Tuesday, February 9, 2016

God's Dwelling Here on Earth

In today’s first reading, 1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30, we ask:  “Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth?”  If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built!”

God’s love is so magnanimous, so selfless, so giving that He created an entire universe to reveal His beauty, His love, His magnificence. The crown of creation is His creation of humankind in the image and likeness of God, male and female He created them—He shares Himself in that each of us reflects the Godhead as much as a child reflects his/her parents.  All of creation God proclaimed good; humankind “very good.”  No part of creation is made for itself. All is made to glorify God!  Churches and temples, also, are not made for themselves but are places in which, through prayer and worship, we are reconsecrated to the Lord and sent forth to proclaim God’s glory by our works of love and selfless giving to one another, to the world, and, yes, the universe itself, beautifying it to glorify its Creator.

In the Gospel, Jesus points out that laws and traditions are not above integrity of persons, of the call to honor the Lord with hearts open to respect, love,  and service to one another  through the commandments, summed up as loving God with our whole hearts, our whole mind, and our whole soul and our neighbor as ourselves.

“Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth?”  Look around!  Do you see God reflected in your neighbor? Do you reflect God to your neighbor?

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