A Temple Untainted
Bishop Valerian de Souza
hen a church is broken open
and the ciborioum is taken away , there is hue and cry everywhere. Processions
are taken out and representations are made that the church was desecrated.
Everybody is upset. When we sin our body, the temple of God, is desecrated.
Jesus who is enshrined within our body is brutally maltreated and chased
out. Who is bothered ? The Bible says we are bought for a price and St
Paul asks , "Don't you know you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?". In
Baptism we receive the Holy Spirit. The three Persons of the Holy Trinity
dwell in us (cf Eph 4: 4-6). Before the world was created God chose us
in Christ.We are the adopted children of God the Father in Christ. We are
no more slaves to sin and Satan. "And because you are children, God has
spent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba ! Father!' So
you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir,
through God " (Gal 4:6-7) .
The life of the children
comes from their parents. "See what love the Father has given us, that
we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason
the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are
God's children now; what we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will
be like him, for we will see him as he is" (1 Jn 3:1-2). We are brothers
and sisters of Jesus, blood relatives of Jesus."We know that all things
work together for good for those who love God, who are called according
to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed
to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within
a large family" (Rom 8: 28-29). Jesus Christ speaks of God the Father as
"My Father". He says, "Your father and my father", and not "our father"
because his sonship is unique.
More than being brothers
and sisters we are to become another Christ. And this is the special gift
that we receive through our baptism.
How many of us celebrate
our baptism anniversary? We celebrate birthdays, feast days and wedding
anniversaries, and why not the baptism anniversary ?. That is our real
birthday. St Paul addresses the Galatians thus : "My little children, for
whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you"(Gal
4-19). We are stamped by the Holy Spirit. He makes us people belonging
to God.
How do we receive the Holy
Spirit? One can receive the Holy Spirit only by giving oneself completely
to the Father. That is our life in faith. Faith is what we profess-the
faith of truth and the faith of intimacy. Faith is experience. It is not
enough that we profess our faith on Sundays .Without Jesus we can do nothing.
"I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them
bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing"(Jn15.5). Our
dependence on Jesus should be total and complete until "all of us come
to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity,
to the measure of the full stature of Christ"(Eph 4.13). The most precious
gift of Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit and we are the temples of the Holy
Spirit. Do not desecrate this temple, do not desecrate others as they are
also temples of the Holy Spirit.Am I worthy of being God’s son? Am I living
like the brother of Jesus? When we see others, do we say in our hearts:
this is my brother; this is my sister? We must see each one as another
Christ.
The Holy Spirit will mould
our personality. Peter was a coward at the time of the arrest of Jesus.
But after the resurrection when he received the Holy Spirit, his personality
changed totally. One who had the fulness of the Holy Spirit is the Blessed
Virgin Mary. The angel greeted her , "Hail, full of grace!" Let us surrender
ourselves constantly and completely to God. A Spirit -filled life will
enable us to live for Christ. Mary lived such a life. We are also called
for a life of witness to Jesus Christ.