Temples of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son

In today's first reading, 1 Kings 8: 22-23, 27-30, Solomon says:  "Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below; you keep your covenant of mercy with your servants who are faithful to you with their whole heart. 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!....May your eyes watch night and day over this temple, the place where you have decreed you shall be honored...

We have a God who cares for each one of us personally, a God full of mercy for us, so merciful that He took on human nature with all of its weaknesses, except sin.  He took on death for us and destroyed its power over us.  Because Jesus destroyed death, it is not the end of our lives but the door through which we pass on the way to our eternal inheritance, earned for us by Jesus reconciling us to the Father through His obedience to the Father even unto death. It is only because of God's mercy that we, with Jesus, can learn to be obedient to God even unto our earthly deaths and the daily dyings asked of us in doing God's will each day: sacrificing our time and energy for the sake of another. And just as God guarded the temple built by Solomon and "decreed [God] shall be honored" there, so, too, does God guard us, who are temples of the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son of God, and wants to be honored in the temple that we are.

Truly, there is no God like our God!

The Writing on the Wall

 In today’s first reading, Daniel 5: 1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28, we read about King  Belchazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s son who, like his father, worshipped gold ,silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone as gods.  In a drunken state, he ordered that the sacred vessels of silver and gold  from the house of God in Jerusalem be brought to him so that his lords, his wives, his entertainers and he himself could drink wine from them. As they were marrying and worshipping their gods, a hand began to write on the wall. The King was terrified and called for Daniel to interpret the writing. He did so. Mene meant that God had numbered the king’s kingdom and would bring it to an end. Tekel meant that the king was found wanting in God’s eyes. He was worshipping pagan gods but not glorifying “the God in whose hand is your life breath and the whole course of your life.”  Perez meant that Belshazzar’s kingdom would be divided and given to other nations.

Do you and I read the writing on the walls of our lives when we, too, are worshipping false gods, when we have violated the sacred vessels from the Temple?  We are that temple of God.  In 1 Cor 6: 19-20 St. Paul asked “Do you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? “  Do we glorify the God in whom we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) or are we engaging in idolatrous worship of material things?

Just as God alerted King Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar, of his waywardness and the consequences of violating the vessels of the Temple, so, too, does God alert us when we stray from the right path. Am I listening? Am I paying attention?

God's power in the world

The first reading of today's liturgy, Gen. 1:1-19 recalls the creation of the universe, the majestic throne of God here on earth, a place where the glory of the Lord is revealed and where the redemptive powers of God are manifested day and night and in each season.  Cycle II of the Church year opens today's liturgy with the festive dedication of the temple in Jerusalem where, too, the redemptive energies of God were reenacted in their worship ceremonies. In the Gospel we see God's redemption in Jesus. All who are brought to Him are healed.  In this day and age, God's power of redemption, God's compassion and mercy flow into the world through each of us who became God's temple through our baptisms. Our role as God's mediators of grace and imitators of Christ, extensions of God's presence in the world was sealed in our Confirmation.

The power, the presence and the glory of God, the redemption of the world continues to this very day until, Paul tells us, all of creation is made subject to God in Christ Jesus.

Wow!