By
Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
Do
you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells
in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17
Jesus
answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise
it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has
been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three
days?” But he was speaking about the
temple of his Body. John
2:19-21
Piety
We are all Temples of the Holy Spirit. Christ is the capstone of our piety. Christ is the reason we make of our bodies a
holy place. We dedicate our lives to the
Lord. Our Piety is expressed first in
our lives; secondly in where we live our lives.
Piety is seen in the respect we show for the Temples of the Lord. Our bodies are meant to be temples of the
Holy Spirit. We are called by the feast
of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica to dedicate our lives to the Lord
such wise that we make holy every place we visit. The temples of the Lord call forth from our
hearts a special respect. Our piety is
seen in the respect we have for the Holy Places of the Lord. The Lateran Basilica is a Special Temple of
the Church in Rome.
Study
The Lateran is a place that was intended to honor John
the Baptist. It is not a celebration of
a person. It is the celebration of the
mother church of Christianity. We study
the history of Christianity to discover our roots. Churches are where people gather to honor God. We honor the dedication one of the first
homes of Christianity. Our gospel speaks
of the cleansing of the temple by Christ.
We study how to keep our hearts focused on the temples Christ. Our study makes special all the temples of
our life.
Action
Piety, reverence and devotion is what we bring to our
visits to church. We welcome our
brothers and sisters who belong with us to our Church. We need to try to come a little earlier to
church that we might have time to visit with the Lord. We need to show reverence to the dweller in
the tabernacle that makes holy our church by his presence. We need to make the homes of Christ special
in our lives. There is always the chance
to stay a few minutes after the services so that we are not always rushing away
from the home of our Lord. It is
important to be generous to our church with service to make the temple of the
Lord even a better home for Christ in the Eucharist. When we have a chance to visit the Lord we
should make the most of it. Christianity
shows its best face when we visit our churches dressed for the occasion. The celebration of the dedication of the
Basilica of John Lateran is a good reminder of how special Rome is as the
center of the world’s Christianity. We
can never do enough for the home of the Church’s beginnings as a world-wide religion. It is always wonderful to go back to where we
lived as children. This is even more so
with our beginnings in Christianity. When
we are honoring the dedication of the Basilica of John Lateran, we are honoring
all our beginnings. All our homes should
be special. And this is especially true
with the homes of God.
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