"The zeal for your home will devour me" (John 2: 13-25)

Biblical reflections by Mauro Leonardi*, priest and writer

The greatest temptation for those who believe is to build a religion of stone and forget that our faith is based on the body and blood of Christ, which we do not love words carved on the stone, nor stones placed on each other to erect temples of vanity and power, but a body offered for us, blood poured for us, wounds brought into the glorious body, a heart exposed for our salvation.

From the Gospel according to John 2: 13-25

The Easter of the Jews approached and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found people who sold oxen, sheep and doves in the temple and, seated there, the changed ones. Then he made a whisk of cords and threw everyone out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; He threw the money of the changes to the ground and overturned the desks, and to the sellers of Colombe said: "Take away these things here and do not do the house of my father a market!". His disciples remembered that it is written: "The zeal for your home will devour me".

Then the Jews took the floor and said to him: "Which sign shows us to do these things?". Jesus replied: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will resurrect it." Then the Jews told him: "This temple was built in forty -six years and you will resurrect it in three days?". But he spoke of the temple of his body.

When he was raised by the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and believed in the writing and the word said by Jesus.

While in Jerusalem for Easter, during the party, many, seeing the signs he made, believed in his name. But he, Jesus, did not trust them, because he knew everyone and had no one to testify to man. In fact, he knew what is in man.

* Mauro Leonardi (Como 1959) has been a priest since 29 May 1988 and has been inhabited in Rome since then. He spends many hours of his day to make the priest and prefers to build bridges rather than raising walls. For years he has been writing stories, articles, essays and books that revolve around the relationship between man and God. Author of the blogLike Jesus. Abelis (Lindau) is his latest novel. The volunteers of the Gionata project thank him for sharing these reflections on the word with us.