An act of authority that continues to resonate
Today is Holy Monday, also called ‘authority Monday’. It is not just another date on the religious calendar. It is the day that sets the dramatic tone for what is to come.
Holy Week enters its most intense phase. And it all begins with a powerful scene narrated in the Gospels.
The Temple Scene: Holy Wrath
Jesus arrives in Jerusalem and enters the temple. What he finds infuriates him. Merchants and money changers have turned the sacred place into a market.
His reaction is forceful, physical. Expel vendors, overturn tables. And he utters words that span centuries:
“My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”
This is not just an act of cleansing. It is a brutal denunciation against hypocrisy. Against using faith as a cover for shady businesses.
What Jesus shows here is moral authority. Insist on an authentic faith, not conditioned by money or appearances. A message that, whether we are believers or not, continues to hit hard.
Today the anointing in Bethany is also remembered. Mary anoints Jesus with expensive perfume, a gesture seen as preparation for his death.
So this Holy Monday puts us in front of two images: public confrontation and intimacy prior to sacrifice. Both speak of coherence, of faith lived without duplicity.
In a world full of noise and transactions, the message of ‘Authority Monday’ invites a pause. To ask ourselves what we have converted into a ‘cave’ and what we preserve as a ‘house of prayer’.




