You are a Living Temple (Dedication of Lateran Basilica, Nov 9)

Today, we celebrate the feast of the Dedication of Lateran Basilica in Rome. The word TEMPLE runs through the readings. And we shouldn’t be surprised at that because we are commemorating the dedication of a Church. I think it behooves us to reflect and think a little bit about what a TEMPLE is all about or stands for. In the Bible, the word TEMPLE evokes some meanings: traditionally, it refers to a physical building dedicated for worship (remember the famous Temple of Solomon); in the gospel passage (cf. John 2:13-22) of this feast, Christ describes himself as the temple; in the Pauline writings, the word TEMPLE mostly refers to the individual members of the Church.

In all these varied meanings, one thing is clear: the TEMPLE is a holy place. Why? Because God dwells in it; the presence of God himself makes it holy. The first reading (cf. Ezek. 47:1-2, 8-9, 12) symbolically helps us to understand what we should expect to see in the place where God dwells lives, in a place where the Author of Life dwells. In his vision, Ezekiel beholds water (a powerful symbol of life) flowing from the temple. And wherever the water goes, there is life: it flows into stagnant waters of the sea and they become fresh; it flows into river, every living creature in it gets more life; it flows into a strip of land, and all kinds of trees for food spring up: having fresh leaves for healing and bearing fresh fruits for food. All these happened because the water flowed from the sanctuary (or the temple). This is a powerful symbol that communicates to us the life that we have received in baptism. From the Church (the Temple of God), we have regained the life of God which we lost in original sin; we have gone through a kind of rebirth or regeneration; and have thus become the living dwelling places of God.

So by the virtue of our baptism, the TEMPLE of God has now most importantly become the individual members of the Church. It is not just a new state which we have embraced. It is something that we were originally (from the moment of creation), but lost when we drank the poison of sin. But through the merits of Christ, we have regained this status in baptism; and have now been rededicated and reconstituted the living temples of God. Now, we need to ask those who go to traditional shrines to tell us what it means for a thing to be dedicated to a shrine; to be set apart for sacred purposes. There is an animal in my village dedicated to a particular river goddess in my place. That animal has lived for many years; I don’t know whether it is dead by now. But then, the point is that people know it as an animal dedicated to a goddess, set apart for the sacred; and thus, no one touches it, no one does anything funny to it. It roams around freely; enters where it wants to enter without fear; walks around with confidence. Thieves dare not look at it not to talk of carrying it away. We are not like an animal dedicated to a shrine; we have been reconstituted into the living shrines of God Almighty. How I wish we can begin to see ourselves more than we ordinarily see ourselves! A shrine is a dedicated place. No sane person defecates in a shrine. There is always some sense of the sacred. Even the palaces of earthly kings are highly revered that no one in his right senses does whatever he likes in a palace. We are more than earthly shrines, more than earthly palaces. Why do we treat ourselves as trash?  

As we celebrate the feast of the dedication of St John Lateran Church, through St Paul, the Church re-echoes what we are: THE LIVING TEMPLES OF GOD – GOD’S BUILDING – having Christ as our foundation. Christ our common foundation unites us; and we must strive to maintain this unity. If we get uprooted from that common foundation, we can’t stand. I pray this point should be very clear to us. To maintain this unity, the Church needs our active involvement in her affairs. Again, St Paul tells us that as God’s temples, God’s Spirit dwells in us. If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are! These words are very clear for us to understand. We don’t need to say much about them. But we should at least ask ourselves certain questions in connection with those words: since nothing unholy should go on in a temple, are there unholy acts that go on in my body which is God’s temple? Are there some form of buying and selling just as it happened in the gospel (cf. John 2:13-22)? Is there some form of bargain with the devil going on in the living sanctuary of God which my body is? Do I relate with people fully aware that they too are sacred dwelling places of God?