29Th MAY. FRIDAY IN WEEK 8

29^Th  MAY. FRIDAY  IN WEEK 8

READINGS.

1.Sirach 44:1,9-13 ( Remembering our ancestors with respect)

2.Gospel: Mark 11:11-26 (The barren fig-tree withers away)

The beginning of an end

The action of Jesus driving out from the temple those engaged in buying and selling confronts and terrifies us about life’s ending. In the gospel we hear Jesus cursing the fig tree which signalled the end of Jerusalem temple. Yet in the scriptural passage it is still clear that  life goes on as usual. We are invited in this context that we should not be mere passive and submissive to events.

Mark’s gospel today tells us about Jesus’ cleansing the temple in some association with his cursing the fig tree and its withering. The act whereby Jesus cleansed the temple was the total transformation and renewal of all Jewish system of prayer and worship. Jesus in doing so was announcing the new type of the temple (The house of prayer for all people). Before Jesus made an act of cleansing the temple, a controversy existed prior, that in those days, non-Jews were forbidden to advance to the outer courts of Gentiles, due to that the roman authorities ratified this prescription. Jesus having cited from the Old testament ( Isaiah 56), a tradition that was not peculiar to the life of Israel, though the words of prophet Isaiah gives an understanding of God’s plan for the future of his people. Clearly Jesus wants both Jews to live more prayer life than to be enslaved by religious titles and systems, to be generous and welcoming outsiders and have a share Jewish prayerful awareness of God’s presence.