There will be lots to observe and listen to in the Holy Week liturgies in Rome, liturgically and otherwise (much comment already about the papal cross – up to this point Benedict has used John Paul II’s papal cross, but this morning, another was used.), and as we wait for Teresa Benedetta or the Vatican to give us an English translation of this morning’s homily (and it will not be a difficult bet as to who will get there first), we can begin with the Angelus:

“Enough with the massacres, enough with the violence, enough with hatred in Iraq!”: this is the “loud and anguished” cry issued by Benedict XVI at the end of the Mass of the Passion, on Palm Sunday, in commenting on the death of the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho.  The pastor, who was very sick and in need of medicine, had been kidnapped by fundamentalist groups in Iraq and found dead following information given by the kidnappers a few days ago.
The pope recalled “his beautiful witness of faithfulness to Christ, to the Church, and to his people, whom he had not wanted to abandon in spite of many threats”, and issued “an appeal to the Iraqi people, who for five years have been bearing the consequences of war that have provoked the disintegration of its civil and social life: dear Iraqi people, lift up your heads and be yourselves, in the first place, the rebuilders of your national life! May reconciliation, forgiveness, justice, and respect for civil coexistence among tribes, ethnicities, and religious groups be the harmonious path to peace in the name of God!”.

Update: Teresa’s got it:

However, all these trading could be done elsewhere. The space where it was now taking place was intended to be the atrium for pagans. The God of Israel was, in fact, the one God of all peoples. So even if pagans do not enter, so to speak, within Revelation, they could still associate themselves with prayer to the one God in this atrium of faith.
The God of Israel, the God of all men, is always waiting for their prayers, their searching, their invocations. But now, the place was dominated by business – business which had been authorized by competent (temple) authorities who shared in the merchants’ profits. The merchants behaved correctly according to the prevailing order, but it was the order itself that was corrupted.
“Greed is idolatry”, says the Letter to the Colossians (cfr 3,5). This is the idolatry that Jesus encountered and before which he quoted Isaiah: “My house shall be a house of prayer’ (Mt 21,13; cfr Is 56,7) and Jeremiah: “But you are making it a den of theives” (Mt 21,13; cfr Jer 7,11). Against a badly misrepresented order, Jesus with his prophetic action, defended the true order found in the Law and the Prophets.
All this should make even us today think, as Christians: Is our faith pure and open enough so that from it, even ‘pagans’, persons who are in search and have questions, may catch intuitively the light of the one God, associate themselves in the atriums of faith to our prayers, and with their questions, become worshippers themselves?
Has the awareness that greed is idolatry reached our own hearts and our way of life? Are we not perhaps allowing idols to enter the world of our faith in various ways? Are we willing to let ourselves be purified ever anew by the Lord, allowing him to drive out from us and from the Church all that is against him?
But the purification of the temple meant more than just fighting the abuses. A new hour in history was foretold. It was the start of what Jesus had told the Samaritan woman about true adoration: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him” (Jn 4,23).
The time had ended for sacrificing animals to God. The sacrifice of animals had always been a poor substitute, a nostalgic gesture, for true worship of God. The Letter to the Hebrews, on the life of Jesus and his actions, used a passage from Psalm 40[39] as a motto: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me” (Heb 10,5).
In place of the bloody sacrifices and offerings of food, the Body of Christ himself is offered. Only ‘a love to the very end’ – a love that gives itself totally to God in behalf of man, is true worship and true sacrifice. To adore in the spirit and in truth means to adore in communion with he who is the Truth – to adore in communion with his Body, to which the Holy Spirit unites us.

snip

St. Matthew, whose Gospel we are listening to this year, cites at the end of his account of Palm Sunday, after the purification of the temple, two more small incidents that once again have a prophetic character, and once again makes clear to us what Jesus’s true intentions were.
Immediately after the words of Jesus about a house of prayer for all peoples, the evangelist continues: “The blind and the lame approached him in the temple area, and he cured them” (Mt 21, 14f).
Matthew also tells us that the children in the temple area repeated the acclamation by the pilgrims when Jesus entered the city: “Hosanna to the son of David” (Mt 21,15f).
Jesus countered the trade in animals and the affairs of the money changers with his healing goodness. This is the true purification of the temple.
He did not come as a destroyer, he did not come with the sword of a revolutionary. He dedicated himself to those who are pushed to the extremes of life and the margins of society by their weakness and infirmity. Jesus showed God as He who loves, and his power as the power of love. Thus he tells us what will always be part of true worship of God: healing, serving, goodness that heals.

Then there were the children who rendered homage to Jesus as son of David and acclaimed him with Hosannas. Jesus had told his disciples that in order to enter into the Kingdom of God, one must be like little children. He himself, who embraces the whole world, became s baby to come to us and lead us to God.
In order to recognize God, we should abandon pride which blinds us, which would drive us away from God as if God were a rival. We should learn to see with a young heart, unhindered by prejudices and not blinded by selfish interests. Thus, the Church through time has seen in the ‘small’ people, who with childlike hearts freely and openly recognize God, the image of believers in all times, its own image.
Dear friends, today we associate ourselves with the procession of young people then – a procession which passes through all of history. Together with the young people all over the world, let us go forth to meet Jesus. Let us allow ourslelves to be led by him towards God, to learn from God himself the right way to be men.
With him we thank God because in Jesus, son of David, he gave us a space of peace and reconciliation which encompasses the whole world. Let us pray that we, too, may become with him and through him, messengers of his peace, so that in us and around us, his Kingdom may grow. Amen.

…as if God were a rival.