Water Flowing from the Temple of God, Which Each Is

 In today's first reading, Ez 47: 1-2, 8-9, 12, Ezekiel is brought to the entrance of the temple and to various other entrances. He sees water flowing out from the temple and is told:  "This water...empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh. Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh. Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine."

In today's Gospel, John 2:13-22, Jesus cleanses the temple from those who were using it as a place to sell their products. Jesus, seeing this abuse of the temple,  "made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, 'Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace.'"  The people challenged Jesus and asked Him: "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus says to them in response: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."  The people thought that they had destroyed Jesus on the cross. But death had no power over Him and three days later He rose from the dead.

On the cross water flow from Jesus' Body, the Temple of God! It is from the water flowing from Jesus' side that we are cleansed, refreshed, restored to health, empowered to bear fruit that will last.  Every day, we have the opportunity to receive the Eucharist, Jesus' body and blood, soul and divinity,  the living Christ and thus our "leaves shall not fade, nor [our] fruit fail...[Our] fruit shall serve for food, and [our] leaves for medicine!"

Truly, everything is of God, for God and exists through God: the water flowing from the temple to which the angel brought Ezekiel, the water we drink every day, the water in our oceans, lakes, rivers; the water in the atmosphere, the water in our very bodies! God/the Cosmic Christ is in all! It is God in us who is the Source by which we are able to restore life, refresh life, heal life in another or within ourselves. It is the Cosmic Christ in us who provides "food" for the journey of faith, who enables us to bear fruit, fruit that will last!