another, too.
Lent focuses our attention on the passion of Jesus. Just as the suffering and death of Jesus move our inner most beings to conversion, may the love of Jesus transform us, from the deepest recesses of our hearts, so that our love may be passionate and our passion may always be for true love.
John 2: 13-25
Lent focuses our attention on the passion of Jesus Christ. Almost exclusively, “passion” in this sense is regarded as the agony and sufferings of Jesus. Almost totally, we forget that “passion” originally means “strong feelings towards something or someone”. Thus, we have a passion for basketball, a passion for food, a passion for music, a passion for peace, a passion for religion, a passion for humanity, a passion for God. We have an impassioned speech, an impassioned homily, an impassioned quest for the truth, an impassioned struggle for justice, an impassioned thirst for wisdom, an impassioned religious belief. And of course, we can be passionate lovers.
Are you a passionate lover?
Love without passion is boring. Passion without love is dangerous. Love with very little passion is weak, but passion with very little love is violent. Love with no passion must be healed. Passion with no love must be tamed.
Jesus is a passionate lover. He loves with His whole being. His whole being is involved with the one He loves. Loving is not just one of the many concerns of Jesus. Loving, rather, is the foundation of everything He is and He has. It is for love and of love that He thinks, speaks and acts. It is for the same reason that He receives and gives. His passion for love is the very soul of His being. The key to understanding the person of Jesus is the experience of passionate love. Jesus is passionate love personified.
Jesus is a passionate lover of God. No wonder, He is consumed with zeal for the house of God. No doubt, He totally and radically obeys God’s will even when His obedience entails undeserved suffering and violent death. It is no surprise that God, whom He loves passionately, raises Him back to life to the shame and horror of His enemies.
Jesus is a passionate lover of us all. He never forgets us even when we forget Him. He cannot deny us even when we deny Him. “He laid down His life for us,” St. Paul says, “not when we were His friends but when we were His enemies” (cf Rom 5:10).
Because Jesus is a passionate lover, He always finds Himself in conflict with cold-hearted people and structures made of hard cement. Because Jesus is a passionate lover, He is never satisfied with mere observance of the law. Because Jesus is a passionate lover, He is ready to die even a cross. Because Jesus is a passionate lover, death could not hold Him from rising back to life for those whom He loves.
Are you a passionate lover of God? Are you a passionate lover of all humankind?
In the Gospel today, Jesus is angry. He is angry at the crass display of irreverence right at the very house of God, His Father. The temple, a place of worship, has become a marketplace instead. The house of God is a house of prayer, but it has become a den of thieves instead. And in the Temple where sacrifices are offered to God, God Himself is sacrificed in favor of the sales in the Temple. Jesus’ command is clear: “Take all these out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace.”
The image of Jesus in today’s Gospel is a world away from the storybook caricature of Jesus, the meek and mild Jesus who seemed to be weak, if not comic. Jesus is angry today. And He does not mind at all being seen angry. He is angry because He loves. Because He loves, there are times when He has to be angry. He is angry because He is passionately in loved with God. His love for God consumes Him.
Jesus is angry because God’s house is desecrated. The mundane concern for profit even at the expense of sacred worship is a sacrilege against Him who is worshipped. While heads are bowed down in adoration to God, some hands strike God right on His face. And if we were in Jesus’ shoes, we cannot be less angry, too.
Are we bothered when we come to Mass not properly dressed and yet go to parties in the latest fashion? Are we slow to see anything wrong when we gossip during the Holy Eucharist and yet quick to teach others to make a double genuflection when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed? Is it sinful for us to pray in church and yet cheat in our places of work? Do we recognize the horror of supporting the Church with wealth illegally or immorally amassed?
May Jesus cleanse God’s holy temple.
Jesus’ anger is not only caused by the irreverence committed against God in His very house. Jesus’ anger is ignited by the injustice done to others right in the very house of the just God. We are the temples of God’s Spirit, and Jesus’ anger is fanned into fire each time we show irreverence to ourselves and commit injustice against one another. If we were in Jesus’ shoes, we cannot be less angry.
When we indulge ourselves in vices that kill the body and condemn the soul, do we feel guilty? When we exploit the weak for our personal gain, do we have remorse? When we are indifferent to the sufferings of others as long as we are not the ones who are suffering, do we feel contrite? When we tolerate a culture of sin and death but claim ourselves to be Christians, do we recognize our need for conversion? When we say that we love God and yet hate our neighbors, do we realize the fundamental lie on which our lives are based?
May Jesus cleanse us, God’s holy temple.
The passion of Jesus is not just His suffering and death. The passion of Jesus is, first, His immense and genuine love for God and for us all. That kind of love made Jesus endure suffering and death. So passionate is His love for God and for us that He endured His passion. It is precisely the passionate love in His heart that led Him to His passion on the cross. And His passion cleanses God’s temple -- the one that is made of stones and the one that is made of human hearts.
After Jesus clears out the temple, the place is reclaimed for the worship of God. After Jesus rises from the grave, Jesus becomes the new sanctuary of God that is just within our reach. After Jesus cleanses us, we are restored so that God’s Spirit may dwell in us. And when God’s Spirit dwells in us, we cannot but be passionate lovers of God and of one another, too.
Lent focuses our attention on the passion of Jesus. Just as the suffering and death of Jesus move our inner most beings to conversion, may the love of Jesus transform us, from the deepest recesses of our hearts, so that our love may be passionate and our passion may always be for true love.
posted by Fr. Bobby @ 4:00 PM
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