God's Indwelling in the Core of our Being

 In today's first reading, Ephesians 2: 12-22, St. Paul speaks about being strangers to the two covenants. We might think of those two covenants as the one given on Mt. Sinai and the other given on Calvary in Jesus' death and resurrection! As with the Jewish people, there was a time when you and I were alienated from the community of faith, times when we were strangers to the Body of Christ, persons, in the words of Paul, "without hope and without God."  Now, in Christ Jesus, we are of one mind and heart and soul; we partake of the One Bread and the One Cup of Jesus' body and blood, soul and divinity in the Holy Eucharist. We share the one faith, faith in the Lord Jesus. 

"So then," St. Paul  says to the Ephesians and to us, "we are no longer strangers and sojourners, but we are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the  foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."

You and I are growing into a sacred temple where God in the Spirit dwells! That person  whom, perhaps, you or I, have a difficult time loving, is growing into God's sacred temple just as  you and I are.   In the deepest core of that person's being and our own, God has taken up a residence! We say that we live and move and have our being in God. The truth is, also, that God lives and moves and has His being in us!  In our true selves, we are one with God and God  is one with us! We are not strangers to God or God to us!

So why, do we ask, do we at times feel like strangers to one another? Is it that we are not perceiving persons from a faith perspective  or living life based on the faith handed on to us at our baptisms? Have we, perhaps, alienated ourselves from God, choosing God substitutes--our work, pleasure, power, prestige, wealth, technology, relationships, sex--as distractions from using our time to grow in our relationship with God and in a committed relationship with our marriage partner and family or community members? Have we neglected making choices that nurture our spirit self and that of others?