In the Gospel today, what occurs to me is a matter of the heart. In the temple Jesus encounters "those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves," and the "money-changers." He is outraged at this sight and drives these people away with a whip! Jesus throwing down is a sight I would like to see! Of course, his outrage is a righteous anger, because these people set up a marketplace in God's house. They devalued the temple worship in an attempt to take advantage of those who really did love God in worship. I think this is a matter of the heart because sometimes we, like the "money-changers", also misuse our hearts, a temple for God, by placing our sin over our worship.

Jesus had come to the temple because the Passover was near, and I'm reminded that the Passover was a thanksgiving meal, sacrificing a lamb in celebration of the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt. At the crucifixion, Jesus became the Lamb of God, offering himself in the new Passover, the Eucharist. It is through this most holy sacrament that we are changed. More than a mere symbol, we receive something substantial, a mysterious gift of Christ's flesh and blood. Through it we are made holy, and our hearts become like a temple for God.

Many times in my own life I have forgotten this profound truth and I have set up tables in my heart for sin. Instead of going to the temple to worship, I lingered outside and made a marketplace for my own wrongful desires. Sometimes it is greed, like the "money-changers", that keeps me from God, because I knew I would have to sacrifice the things that I want at the temple gate. Other times it is doubt that keeps me away, as if I could do better for myself without God. But most of the time, it is fear that keeps from sacrificing everything and entering the temple to be with God. A fear that when I enter I will finally have to give my life, and therefore control of my life, to God. I don't know about you, but control has never been something I've been willing to surrender.

I think the challenge in the Gospel today is to continue surrendering, or maybe for the first time, surrender our lives to God. It is through this holy surrender that we allow ourselves to really be loved by God, and enter into deeper and deeper conversion. When we do so, we allow Christ to storm into us, overturning the tables of our hearts, and create in us a holy temple for God.