In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  The scholar Gail O’Day [545] offers the following reflection on the Temple-cleansing pericope. She notes that the most common popular citation of this passage is to point to Jesus’ anger as some proof-text that anger can be righteous and justified. That is a discussion for another day, and like O’Day, I would suggest that pathway takes you away from the deeper reality of the narrative.

John 2:13–22 is popularly interpreted as an example of Jesus’ anger and hence his humanity. Jesus’ actions of taking the whip, herding out the animals, and overturning the tables are pointed to as evidence that Jesus could get angry. Such attempts to amass evidence to prove Jesus’ humanity actually undercut the power of the incarnation, however. To focus on isolated attributes or emotions as proof of Jesus’ humanity is in effect to seek after signs, to base one’s faith on the surface evidence without perceiving the deeper reality. The underlying reality of the Fourth Gospel narrative is that “the Word became flesh” (1:14). Jesus’ humanity thus pervades everything he says and does in his ministry. The scandal of John 2:13–22 is not Jesus’ anger as proof of his humanity, but the authority this human being claims for himself through his words and actions.

In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

In vv. 18–20 we see the first example of the Johannine narrative technique of misunderstanding. The Jews respond to Jesus’ words about the destruction and raising of the Temple with a very pragmatic protest. Clearly their understanding is limited to the physical realm and made no approach to the deeper meaning of Jesus’ words. The verb Jesus uses to speak of the raising of the Temple (egeirō) points to a second, more symbolic level of meaning, however, because that verb is also used to speak of resurrection (John 2:22; 5:21; 12:1, 9, 17; 21:14).

This interchange of misunderstanding is a recurring technique in John’s Gospel: the story of Nicodemus (3:3–5), the encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the well (although with a much different result than Nicodemus), and at least four other times

In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

¹³ Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there.

From Josepheus, a Jewish historian who wrote in the later part of the 1^st century AD, we know that in this period the temple functions were under the control of the Sadducees and the high priest Annas.  As high priest he also served as the Treasurer of the temple with his sons as assistant treasurers. Their avarice and greed for money lead this spectacle to be called the “bazaar of the sons of Annas”.  They used the ritual of Temple religious life to implement a scam on the people of Israel:  temple sacrifices brought from home were mandatorily inspected for blemish, for a fee.  Blemish was always found.  But a pre-inspected, blemish-free sacrifice could be purchased in the temple compound, for an exorbitant price, but not with Roman coinage (the images violated the law).  The money changers exchanged Roman coins into specially minted temple coins, at a profit.  It is against this background that Jesus cleanses the temple.

In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  From the beginning of the Fourth Gospel there has been a theme of newness and of creation. The Prologue refers to the power and role of the Word of God in the story of Creation. Then, very subtly, it continues to recount a new creation in the Incarnation of Jesus. In John 1:29 you see the phrase, “the next day” as John the Baptist testified to Jesus. “The next day” the first apostles are called in v.34 and following. The “next day” (v.43), now day four of the new creation week, Philip and Nathanael are added as disciples.  

The passage immediately before our gospel passage in the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11). Our gospel is followed by the account of Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3:1-21). “On the third day…” (Jn 2:1) we find ourselves, according to the Johannine imagery, on the seventh day of the new creation week.  The creation week reaches its climax – the unveiling of the public life of the Anointed One of God.  The account of the wedding at Cana is relatively short (11 verses) and yet it is filled with a variety of images, theological and sacramental.

In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

¹³ Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. ¹⁵ He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, ¹⁶ and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” ¹⁷ His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” ¹⁸ At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. ²² Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22)

In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

The Lateran Basilica in Rome is not the oldest church in Rome – that honor seems to belong to Santi Quattro Coronati (314); but then that depends on what sources you believe. Old St. Peter’s, the original church on the spot where the current St. Peter’s stands dates to 324, the same year as St. Lorenzo and St. John Lateran. Did you know that the Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome – the place from where the Bishop of Rome, Pope Leo, leads his diocese even as he leads the church universal.

The Lateran did not even start out as a church – it was a palace on the Lateran Hill that came into the possession of the Emperor Constantine who lifted the ban on Christianity in 313. Sometime later the emperor gifted it to the church and by 324 it was converted to become a church and was declared to be the “mother church” of all Christianity: ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput – of all the churches in the city and the world, the mother and head.