By Jenny Kraska

In Sunday’s Gospel, we see a side of Jesus that can be unsettling: His righteous anger. He enters the Temple, the dwelling place of God, and finds it reduced to a marketplace. With zeal for His Father’s house burning within Him, He overturns the tables, drives out the money changers, and declares, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” (John 2:16). His passion shocks us – but it also calls us to examine our own hearts and the world we have built around us. What tables in our lives need overturing? What spaces meant for prayer and peace have become cluttered by distraction, greed, or complacency?

These questions are especially fitting on the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica; the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome invites us to reflect on what it means to be the living Temple of God. The Lateran Basilica stands as a physical sign of God’s dwelling among His people, a visible reminder that the Church – both the building and the Body – is meant to be a place where heaven touches earth. Yet the true temple of God is not made of marble and mosaics but of living stones – you and me. As St. Paul reminds us, we are God’s temple, and His Spirit dwells within us (1 Cor 3:16). Just as Jesus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem, He desires to cleanse and renew the temples of our hearts, that we might be worthy dwelling places of His love.

Jesus’ anger in the Temple was not the outburst of wounded pride, but the expression of divine love for what is holy, pure, and true. His zeal was not destructive, but redemptive. It was a purifying fire meant to restore what had been profaned. In our world today, we too encounter countless forms of desecration: truth twisted into manipulation, the dignity of the human person diminished, violence excused, and faith treated as a commodity. The uncertainties and anxieties of our age – war, polarization, and the fragility of peace – tempt us to despair or indifference. Yet, Christ’s zeal calls us not to retreat, but to act – to defend what is sacred, to rebuild what has been broken, and to purify our own hearts so that they may again be true temples of His presence.

Righteous anger, when rooted in love, is not sin. It is the stirring of conscience against injustice. It is the holy unrest that drives us to work for peace, to advocate for the vulnerable, and to resist apathy. Zeal for God’s house consumes us when we can no longer stand idly by as His children suffer. Like Jesus, our anger must be disciplined by mercy and our zeal guided by faith.

May our zeal for God’s house burn with the same purifying love that animated Christ. And may our righteous anger against all that desecrates human dignity lead us not to destruction, but to renewal – in our hearts, our Church, and our world.