Gospel (Jn 2,13-22) - The Passover of the Jews was approaching and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple people selling oxen, sheep and doves and, sitting there, the money changers. Then he made a whip of cords and drove everyone out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; he threw the money changers' money to the ground and overturned their benches, and to the dove sellers he said: "Take these things away from here and do not make my Father's house a market!". His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will devour me." Then the Jews spoke up and said to him: "What sign do you show us to do these things?". Jesus answered them: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it again." The Jews then said to him, "This temple took forty-six years to build, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he spoke of the temple of his body. When he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word spoken by Jesus.

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran, in Rome, also called the "mother" of all the Churches in the world. It is a celebration that takes us back to the origins of the Church and reminds us of the value and meaning of every sacred place, a place of prayer and meeting with the Lord. In the liturgy, churches are "dedicated" to the Lord, that is, they are places that we do not dedicate to ourselves or to our protagonism, and for this reason they remain places of freedom and humanity in the world. Jesus was very clear that the temple in Jerusalem was dedicated to the Father, to God, and not to human trade; for this reason he wanted to protect that space and did so with strength and determination, so much so that the disciples recognized in his gesture of chasing away the sellers and money changers the words of the psalm: "Zeal for your house will devour me". This celebration reminds us that the Lord has also made us, our lives, a temple that must not be desecrated with the logic of the market and buying and selling. The only logic that can live in the house of God is that of gratuitous love. And the inhabitants of the house of God are called - as is the building - to dedicate their lives not to saving themselves but to saving others. Jesus suggests this perspective to us when he says: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it again." Jesus spoke of his body that would be resurrected. With these words Jesus consecrates every body to be a temple of God, however weak and fragile: however, when it is inhabited by the love of God nothing can destroy it. Love is stronger than death.