Comment on *yesterday's* readings

Sorry, folks, college life gets hectic. This is actually a paper I wrote for my Catechesis teacher, so it will probably make more sense than my normal ramblings.

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The readings for this Sunday, the feast of the Lateran Basilica, are more connected than most other Sundays. The first reading comes from a dream the prophet Ezekiel had, where the Lord was showing him through the temple. This is the image the Lord paints – calm, serenity, and holiness flowing out from the temple into the world. “Wherever the river flows, every sort of creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.” God’s presence in the temple flows out into the world through those who worship there. In Jesus’ time, however, the flow of healing water is polluted. Vendors and money changers have come to deal business within the temple grounds itself. The image this gives to the people, instead of one of healing and calm, is one of greed and materialism. When the stream is thus polluted, the only way to clean is to clean at the source. “He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area…” The temple of the Lord should be holy and pure, so that the river flowing out of it can spread life and peacefulness. In the second reading, St. Paul tells the Corinthians that “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.” We are, each of us, God’s temple. This temple, however, is easily clogged with greed, materialism, lust, and other evils. We ourselves destroy the temple. When this happens, we must call Jesus into ourselves to drive out our impurities with a whip made of cords, so that the river flowing out of us, our influence, can be pure and holy, and “the sea [can] be made fresh.”