The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

by Deacon Juan Carlos Palomar  |  11/09/2025  |  From the Clergy

This Sunday's Gospel, according to Saint John, places us in an episode close to the Jewish Passover (Jn 2:13-22), in which the Jewish people commemorated their liberation from slavery in Egypt. In this celebration, animal sacrifices were offered for the forgiveness of the sins of individuals and the community, and it was also a way of drawing closer to God.

Jesus is indignant when he sees the way the people and the merchants are behaving, and he begins to drive out the merchants who were in the temple, saying to them, “Take all these things away; do not make my Father’s house a marketplace” (Jn 2:16).

In a marketplace, business is conducted, and in business, fraud is sometimes committed, and exorbitant prices are charged to buyers. This is what angered Jesus when he saw that these things were happening in the temple, the sacred place that people were using to conduct business.

The intention of the merchants and some people in the temple was not to seek God and have a relationship with Him, but rather their intentions were contrary to that search for God, thus falling into empty worship, in the offering of sacrifices that are not pleasing to God. Temples (the House of God) should be places of prayer where people have an intimate encounter with God. Let us avoid turning our parishes into a marketplace so as not to fall into empty worship that is not pleasing to God, as in the scene that the Gospel presents to us today; let us transform the House of God (our parishes) into sacred places where there is an encounter with God and a fraternal encounter between men and women who profess the same faith.

-Deacon Juan Carlos Palomar