For the third Sunday of Lent (Year B), the theme of Christ's Body as Temple of God is offered for our reflection. We have written something on John 2:13-22 here , where we also offer some thoughts on the liturgy. Read the articles and use the following for your guide.
Other relevant articles
1. By our baptism we have been incorporated to the Body of Christ, the Temple in and through which the Father is worshipped in Spirit and in Truth (Jn. 4:13)
Reflect: Worship is not only ritual action; it is primarily the service that one renders God by one's life. And one serves God by the life-style of charity that Christ commands. It is this life of self-sacrificing, life-giving love which, in its turn, makes our ritual action meaningful. Otherwise, the sacred gestures we make are worthless. How do you see your ritual actions? Do these "summarize" your daily life? Or is it that your daily life is so divorced from your ritual acts that this latter has become empty?
2. Jesus goes to Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple. He cleanses it because it has been profaned. It is no longer a place where God is worshipped; it has become a place of ordinary business transactions. The Temple is sacred and so it is set aside for activities that are "special". You have become God's Temple if you love the Lord and keep his words:
“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." (Jn. 14:23)
To profane God's Temple -- which you have become -- is to cease from cultivating the kind of love that the Lord desires: "Love one another as I have loved you." (Jn. 15:12)
Reflect: Our Lenten exercises should be characterized by concrete works of agapic-love like bearing one another's burdens and forgiveness from the heart. What works of agapic-love have you been performing?
3. The Temple is the place where men and women experience God. "God is love" (1 Jn. 4:8)
Reflect: How can your own faith-community become more a place where God is experienced as Love?
