BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
JESUS of Nazareth tells his story…”When I went to Jerusalem and saw the trading and cheating in the Temple courtyard it was a desecration of the House of God and a corrupt trading system benefiting the Chief Priests and rulers like it is today in the modern world. Little has changed, did my mission fail, no it is ongoing you have to carry it forward.
I was really angry when I saw what was going on in the Temple. “The house of God is a house of prayer”, I shouted, but you have made it a den of thieves”. It was righteous anger, when we see wrong-doing we must never be silent and do nothing to change it for good. I decided to act and challenge the corrupt system and challenge the leaders who were growing rich by allowing the money changers and traders to turn the temple courtyard into a marketplace. So I got a length of rope made whip out of it and laid into the traders, I and my disciples drove out the animals, released the doves. I threw over the tables of the money changers. Their coins spilled and scattered across the courtyard. The poor rushed to get them, a gift from God they said. There was bedlam, shouting and screaming as the traders rushed to catch their escaping sheep and goats. Then I barred other traders from crossing the courtyard, a sanction on them. My followers wrote about it in their Gospels. It was a turning point for me and my followers.
The chief priests and the traders were really angry with me, they plotted how to kill me and my followers but the people were in full support of my actions to cleanse the temple. The poor believed my message for a New Community where social justice would be the priority. The authorities had branded me a rebel, a subversive and an outlaw and they were sending assassins to kill me and my disciples.
I knew what I was doing when I challenged their hypocrisy and fake worship. My public action was a demonstration for honesty and justice and against the corrupt political and economic system. Much as it is today. The rulers plotted to have me arrested and jailed. Like the arrest and kill my followers the human rights workers today, environmentalists saving the planet. they are killed while the mining companies with corrupt politicians are cutting the forests and robbing the nation causing more poverty. It has to stop and only good leaders of integrity can stop it.
Before they arrested me I had a meal of friendship with my friends and disciples to remember me and all I had taught them. Today you must continue the work to bring truth, light, justice, equality and human dignity to the world. The corrupt authorities branded me a subversive, a threat to their power and I was jailed, tortured condemned and I was executed on the cross.
However, it was not over, the power of eternal goodness and love lifted me up and I live today, with you. You can choose to be my true follower and friend and fulfill my mission to do justice and good for the poor and the needy. You can follow my life story. (preda.org)/PN
