Reading 1: EZ 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
Responsorial Psalm: 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
Reading II: 1 COR 3:9C-11, 16-17
We are the Temples of the Holy Spirit
Today we celebrate the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the first church ever known to have been built, and the church of the Pope himself (not St Peter's Basilica).The church operated for about 300 years without any church building. Fanta, the wife of Emperor Constantine, gave her Lateran palace to Pope St Miltiades. Pope St Sylvester consecrated it on 9 November 324 AD. This was the first public consecration of a church. Afterwards, it became the residence of the popes and venue of many ecumenical councils. In the gospel of today, we have the incident of Jesus cleansing the Temple of Jerusalem, however, this temple was his body and so, we should keep our body, holy, pure and cleansed of all sin because our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Today's readings help us understand that all baptized members of the Church are called to be the temple of God, and to bear fruits of charity and holiness for the good of all humankind. When Jesus, in the Gospel, spoke about destroying the temple of his body, the Jews misunderstood it to be the physical temple. His puzzling saying about building the Temple anew in his body was at last understood by his disciples to mean the Temple that was his Body, the Church. The material building which had been the centre of worship was no longer important. Henceforth all worship would take place in any place, but within the Christian community. The community – or the Church – was now the place of sanctification and of prayer to God.
Now, when we speak of the church, we mean the community of believers, whom the Holy Spirit guides, enriches and sanctifies, and us her members are the individual Temples of the Holy Spirit. This is clearly shown by Paul in the second reading of the feast of today. All of us, each as a temple of the Holy Spirit, form a big community, the church, with Jesus as the cornerstone.
St Paul uses the image of a building. Each stone makes its own contribution. Pull one out and the whole building may collapse! Every stone rests on another and forms the basis for a further stone. But it isn’t the building of stone and metal, the solid Basilica, that matters, but the living stones which make it functional. The point of this building is that it is a living and breathing building, heaving and bursting with life, each stone winking at each other and breathing in unison, because it lives with the life breathed into it by the Spirit of God. Paul writes all this to the Christian community at Corinth, an extraordinarily disunited and disparate group (dockers and professors, magistrates, athletes, teachers and slaves) to remind them that they form a single building on the foundation-stone which is Christ. If they, with all their quirks and oddities, could constitute a single building with one common purpose, any community can manage it!
Since, this living building is composed of living stones, so the building must communicate life. However, for the building, the church, to communicate life, it's constituent stones, us the members must communicate life too. Therefore, today's readings encourage us to be the channel through which life flows, through which the Spirit flows to enrich others as we have seen in the first reading. Water which flowed from the temple gave life to all living creatures, plants and animals and everything it touched.
As a representative of the Church, am I seen as enriching life, a messenger of good news? Are you recognising daily that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and thus allowing the Spirit within you to flow to others while bringing life to them? Pray that the Lord will always help us to be instruments and temples through which life flows to everyone and everything.
Let us Pray
Lord Jesus, My Lord, take my body and my life. Dwell in every chamber of my heart as your temple and make me into a sign of your presence in this world. Amen.
Be blessed.
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