[Sundaycommunity] JESUS DRIVES THE MERCHANTS OUT OF THE TEMPLE

[Brian Shaughnessy]

Part of Maria Valtorta's vision of what John has described.
________

Jesus enters the enclosure of the Temple with six of His apostles.  There
is a very large crowd both inside and outside.

Inside, it is a real market.  The concentration of a holy place has been
destroyed.  Shouting and cursing.  Near the benches of the money-changers,
more bawling.

No fixed rate of exchange.  Usury transactions!  The poorer the people or
the farther they came from, the more they were fleeced.

An old couple, man and wife, come back pushing a poor little lamb which
must have been found faulty by the sacrificers.  They cried and begged the
vendor, who replied with nasty words and rude manners.

"Go away, you filthy lot.  Joseph the Elder is now coming here. God be with
you, Joseph.  Come and make your choice."

Joseph of Arimathea picks a magnificent lamb.  He passes by, stately and
proud, magnificently dressed, without even looking at the poor people
weeping at the gate.

Jesus has also made His purchase, and Peter, who probably bargained for
Him, is pulling a fairly good lamb.

Peter would like to go at once to where they offer the sacrifice, but Jesus
turns to the couple and asks:  "Why are you crying, woman?"

She must think He is a doctor and is greatly surprised, because doctors and
priests pay no attention to the poor, neither do they protect them from the
stinginess of merchants.

He addresses the lamb vendor:  "Change the lamb for these believers.  It is
not worthy of the altar.  Neither is it fair that you should take advantage
of two poor old people, only because they are weak and unprotected."

"And who are You?"

"A just man."

"I know You are a Galilean.  Can there be a just man in Galilee?"

"Do what I told you, and be a just man yourself."

"Listen to the Galilean Who is defending His equals!  And He wants to teach
us of the Temple!"

Many people take their companion's part against Jesus.

There are two or three ironical rabbis, and one asks:  "Are You a doctor?"

"Yes, I am,"

"What do You teach?"

"This I teach:  to make the House of God a house of prayer and not a usury
or a market place.  That is what I teach."

Jesus is formidable.  His eyes.  His wrath.  And full of wrath, He walks
fast and solemn between the benches.  He scatters the coins sorted out so
meticulously according to their values.  He turns over the benches and
tables.

He then snatches from the hands of stable-boys some ropes, and makes a very
hard lash, in which the slip-knots are real scourges.  He lifts it, swings
it and strikes mercilessly with it.

Yes, I can assure you.  Mercilessly.
________

--
aptYLJC,Twbd,ttM

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