Guest Blogger: Sr. Kathryn Williams- Sunday Gospel reflection

Getting angry evokes many images: blood boiling, seeing red, losing it, hitting the roof or blowing our tops. No matter what turn of phrase we use, when thinking about our own anger or that of others, there is a sense that we are not quite in control of things. It can be an uncomfortable experience!

Right from our early years we knew that Jesus is like us in all things but sin. Therefore that means he knows what it’s like to be angry. The more refined and sensitive a person, obviously the deeper is his or her experience of the emotion - so we can guess how powerful anger’s movement would have been for Jesus.

On that particular day in the temple when Jesus dramatically whipped up and swept away the flawed rites of worship, the finer detail about the pigeon-sellers receiving a gentler treatment remind us that there’s also another way to be angry. Jesus didn’t lose it altogether. As Christians, we want our lives to be a continuous act of worship, one that spills over into all we do. Today I pray for the grace to worship God in such a way that it mirrors the newness taught by Jesus.

Sr Kathryn Williams pddm