The Church as community is the Temple of God

 

Welcome to my blog. Peace be with you.

Today is the feast of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. It is the oldest Church in the world and is the Church of the Bishop of Rome. We celebrate its dedication as a sign of our unity in fellowship and faith with the Church of Rome. In the Gospel we reflect on the truth that as Jesus Body was the Temple of God’s presence so is his mystical body the Church and each member of the Church.

Monday 9 November 2020

May the Church be the pure Temple of God

 

Gospel

John 2:13-22

Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will raise it up

Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’ Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: Zeal for your house will devour me. The Jews intervened and said, ‘What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?’ Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.

Prayerful reflection 

Zeal for your house devours me. Don’t think I have come to bring peace. I have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it was already blazing. It is the fire of love that Jesus has come to bring. As the word of God says, all the waters of the sea cannot put out the fire of love. One who is on fire with love is willing to sacrifice everything and think nothing of it.

It was love for his Father that drove Jesus to cleanse the Temple of the corruption that had formed there. Likewise, it is his love which will cleanse us who are the Temple of the Holy Spirit of God from all corruption and sin.

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “do you not realise that you are the Temple of God” and in another place in the same letter, “your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.” God’s dwelling place is the community of believers and the Holy Spirit lives in each believer who is truly a disciple of Jesus and does not live in sin.

Both the community and the individual must be free from the corruption of this world – wealth, power, fame and pleasure. The pure Church is the one that reaches out to the last and least. Pure religion says St. James is to go to the help of orphans and widows in their need and keep oneself free from the corruption of this world.

Let us beg the Lord to cleanse us from all that is displeasing to him in our lives.